T H E N O . 1 S T. L O U I S W E B S I T E A N D N E W S P A P E R

THURSDAY • 08.21.2014 • $1.50

Vol. 136, No. 233 ©2014POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

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Ice bucket challenge is red hot • B1

Lynn wins 14th as Cards sweep Reds • C1

Virginia same-sex unions blocked • A19

Hamas leader evades airstrikes • A22

U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL ARRIVES • PROTESTS CONTINUE • DAY-NIGHT DICHOTOMY

HUY MACH • hmach@post-dispatch.com Protesters march along West Florissant Avenue on Wednesday as a passing storm brought rain and lightning that lit up the night sky.

CHRISTIAN GOODEN • cgooden@post-dispatch.comA group of about 90 clergy members from several faiths called Clergy for a Moral Missouri march in protest from Clayton High School to the Buzz Westfall Justice Center in Clayton on Wednesday .

BY KEVIN McDERMOTTkmcdermott@post-dispatch.com314-340-8268

FERGUSON • U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder met pri-vately Wednesday with the par-ents of Michael Brown, part of a one-day swing through the re-gion by the nation’s top law en-forcement o� cial in the wake of 12 nights of riots and strife.

The stated purpose of Holder’s visit was to get a first-person update from Department of Jus-tice officials here on the status of the pending federal investiga-tion into Brown’s Aug. 9 shoot-ing death by a Ferguson police officer. After meeting with his own St. Louis-based underlings, Holder met with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and key members of the state’s congressional del-egation, including both its U.S. senators.

But the trip also had a clear tone-setting component, de-signed to show the White House is taking the Ferguson conflict seriously, in the hope of easing tension in the community.

In addition to his private meeting with Brown’s parents, Holder met with students at an area community college, chat-ted with patrons of a Ferguson diner and literally embraced Mis-souri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron-ald S. Johnson, whose attempts

BY JEREMY KOHLER, DAVID HUNNAND ROBERT PATRICKPost-Dispatch

Twelve days after he shot and killed an unarmed teen, the Ferguson po-lice o� cer behind the gun remains an enigma.

While state and federal pros-ecutors investigate whether crimes were committed in the Aug. 9 kill-ing of Michael Brown, and hun-dreds march to protest Brown’s death, Officer Darren Wilson has not been seen in public or made any

public statements.By the time police released his

name on Friday, any social media accounts had been deactivated. Just one photograph of him emerged, apparently scraped from his father’s Facebook account by Yahoo! News before the account was deactivated.

A handful of supporters have spoken on his behalf; none from his inner circle. Union officials from Missouri Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 15 did not return calls and

McCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON • President Barack Obama vowed on Wednesday justice for the Islamist killers of American journalist James Foley, as o� cials re-vealed that U.S. forces had launched a secret raid inside Syria last month to rescue him and other captives only to fi nd they had been moved.

As Obama spoke, U.S. forces launched 14 new airstrikes against the Islamic State, in defiance of the

group’s threat Tuesday to kill a second American journalist if Obama didn’t end the attacks. European leaders, meanwhile, moved toward a more ag-gressive stand.

Obama stressed that U.S. airstrikes would continue, and he indicated that the United States would pursue Fol-ey’s killers.

“When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done. And we act against ISIL, standing alongside oth-

ers,” he said, using the o� cial U.S. ac-ronym for the Islamic State, a spino� of al-Qaida.

White House o� cials pointed to last month’s attempt to underscore that the U.S. would spare no e� ort.

A team of several dozen U.S. special forces operators entered Syria over the July 4 weekend, only to discover once on the ground that the captives had been moved, senior U.S. o� cials said JIM COLE • Associated Press

Diane and John Foley, James Foley’s parents, talk to reporters Wednesday in Rochester, N.H.

FROM STAFF REPORTS

A smaller, quieter protest formed in Ferguson on a sultry Wednes-day night after other marches converged upon the St. Louis County Justice Center in Clay-ton, where a grand jury has be-gun examining the Michael Brown case.

In Ferguson, crowds of barely 200 protesters walked along West Florissant Avenue at Can-field Drive, which has been the scene of protests, frequent dis-ruptions and occasional looting for 11 consecutive nights. Vio-lence erupted with the burning of a QuikTrip on Aug. 10, one day after Ferguson police of-ficer Darren Wilson shot and killed Brown, 18, on a street in the nearby Canfi eld Green apart-ments.

Wednesday’s steamy heat, with a temperature of 76 and 82 percent humidity even at 11 p.m., appeared to have subdued the gathering, as did a cloudburst that hit shortly after 8 p.m. The crowd grew later, but nothing like previous nights.

M i n i s te rs, m a ny wea r-ing orange T-shirts marked with “Clergy United,” mingled through the crowd and stepped in when young protesters ap-peared to get rowdy.

