Ferguson Verdict Was A Foregone Conclusion

Video records from the body camera - such as this one worn by a Denver policewoman-  will ultimately be the only way to provide enough evidence to prevent future Fergusons.

With the outrage that erupted in Ferguson, MO last night - after the grand jury verdict was announced- it was as if too many never saw this coming (Officer Darren Wilson not indicted given "no probable cause") but they ought to have if they followed the legal analyses on many different venues. Bottom line, the grand jury had mainly Officer Wilson's testimony (and images of his injuries) to go by and his claims - including:
.
"...... I never at any point had contol of him...he manipulated me while I was in the vehicle completely...I felt like  a five year old child holding onto Hulk Hogan....it instantly turned to how do I live through this..."

Also, by Wilson's account, he was literally at the mercy of this "giant" black guy the size of a pro football defensive end, and so he had no other option than to fire -  eight shots at that. Was he lying? We don't know because there were no on the spot visual records to go by and other witnesses who stated that Wilson fired shots at  Michael Brown (while he was down) were dismissed as having lied. Were they? We only have the presented evidence (mainly forensic - in the autopsy of Brown) and as seen this morning on assorted news shows. As one CBS Legal analyst observed: "Many witnesses changed their stories after the forensic report became available."

Let's also bear in mind, as the same legal analyst noted on CBS Early Show yesterday, that Missouri gives police enormous discretion on when to use lethal force, if they even think they are in mortal danger. Indeed, as she pointed out, the Missouri law even allowed an officer to fire at the back of a fleeing suspect.

Lastly, there was the makeup of the grand jury itself: 9 whites and 3 blacks, and the fact that all that was required for a dismissal verdict was nine votes. In effect, all the white members had to do is band together (we don't know this actually happened) and the verdict of no probable cause could have been arrived at - without any of the black members votes needed.

All of the above showed me that the verdict, no matter when it arrived, would be "no probable cause". It didn't take a mind reader to see it, or special powers - only understanding the legal choices the jurists had, their composition and Missouri law as it applies to such incidents. This ought to also have been obvious to any of those who flew into a rage last night.

All the preceding discloses that any similar incidents in Missouri - or many other states - will never receive the legal scrutiny they need until police are held to more account - with visual records available that can be admitted into evidence - say for a grand jury.

In other words, arguably Ferguson and its aftermath could all have evidently been avoided. How?

Via the use of a special miniaturized digital body camera worn on the side frames of officers' glasses or sun glasses. The tiny cameras record every last detail in any encounter with the public for any reason, and hence provide a firm and accurate document of the officer's actions and the perp's responses or crimes. Basically, it is insurance to protect police from false allegations of excessive force, and also suspects from overly aggressive police actions. The body camera ensures literal, visible accountability. According to Denver Police Chief Robert White :

"The body camera will clear up those moments of conflict"

And it will also provide supplemental evidence to any forensic findings, as well as officers' own accounts.

Other precincts have already been  authorized to use these cameras as a standard operating procedure.. For example, in Laurel, MD,  crime has dropped 46 percent and the police force has seen accountability for all arrests enhanced by virtue of everything being on  visual record. (In a few cases, as noted in an Aug. 29  Denver Post piece, p. 5A), "people making allegations against the police have withdrawn complaints when they learned their encounters were recorded.")

One instance shown in Laurel, MD involved an officer stopping a speeding vehicle. The entire transaction was recorded including when the officer asked to see identification and the perp floored her accelerator and left the scene - soon later apprehended down the highway.

The benefits from this digital camera system became self-evident. It was no longer a case of the officer's word against anyone else's because he could provide the evidence in the form of the digital recording.

Thus, had Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson been outfitted with such a miniature camera - like the police in Laurel, MD - it is doubtful things would have gotten to the stage they did in Ferguson.  All the events would have been immediately accessible and there'd have been no "fatal span" of time within which witness accounts conflicted.  The grand jury, as opposed to only being exposed to Wilson's account and images of his injuries, could have also seen events as they actually went down. No human witnesses - who might be swayed to lie for the dead victim - would be needed.

Had Wilson had this device and used it at the time of his confrontation, none of the Ferguson turmoil might have ever occurred. But 'coulda, shoulda, woulda' doesn't help anyone now - least of all Brown's family or sympathizers who rioted last night. Meanwhile, George Stephapoulis asked Wilson if he could have done anything different and he said 'No'. But he could. He could have backed off, called for other backup and not pursued in an aggressive fashion.

Clearly, these body camera devices need to be dispensed throughout the U.S. to all police departments,  and I would say as a vastly higher priority than dispensing militarized gear like Humvees.   Unless, of course, we want to relive more incidents like Ferguson.

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/26/ferguson_grand_jurys_huge_mistake_what_the_transcripts_reveal_about_eyewitness_testimony/

Militarized Police is NOT America - Another Reason to Scrap the Patriot Act

Rachel Maddow: Showed the background to violent protests in the Vietnam era and tied them to the current militarization of police forces around the country - including in Ferguson, Missouri.


The scenes from two nights ago could well have come out of Kiev during the fierce March protests, but in this case there weren't even good enough reasons to attack the crowd in Ferguson, Missouri as "enemy combatants". Last night for example, we beheld numerous clips (on Rachel Maddow's show) of cop overreach - what with bringing out armored personnel carriers, and cops in 'turtle' suits with assault weapons at the ready.  Is this the America I know? Not a chance! It more resembled images from 1930s Germany. (Recalling clips  of socialists and Jews beaten, shown to me in 1978 by former Hitler Youth, Kurt.)


