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15 Feb ’12
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I just caught this on the new last night
FERGUSON • Following a night of arson fires and bashed storefronts that hit close to home, Greg Hildebrand stood naked Tuesday, drying off from a needed shower, when he noticed somebody on the rooftop.
“I opened the window and said, ‘Hey, can I help you?’” said Hildebrand, 35, a website developer.
The man said he was security and would be up there at night with others to protect the pocket of second-story apartments and lower-level storefronts near the Ferguson Police Department. A day earlier, rioters had broken out windows below Hildebrand’s apartment in the 100 block of South Florissant Road and torched a nearby beauty supply store.
“I am in the middle of a difficult spot,” Hildebrand said. “I feel a lot better having those guys up on the roof.”
But he wasn’t clear exactly who “those guys” were or where they came from.
Puzzled and alarmed protesters have wondered, too — some accusing the mysterious guards in military fatigues of being in the Ku Klux Klan.
In fact, they are volunteers affiliated with a 35,000-member national organization called Oath Keepers. Yale Law School graduate and libertarian Stewart Rhodes said by telephone from Montana that he founded the group in 2009 to protect constitutional rights, including those of protesters confronted by what he described as overly militarized police.
Police questioned group members early in the week and allowed them to stay. But Saturday, after media inquiries, St. Louis County police officers ordered the Oath Keepers to leave the rooftops.
Threatened with arrest for operating without a license, the volunteers argued but eventually left their positions early Saturday, Rhodes said.
“We are going to go back as protesters,” Rhodes said Saturday afternoon.
Rhodes, who said he is Mexican-American, stressed that Oath Keepers is not anti-government. He said the volunteers handling rooftop security in Ferguson were current or former government employees and first responders, many who have intense military, police and EMS training.
“We thought they were going to do it right this time,” Rhodes said of government response to the grand jury decision released Monday in the Michael Brown case. “But when Monday rolled around and they didn’t park the National Guard at these businesses, that’s when we said we have got to do something.
“Historically, the government almost always fails to protect people,” he added.
Justine Sharrock, reporting for Mother Jones magazine in 2010, wrote in an in-depth story about how the group is hard to pin down: “In the months I’ve spent getting to know the Oath Keepers, I’ve toggled between viewing them either as potentially dangerous conspiracy theorists or as crafty intellectuals with the savvy to rally politicians to their side. The answer, I came to realize, is that they cover the whole spectrum.”
In the wake of Monday’s grand jury announcement, Oath Keepers put out a national request to members to help in Ferguson. Volunteers showed up from Nebraska, Texas and Indiana. On Thursday, one volunteer had an “infidel” patch on his Kevlar vest and would say only that he came from “the north.”
They wouldn’t say how many people were part of the effort or exactly where they were placed. But they seemed to be mainly focused on a strip of South Florissant Road two blocks north of the police station that includes a Chinese restaurant, dentist office, bakery and the apartments.
“We were sick in our gut we couldn’t be here sooner,” said John Karriman of Joplin, Mo., a state leader of Oath Keepers who teaches police tactics. “We are here to volunteer our time and make sure everybody stays safe.”
Another leader, who would give only his first name, Sam, described himself as a weapons engineer from the St. Louis area who has done security contracting for the U.S. government. He said he was motivated to help after seeing a CNN story featuring extensive damage to Natalie’s Cake’s & More,which also helped generate thousands of dollars in donations for the small business.
Sam said he contacted owner Natalie Dubose and told her he was going to secure her store and others.
“She started crying,” Sam said.
Oath Keepers boarded up a bunch of the storefronts and started night rotations on several rooftops. Sam said he vetted volunteers to ensure there weren’t any “racists” or “people with an ax to grind.” He said he picked volunteers who “have seen the elephant and are calm under fire.”
Fearing more arsonists, Oath Keeper volunteers kept buckets of water, fire extinguishers and other nonlethal weapons on the rooftops. Some are also armed with rifles that aren’t available at Walmart and Cabela’s.
The volunteers said they were well aware of the risk to life that arson can play and the legal right to stop it from happening.
Group volunteers say they are confident they have helped protect property and lives since they arrived.
Victor Clark, a dentist at Ferguson Dental on South Florissant Road, said he was happy to have the Oath Keepers’ free assistance. He wants to reopen his business soon. On Monday, rioters shattered the front door and window, and stole dental needles and anesthetic.
Then Oath Keepers showed up out of the blue. “We gave them our keys,” he said. “We didn’t know that much about them, but we got a feeling of trust. You have to do something to protect our building.”
