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11 Mar ’12
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wow. just wow!
Be RADICAL Grow Food
15 Feb ’12
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agreed, when is the grand jury suppose to wrap up anyways?
15 Feb ’12
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well this doesn't sound good
Missouri governor activates National Guard
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency Monday and activated the National Guard ahead of a grand jury decision about whether a white police officer will be charged in the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson
Nixon said the National Guard would assist state and local police in case the grand jury's decision leads to a resurgence of the civil unrest that occurred in the days immediately after the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson.
"All people in the St. Louis region deserve to feel safe in their communities and to make their voices heard without fear of violence or intimidation," Nixon said in a written statement.
There is no specific date for a grand jury decision to be revealed, and Nixon gave no indication that an announcement is imminent. But St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch has said that he expects the grand jury to reach a decision in mid-to-late November.
The U.S. Justice Department, which is conducting a separate investigation, has not said when its work will be completed.
Before the shooting, Wilson spotted Brown and a friend walking in the middle of a street and told them to stop, but they did not. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wilson has told authorities he then realized Brown matched the description of a suspect in a theft minutes earlier at a convenience store. Wilson backed up his police vehicle and some sort of confrontation occurred before Brown was fatally shot. He was unarmed and some witnesses have said he had his hands up when he was killed.
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Teen shooting triggers fresh protests in St. Louis
Snow falls on a memorial on the 100th day since the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mis …
Brown's shooting stirred long-simmering racial tensions in the St. Louis suburb, where two-thirds of the residents are black but the police force is almost entirely white. Rioting and looting a day after the shooting led police to respond to subsequent protests with a heavily armored presence that was widely criticized for continuing to escalate tensions. At times, protesters lobbed rocks and Molotov cocktails at police, who fired tear gas, smoke canisters and rubber bullets in an attempt to disperse crowds.
Nixon also declared a state of emergency in August and put the Missouri State Highway Patrol in charge of a unified local police command. Eventually, Nixon activated the National Guard to provide security around the command center.
This time, Nixon said the St. Louis County Police Department would be in charge of a unified police command in Ferguson. The St. Louis city police and Missouri State Highway Patrol will help.
The governor did not indicate how many National Guard troops would be mobilized, instead leaving it to the state adjutant general to determine. Nixon said the National Guard would be available to carry out any requests made through the Highway Patrol to "protect life and property" and support local authorities. If the Guard is able to provide security at police and fire stations, then more police officers may be freed up to patrol the community, Nixon said.
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said Monday that he supports Nixon's decision to activate the Guard. He said the Guard "will be used in a secondary role" and could potentially be stationed at places such as shopping centers and government buildings.
"The way we view this, the Guard is not going to be confronting the protesters and will not be on (the) front line interacting directly with demonstrators," Slay said.
15 Feb ’12
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looks like a decision might be coming tomorrow
Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) -- The grand jury hearing evidence on the Michael Brown shooting is preparing to meet Friday for what might be its final session, and a decision on whether to charge Officer Darren Wilson could come the same day, law enforcement officials briefed on the plans said.
St. Louis County prosecutors are preparing to present more evidence to the grand jury before starting deliberations, and a decision on an indictment is expected soon after, the law enforcement officials said.eo shows Officer Darren Wilson?
If a decision comes Friday, prosecutors are expected to provide law enforcement with 48 hours notice before making a public announcement, possibly on Sunday.
The current plans could still change and prosecutors could shift the planned grand jury session, the officials said.
Prosecutor Robert McCulloch has said he plans to make public all evidence and testimony presented to the grand jury, but there is growing concern from some on how to deal with the identities of people who have testified, the sources say.
Concerns have also been raised that some witnesses could be put at risk once their testimony and identities become public, law enforcement officials said.
In some cases, witnesses might have testified differently under oath, providing different accounts than the ones they gave in media interviews, the official explained. Others may have provided testimony that may be interpreted as helpful to the officer's account of the August 9 shooting.
A spokesman for McCulloch's office said the prosecutor hasn't decided whether to redact names of witnesses. The spokesman declined to comment on possible timing of the grand jury decision.
