Additionally, the Ferguson PD Report and the DoJ Failure to Find Fault With Brave Officer Wilson's Bravely Killing Michael Brown

The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one-two punch.

The DoJ's scathing report [105 pg pdf] on the pattern and practices of unconstitutional policing in Ferguson, MO was released pretty much simultaneously with the failure of the DoJ to find fault [86 pg document file] with the killing of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson, the singularity which has led to months and months of protest actions all across the country, and what's called a "national conversation" about the problems of racist policing and violent cops.

Yes, indeed.

One scathing report after another; one policeman-killer after another allowed to walk free.

It's quite a pattern, and there are reasons for it.

The dissonance is deliberate.

Yes, the police in Ferguson and many other places around the country are racists and practice racist policing. There are so many places where this is true, we might say it is all but universal. Police best practices presume the guile and the guilt of an array of minority and poverty stricken sectors of the population as a matter of course.

Statistically, the crime and criminality of minority and poor sectors of the population appears to be a fact. Thus the presumption is said to be justified. But when the statistics are broken down, it becomes clear that the presumption of guile and guilt is self fulfilling in that police interest and action is concentrated in minority communities, poor communities, marginal communities, and in many cases, police create the crime they then suppress and profit from. It's all quite circular.

When the DoJ investigates and declares a police department to have a pattern and practice of "unconstitutional policing" -- including racist policing -- it is merely pointing to the obvious. In the case of Ferguson, nearly every complaint we've been hearing in the media about the FPD is validated by the DoJ report. The local police operate as a racket, extorting money from the people, primarily the black residents of Ferguson, to fund police and city operations. It's deliberate intent every step of the way. It involves violence as well as more subtle coercion. It's been going on a long time. It is racist at its core.

Anyone who's been following the story is not surprised by these findings. We've been hearing and reading about it for months. Anybody who is familiar with the way St. Louis and the County work is familiar with the patterns and practices detailed in the Ferguson report. It's the same throughout the County. It's monstrous. And according to the DoJ, it's unconstitutional.

On the other hand, the white folks are quite satisfied, it would seem, and want nothing to change.

Similar patterns and practices are found all over the country, but perhaps the most egregious examples are found in the South -- where cities and towns in many cases have always worked this way -- and in the Border regions, such as St. Louis and Baltimore and so forth.

I've been calling it "Negro Farming" for some time, the idea being that black residents of these towns and cities are regarded as a cash crop, to be farmed and harvested of whatever money can be squeezed out of them. That's their chief -- in many cases their only -- value to the Powers That Be, and they, like any other crop, have no say in the matter.

I was thinking about this the other day in the context of what I know about city managers and their thinking. I've only had experience in this field in Sacramento where working on reform of a violent (though not particularly murderous) police force required dealing with the city manager and his office. Like most other cities, the city manager of Sacramento is in charge of the police department.

What I learned very quickly is that the city manager's office categorizes the population according to their worth to the city -- ie: how much revenue they produce, or contrariwise, how much of a cost burden they are to the city.

The city manager's constant goal is to maximize the revenue value and minimize the cost burden of the population. They segment the population by district, by age, race and gender, by income, and by occupation -- among other categories. As a rule well off white people are considered "contributors" to the civic enterprise (oh, yes, the city is itself an "enterprise" with many subsidiary enterprises all of which are treated as revenue sources or cost burdens). Well off white people are considered contributors because they own property and/or businesses which are taxed, generally quite modestly, but taxed just the same. They produce a reliable revenue stream.

On the other hand, poor people, people of color, the marginal, the mentally ill, the addicted, and so forth are almost universally considered revenue drains, costs in other words, and in every civic enterprise I'm familiar with, costs must be contained -- unless there is an off-setting revenue stream. That stream can come from an outside source -- say state or federal funding for programs or prisons -- or it can be extracted through fines and so forth from the people themselves.

Because the revenues extracted in this manner are not generally reliable, however, the place of the people from whom it is extracted is never equivalent to that of well off white people whose revenue stream is much more reliable.

This is a very simple model of what goes on in most towns and cities where populations are routinely categorized according to their civic value.

But it is the basic model that underpins how Ferguson and surrounding cities treats their populations.

In this model, someone like Mike Brown has no value.

Someone like Darren Wilson does have value.

Thus the dissonance between condemnation of an unconstitutional pattern and practice of policing -- and the failure to find fault with Darren Wilson's actions that hot day in August 2014 when he shot and killed Mike Brown in the streets of Ferguson.

The pattern and practice of policing -- not just in Ferguson but generally -- is justifiably condemned as unconstitutional, but it is based on the civic value of individuals and population segments, and the lower the value, the greater the excuse for use of force, violence and death in dealing with them.

The problems come when the costs of use of force, violence and death outrun the revenues that can be derived from the force and violence. And that's happening in city after city.