Kurt preserved his films from the 1930s and 40s along with many others because he never wanted the world to forget. To forget how easily people can be trapped into accepting fascism and its solutions to social problems.

Last night also, Maddow took us back to the Vietnam protests to show how they became violent after Madison police were called in to clear the Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison campus of protestors in October, 1967. Rather than appeal to community policing as they normally did, they allowed the city's storm troops to just enter and crack heads at will. Many people were actually trying to escape the bedlam but these 'Nazis' blocked their paths and cracked their skulls open. Up until that fascist entry, the Vietnam protests had been relatively peaceful and even troops returning were treated with a modicum of respect. But it all changed after Madison, and ultimately led to the Kent State shooting deaths on May 4, 1970.

At the time I was in the middle of a radio astronomy class at the University of South Florida, when we received word the Admin Bldg. was off limits after it had been firebombed. Kent State and its violence spawned violent protests in hundreds of campuses across the country.

The case of Madison and its fascist reactions, as Maddow pointed out, didn't change until 1970 when it hired a new chief of police, Kenneth Cooper,  who de-militarized the police and began a peaceful and cooperative approach. As opposed to earlier acting like Nazi storm troopers, the city's police now acted as real PEACE officers. In the wake, Madison made up with its citizens and a new era dawned.

In the Ferguson MO case, as Maddow and earlier Chris Hayes also showed, the hyper-fascist militarization could be attributed to a provision of the "Patriot Act" which allows federal grants to purchase surplus  military hardware - including assault weapons, Humvees, small tanks, armored personnel carriers, as well as personal body armor. All could be obtained by local precincts, no matter how small.  Since 9/11, as Chris Hayes noted, $34 BILLION in surplus militarized hardware was dispatched to police, and a half million worth in St. Louis alone.

This is madness, because if cops are untrained and indiscriminate they will be more disposed to use this stuff than not, and hence we saw the armored personnel carriers plying the streets of Ferguson and enraging the protestors two nights ago. Meanwhile, many of the hyper-militarized cops - decked out in their turtle armor - over -reacted.

In one scene from Maddow last night we behold Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery in a restaurant when the turtle suits barged in,  pointed an automatic weapon at him and arrested him. When asked about his ID, Lowery told Maddow that his Washington Post credentials were around his neck and he tried to pack up (including his video recorder) and leave. He said he "just needed a minute", but the armored turtle suits grabbed him by the head and slammed him into the soda machine. According to Lowery: "they grabbed my bag, grabbed my phone and put me in temporary restraints." He was then detained.

Another clip features KSDK reporter Elizabeth Matthews, who related to Maddow:

"They came around to our unit. I was still sitting in the car. I put my hands up because they had their guns drawn at us, going around the corner and trying to figure out who all was there. Obviously, we were media but they still had their guns drawn, yelling that 'we're trying to get you out for your safety', but their guns were drawn."

Hmmmm.....sounds an awful lot like a metaphor for the NSA keeping us "safe" with their surveillance over reach.

In another scene, the turtle suits deliberately targeted a news crew from Al Jazeera America with a tear gas canister. Maddow next shows the turtles (from St. Charles, MO)  disembarking an armored carrier, and calmly begin disassembling the news crews' setup. Obviously, they hated the spot light which showed the fascist behavior.

Maddow, after the clips, declared that what we have seen in Ferguson is "police failure on a huge scale, This is terrible, terrible policing. Terribly conceived and brutally done. The decision to treat this like a military operation is a failure on its own level but the lack of professionalism, the lack of restraint, deliberately going after the media to stop coverage of what they're doing is hard to fathom in its incompetence."

And the scenes attest to that.

Thankfully, as shown by Maddow and by Hayes in earlier news clips, Gov. Jay Nixon took the operations  out of the St. Louis county's cops' hands and turned them over to the Highway Patrol - led by an African -American, Capt. Ronald Johnson. His de-escalation and non-militarized posture (ceasing to treat protestors as enemy combatants)  and methods stand to preserve what peace there is and possibly provide an avenue to mend community relations, though that will be hard.

But we will have to see. In the meantime, we need to press our reps to de-militarize the police around the nation, and that means halting the provision of the Patriot Act which provides military materiel and to precincts nationwide.

Obviously also, in the long term, it means no more unnecessary wars which will leave billions of dollars worth of surplus personnel armored carriers, Humvees, assault weapons, etc. that can be fobbed off on cops -who will then seek to act like military too. (Though interestingly, several military sources affirmed yesterday they'd never have acted the way the Ferguson cops did).

A good sign was the peaceful response of protestors last night, in contrast to 2 nights ago. This was directly due to the less combative pose, with cops no longer in armored turtle suits and no armored carriers plying the streets..

Let's also hope, in the longer term, that law enforcement gets to the bottom of the killing of Michael Brown, the incident which started it all. 

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/david-swanson/57637/local-police-and-much-else-will-be-militarized-as-long-as-federal-government-is

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/will-bunch/57618/theres-a-police-coup-going-on-right-now-in-ferguson-mo

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/57611/in-many-us-communities-cops-are-the-terrorists-police-need-to-be-demilitarized-and-remade-as-peace-of