A city on edge
A tense Ferguson is awaiting to hear whether a St. Louis County grand jury believes Wilson should stand trial in the fatal shooting of the unarmed Brown.
Jurors have until January, but the prosecutor's office has said a decision could come in mid-November. For weeks, lawyers, analysts and journalists have speculated on when it will be announced.
Ferguson became a flashpoint for racial tension after the teen's shooting; Brown, 18, was black, the officer is white.
Street demonstrations and violence erupted, and heavily armed police came face to face with angry protesters demanding justice.
Some predict that will be the case again when the grand jury's decision is announced.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency Monday as a precaution in the event of unrest or violence
15 Feb ’12
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well this isn't going to help any
FBI arrests two would-be Ferguson bomb suspects: law enforcement source
(Reuters) - Two men suspected of buying explosives they planned to detonate during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, once a grand jury decides the Michael Brown case, were arrested on Friday and charged with federal firearms offenses, a law enforcement official told Reuters.
Word of the arrests, reported by a number of media outlets Friday, came ahead of the grand jury's widely anticipated decision on whether the white police officer who fatally shot Brown, an unarmed black teenager, should be indicted on criminal charges.
The Aug. 9 slaying of 18-year-old Brown under disputed circumstances became a flashpoint for U.S. racial tensions, triggering weeks of sometimes violent protests in the St. Louis suburb by demonstrators calling for officer Darren Wilson's arrest.
He was instead placed on administrative leave, and Ferguson has been bracing for a new wave of protests, especially if the grand jury chooses not to indict Wilson. An announcement was believed to be imminent.
Against this backdrop of heightened tensions, according to a law enforcement source, two men described as reputed members of a militant group called the New Black Panther Party, were arrested in the St. Louis area in an FBI sting operation.
As initially reported by CBS News, the men were suspected of acquiring explosives for pipe bombs that they planned to set off during protests in Ferguson, according to the official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the case.
The official said the two men are the same pair named in a newly unsealed federal indictment returned on Nov. 19 charging Brandon Orlando Baldwin and Olajuwon Davis with purchasing two pistols from a firearms dealer under false pretenses.
Both men were arraigned on Friday in federal court, the law enforcement source said.
The FBI and other federal agencies were reported to have stepped up their presence in the St. Louis area in recent days in anticipation of renewed protests after the grand jury's decision in the Brown case is made known.
An FBI official in St. Louis declined to comment except to say that the two men named in the indictment had been arrested. Officials from the U.S. Attorney's Office for eastern Missouri were not immediately available for comment.
15 Feb ’12
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well this isn't going to end well for him
Giuliani: ‘White police officers wouldn’t be there if you weren’t killing each other.’
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani faced immediate Web backlash Sunday morning after he asked why people protest the killing of unarmed Ferguson, Mo., teenager Michael Brown but not black-on-black crime.
“Ninety-three percent of blacks are killed by other blacks,” Giuliani said, triggering a heated argument on NBC's "Meet the Press." “I would like to see the attention paid to that that you are paying to this.”
Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson, a frequent MSNBC pundit, said Giuliani was applying a "false equivalency" to the situation in Ferguson, where a grand jury will soon decide whether to charge Officer Darren Wilson in Brown's shooting death.
“Black people who kill black people go to jail,” Dyson said. “White people who are policemen who kill black people do not go to jail.”
“What about the poor black child that was killed by another black child?” Giuliani asked. “Why aren't you protesting that?... Why don't you cut it down so that so many white police officers don't have to be in black areas?”
“When I become mayor, I’ll do that,” replied Dyson, exasperated.
“White police officers wouldn’t be there,” Giuliani said, “if you weren’t killing each other.”
The comments followed a "Meet the Press" segment about disproportionately white police forces serving far more diverse populations. White officers dominate forces in most large U.S. cities, a Washington Post analysis found. Only three out of 53 police officers are black in Ferguson, where two-thirds of the population is black.
Most murder in the United States is intra-racial, according to data from the Justice Department: White people are more likely to kill white people, and black people are more likely to kill black people.
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