Whether it will happen in Ferguson, I don't know. Immense efforts (and expenses) have been made to protect Darren Wilson throughout this episode, efforts and expenses which are continuing. I don't know why he is being protected this way, but he is. The various "exonerations" of his actions that have taken place appear to be intended to limit or eliminate any civil award Mike Brown's family might receive, but even that is not clear. Something is going on behind the scenes in which Darren Wilson is seen as a victim somehow, whereas Mike Brown is being cast as the perpetrator. This has been going on since the killing itself. What actually happened and why is not as important as the narrative competition that's been produced. It's as if Wilson and Brown are proxies for a police/civilian culture clash that can only be resolved in favor of the police.

This is something to keep in mind: DoJ is always going to favor the police, even when they issue their scathing reports. In fact, police departments routinely defy these reports and recommendations. It's cultural. And DoJ has no independent enforcement power over police conduct. Any enforcement must come through the courts, and the courts have almost no enforcement powers independent of the police they are attempting to reform.

Consequently, if the police want to -- or they are directed to by their city managers and police chiefs -- they can and do ignore and defy these scathing reports and recommendations.

DoJ will let them get away with it, may even encourage it clandestinely.

We see it right up front with the Ferguson report and the Wilson matter: clean up your act (if you want) but no one will fault you for killing black people.

Reform itself is not enough.

Impunity Marches On

Bob McCulloch is turning into quite the little sideshow these days. He's the so-called St. Louis County prosecutor who rigged and manipulated the grand jury to return a no-bill on Darren Wilson for the execution of Mike Brown. [Note: I use the term "execution" in preference to "murder" because his actions and his excuses are in line with someone who summarily executes (under color of authority) rather than someone who premeditates and kills.]

McCulloch went public with the fact that he knew Witness 40 -- Sandra McElroy -- was bullshitting, lying, fabricating, etc, when she was called before the GJ to testify to what she had "witnessed" that day on Canfield Drive. Her testimony was almost word-for-word corroboration of Darren Wilson's story as reported in the St. Louis Post Dispatch the previous day. McElroy's testimony has been quoted numerous times in the media -- particularly on FOX -- to "prove" that Brown was charging the officer and did not have his hands up, yadda, yadda.

Except the "proof" is a fabrication.

McCulloch claims he knew it was fabrication and lies when his staff put her on the stand. So? The chest-out brazenness of it is pretty shocking. But then he's also said that plenty of witnesses lied to the grand jury, some on behalf of Brown and some on behalf of Wilson, and all he did was give the grand jury as much evidence and testimony as he could and let them decide whether there was evidence sufficient to charge Wilson with a crime.

They said "No," like nearly all grand juries and DAs do.

No matter what the cop does, what the testimony and evidence show, cops are almost never-ever charged with a crime when they kill someone. Sexual indiscretions, on the other hand, can get them into plenty of hot water.

McCulloch's brazenness in this case mirrors his brazenness in many others, wherein he not only refused to indict cops who committed "street justice", he used the opportunities to smear the victims and witnesses alike, just as he did in the Darren Wilson matter. It is his way, and it's the way of most DAs. Cops are perhaps imperfect, but the people they kill are monsters who need to be put down, at least in the culture and lore of the police/DA continuum. No matter the facts.

We're seeing this brazen impunity play out again and again, all over the country, in almost every case of police killing, while the People raging in the streets over it risk becoming part of the background noise of a society and globe in crisis.

I may have said it before, but it looks to me like Authority -- in the persons of Bob McCulloch and his counterparts in much of the country, and in the persons of chiefs of police and police union honchos, and in the persons of governors and various other political leaders -- are deliberately trying to incite rebellion, perhaps as a means to gauge the depth of resistance to the New Model American System.

In other words, there is at least a suggestion in McCulloch's behavior and that of the various PDs involved in the killing of Mike Brown and its aftermath of a deliberate intent to cause rebellion in order to study it, counter it and suppress it. A large-scale social experiment you might say.

There is a growing recognition that the American justice system -- from the cops on the beat to the Supreme Court -- is broken. Disparate justice is the rule, impunity for those with power vs harsh retribution for those without is the standard. There is no sign that Our Rulers will do anything to redress the legitimate grievances of the People and restore balance to a justice system out of whack.

Incidents keep piling up, but nothing substantive is done about it. Too many people like things just the way they are.

And people like Bob McCulloch and his counterparts are brazen as all get out about it, because they know that nothing can or will be done about it under the current system, and they are confident that the current system will endure, no matter the rebellion in the streets.

Impunity marches on.

"You Are Not Alone"

There are hundreds of Mike Brown and Ferguson tribute videos. This is one of the most moving -- at least to me:

Declaration of War?

"No indictment of Darren Wilson will be a declaration of war..."

From the video prepared by HandsUpUnited



The governor of Missouri declared a state of emergency today and called out the National Guard. There has as yet been no announcement from the St. Louis County Grand Jury. Perhaps all the preparations for Teh Riots are not yet in place.

Demonstrations are planned throughout the country and in St. Louis and Ferguson no matter what the GJ's ruling is. Demonstrations have been going on in St. Louis and Ferguson nearly constantly since the killing of Michael Brown. And the killing continues, the count kept by Killed by Police is now up to 1729 since May 1, 2013, at least 975 since January 1, 2014.

Every day there are more.

Every day.

Not Probable Cause

Message: we don't care, and you can't make us. Nyah!