15 Feb ’12
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Department of Defense released their autopsy report, I didn't even know they did one
15 Feb ’12
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Meanwhile in DC
Congressional staffers walk out to protest the grand jury decisions in the death of Michael Brown and Eric Garner pic.twitter.com/aZoDA22tFK
— Jess Conner (@Jecon) December 11, 2014
Walkout. pic.twitter.com/zg1guvKmtD
— follow @ryanjreilly on bluesky, signal in bio (@ryanjreilly) December 11, 2014
Today on the Capitol steps, congressional staff reminded us that #BlackLivesMatter. Proud to lend my support. pic.twitter.com/J5uuJgXNKj
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 11, 2014
On Thursday afternoon, dozens of congressional staffers walked out in protest of the recent grand jury decisions failing to indict the two officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The result was an incredible display of solidarity, with staffers raising their hands in the air to invoke Brown's "hands up, don't shoot" image.
19 Feb ’12
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Forgive me, because I haven't been following this real closely. When did Bown put his hands up? Before or after he kicked the police officer's ass?
15 Feb ’12
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good question, if you follow the gj testimony, none of that happened
15 Feb ’12
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I wonder if they will press charges
Some witnesses lied to Michael Brown grand jury, McCulloch says. So why have them testify?
“Clearly some were not telling the truth,” he said during an interview on KTRS 550. He added that he's not planning to pursue charges against any lying witnesses.
In his first extensive interview since the grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, McCulloch said he had no regrets about letting grand jury members hear from non-credible witnesses.
“Early on I decided that anyone who claimed to have witnessed anything would be presented to the grand jury,” McCulloch said. He added that he would've been criticized no matter his decision.
During the interview, McCulloch referenced a woman who claimed to have seen the shooting.
This “lady clearly wasn't present,” McCulloch said. “She recounted a story right out of the newspaper,” backing up Wilson's version of events.
The criticism of that witness fits the questions surrounding Sandra McElroy, also known as Witness 40.
McElroy, who's admitted to using racial slurs and trying to raise money for Wilson, testified that she saw the entire shooting unfold, and that Brown charged the officer shortly before he was killed — a detail that has proven controversial because of conflicting reports.
Investigators picked apart McElroy's story, saying she could not have left the apartment complex in the way she described.
She also gave conflicting accounts of why she was at the scene of the shooting that day and admitted that she has short-term memory problems from a head-on collision that left her with a traumatic brain injury.
McCulloch on Friday also said he had no regrets about announcing the grand jury decision after dark on the night of Nov. 24.
“There was no good time to make the announcement,” he said. “Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.”
The nighttime decision, he said, was good for area schools and also allowed business owners time to decide if they would open the next day.
Of the riots that followed the announcement, McCulloch said they were out of his control.
“Those who were bent on destruction, they weren't demonstrators, they're common criminals,” he said.
McCulloch also took aim at critics who've claimed that he couldn't be impartial when it comes to prosecuting law enforcement officers.
His father, brother, nephew and cousin all served with St. Louis police; his mother worked with the department as a clerk.
McCulloch was 12 years old in July 1964 when his father, police officer, Paul McCulloch, was shot and killed in a gunbattle with a kidnapper at the former Pruitt-Igoe public-housing complex.
In the 1990s, McCulloch's cousin Thomas Moran, a police sergeant, was demoted for failing to properly supervise his officers. Moran had been charged and later acquitted in the beating of Gregory Bell in the mentally disabled teenager's own home.
Officers testified that Moran beat the teenager after he was handcuffed and sprayed him with pepper spray.
On Friday, McCulloch said his family history “has not hindered our ability to look at these things.” He said his office has investigated more than 50 cases where police conduct was in question. He said if there's one thing he would do differently, he would've spoken publicly about his background.
McCulloch also said no one questioned his impartiality a month before the Brown shooting, when on July 6 a Pine Lawn police officer fatally shot Christopher Maurice Jones, 30, of Bel-Ridge.
McCulloch specifically called out Pine Lawn Director of Public Safety Anthony Gray, who also works as an attorney representing Brown's parents.
Gray has publicly questioned McCulloch's ability to be unbiased in prosecuting a member of law enforcement.
“Anthony Gray had no questions about my ability to be fair in the Pine Lawn shooting,” McCulloch said Friday. “It shows you how phony that argument is.”
Gray fired back in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Friday calling the two shootings apples and oranges.
The Jones case involved a high-speed chase, a visible gun holster and a single gunshot wound. In the case of Brown, there was no fear that Brown was armed and he was shot multiple times, Gray said.
“To compare the two does a great disservice to the atrocity of the Michael Brown Jr. shooting,” Gray said.
15 Feb ’12
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Dang
FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Two officers were shot in front of the Ferguson Police Department early Thursday, authorities said, as demonstrators gathered after the city's police chief resigned in the wake of a scathing Justice Department report alleging bias in the police department and court.
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