Dateline: Trenton, New Jersey

As part of a larger art project, Voc:al Up:holstery arranged to have the rollup door of a vacant business painted with a mural honoring Mike Brown (with permission). Beside his larger-than-life portrait were the words:

Sagging pants... is not probable cause

The Trenton police were not amused and sent the city's "graffiti blasters" to remove the offending art from the streets of their fair city. They said it "sent the wrong message about police and community relations."

Mkay. Shooting an unarmed teen dead in the streets sends the right message? Gotcha.

Observe:



At least some of the "graffiti blasters" wanted to document the mural before it was covered over.

They really do want an uprising, don't they? Angling for riots, aren't they? Before the election, right? Or maybe just after.

Police Rioted In Ferguson Again Last Night -- Governor Calls Out The Guard

What I saw last night was that thousands of people took to the streets of Ferguson, MO, to march and chant and carry signs in solidarity honoring Michael Brown and to make a very clear statement: "Stop Killing Us." It was by far the biggest demonstration yet, and it was as multi-racial, multi-cultural, and as inclusive as any I've seen in Ferguson to date.

There appeared to be several marches converging on W. Florissant, thousands of people coming from several directions toward what has become the central symbolic focus of the town, the "town square" if you will, the burnt out QT market and gas station, where much of Ferguson's sense of community has been expressed and solidified over the ten days or so since Michael Brown was shot down in the street nearby.

I stepped away from my computer to do other things -- one does have other things to do after all -- and when I returned about an hour later, I was confronted on the livestreams with a line of roided-up police and armored vehicles, behind which the media cameras were assembled ("Stay behind the yellow line and you'll be all right") while blasts from the sound cannon were directed at a good sized group of demonstrators some distance away. So far as I could tell, the demonstrators were... demonstrating. "Peacefully." In the sense that they were not doing anything untoward at all, simply marching in the streets expressing solidarity with one another and being blasted by sound cannon, while media, far away, looked on apprehensively.

I was watching the "I Am Mike Brown" and FOX 2 livestreams simultaneously. They showed similar views from behind police lines, and there was no commentary with either most of the time.

[NBC News compilation of stories and pictures...]

And then the tear gas and smoke grenades started being launched, and the police line moved at a slow and steady pace at the crowd of demonstrators, firing tear gas, flash bangs and what not the while.

For what?

It was more than an hour before the ostensible curfew at midnight, and so far as I could tell, the crowd was not violent or even particularly belligerent. They were loud and boisterous and determined, however, even in the face of sound cannon and what I'm sure they could tell was a coming assault and riot by police.

They were targets and they knew it, and they stood brave and tall.

"No justice, no peace!"

I watched the police riot for an hour or so, and saw and heard a roided up police officer threaten Mustafa Hussain of Argus Radio ("I Am Mike Brown") with summary execution for turning on a light behind police lines, and I knew things could only devolve from that point. I turned it all off and went to bed. Had horrible dreams.

They rioted again. The police rioted again against peaceful, determined demonstrators. They assaulted, gassed, and some say shot demonstrators in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, yet again, and now, according to reports I haven't yet had time to read, the Governor has called in the National Guard.

None of this would be happening or be considered necessary by the Powers That Be if:

if Michael Brown hadn't been shot down in the street and left dead in that street for hours afterwards.

if authorities had not immediately responded with dogs and assault rifles to community anger and anguish at the initial killing and mistreatment of the body and the insult to the community

if police had not set out to suppress subsequent demonstrations with force 

if authorities had been forthcoming with information about the shooter and the investigation 

if the mostly white authorities had shown the least bit of respect for the people of Ferguson as a community rather than treating them as targets for their weapons.

This is well beyond the assholitry and incompetence of any number of named officials -- we all know who they are by now. The situation in Ferguson, and the adamant refusal of officials to address the serious concerns of the community except with violence and suppression, and their ostensible adherence to the importance of "procedure" above all, is surreal.

The violence of the police started this sequence of events and the violence of the police has kept it in motion ever since.

I saw a tweet or heard something last night (I don't remember which) that suggested that the police riot last night was triggered when a woman was shot several times in front of one of the stores on Ferguson -- I believe it was Sam's Meat Market. The police apparently blamed the shooting on someone in the crowd, while members of the crowd nearby blamed the police, saying the police had shot her four times. She was said to have been transported to the hospital by someone in the crowd, not by any form of emergency services on scene. In fact, during the police assault on the crowd, I did not see any evidence of Emergency Services on scene to care for anyone who might be injured in the assault, whether police or demonstrators. In the past, authorities have falsely claimed that "no one was injured" in previous police riots/assaults, when obviously many were injured.

Later on, as the police riot continued, the PIO for St. Louis County Police (often the bad actors in previous police riots) stated that he could confirm that "shots were fired" and "fire was being taken" and the media may have to disperse for their own safety. Of course the immediate question was "who was firing, who was taking shots?" There was no answer.

And now the Guard has been called out, presumptively a declaration of martial law, but I haven't checked this morning's reports yet.

Jeebus this sucks.

And I put full and complete responsibility on Authority. There is no excuse.