“When things heat up we don’t mind jumping into the middle of the fuss because we know who watches us,” said Pastor Doug Hollis, of St. Louis, a member of Clergy United.

Police officers stood in clus-ters, not riot lines, and kept pro-testers moving. Wednesday night was quieter than Tuesday, which had been less rowdy than Mon-day night, when police fi red tear gas. Police made numerous ar-rests both nights.

Tension fl ared briefl y Wednes-day night when a man and a woman who support o� cer Wil-son showed up with signs. Many in the crowd shouted at them, and police quickly removed them by squad car. Fortunately, the

Living near protest zone is a struggle • A9

How schools are handling Ferguson discussions • A8

Rams let high school teams practice at Rams Park • C1

Family sues over Ferguson Taser death in 2011 • A10

Editorials & opinions • A16-17

Full coverage • A6-10, C1

Live updates • STLtoday.com Darren Wilson

Police Offi cer Wilson keeping low profi le

See WILSON • Page A7

Holder talks of change in

Ferguson visit

See HOLDER • Page A10

U.S. tried to rescue slain journalist

See OBAMA • Page A5

GRAND JURY CONVENESALL EVIDENCE MAY NOT BE PRESENTED UNTIL MID-OCTOBER

Justice Center is target

of marches

See BROWN • Page A6

A6 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 2 • THUrSDAy • 08.21.2014

DaviD Carson • dcarson@post-dispatch.comTwo supporters of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson showed up to demonstrate on West Florissant Avenue on Wednesday. They identified themselves by only their first names, Dawn and Chuck, and were removed by police for safety reasons when their discussion with other protesters got heated.

Ferguson Police shooting

By RoBeRt PAtRick And WAlkeR MoskoPPost-Dispatch

FERGUSON • A St. Ann police lieutenant was suspended indefi-nitely without pay after he raised a semi-automatic assault rifle and threatened someone in the crowd during the disturbances Tuesday night on West Floris-sant Avenue.

A St. Louis County Police spokesman said Lt. Ray Albers pointed the weapon, an AR-15, after a “verbal exchange.” He said a county sergeant had forced Al-bers to lower his weapon and es-corted him from the area.

Albers was one of many of-ficers from numerous local de-partments that have been as-sisting the Highway Patrol in the “unified command” on street control in Ferguson.

“The unified command strongly feel these actions are in-appropriate, and not indicative of the officers who have worked daily, to keep the peace,” county police officer Brian Schellman, department spokesman, said a statement.

Earlier Wednesday, the Ameri-can Civil Liberties Union of East-ern Missouri asked the command to relieve the officer. “Such be-havior serves to heighten, not re-duce tension,” the ACLU wrote to the Highway Patrol.

According to video of the in-cident, Albers appears to tell someone in the crowd, “I will (expletive) kill you. Get back.” Asked his name, he responded, “Go (expletive) yourself.”

St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez said Albers may have seen a BB gun in the crowd.

Jimenez said Albers asked a news reporter to move, but the reporter didn’t cooperate.

“My officer used profanity with the public and told the media per-son that he was going to kill him if he didn’t move,” Jimenez said in an email. “We certainly do not condone the verbiage that was

used and the officer will be coun-seled on his choice of words. The St. Ann Police Department re-grets this unfortunate situation and hopes for a peaceful resolu-tion in Ferguson.”

Jimenez said Albers would undergo a psychological evalua-tion and sensitivity training. He

condemned Albers’ language but added, “I stand by him if he felt like his life was in danger, if he thought someone raised a gun, which wasn’t captured” in the video. Jimenez said that Albers had worked the past four nights in Ferguson while also serving his regular shifts in St. Ann, and that protesters had thrown water and urine on Albers.

Jimenez said Albers had three past disciplinary incidents, one each in 1995 and 1996 and one last year, when he “got into it with a citizen and instead of just letting the conversation go, he chose to say some inappropriate things. This is his second time with the wrong choice of words,” he said.

In 2010, Albers pulled a man from a burning vehicle that crashed while fleeing police. Al-bers broke open the sun roof on a burning SUV and pulled the driver to safety near Interstate 70 at Bermuda Avenue. The driver had been speeding on I-70 and sped away when an officer tried to pull him over. The vehicle ended up on its side and caught fire.

On Wednesday, Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson acknowledged to re-porters that there had been “in-appropriate behavior” by some officers. Johnson said the com-mand had taken some officers off the detail.

Officer suspended after rifle incident

Huy MaCH • hmach@post-dispatch.comSt. Ann Police Lt. Ray Albers raises his rifle Tuesday night at demonstrators on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson. Albers used profanity and threatened to shoot a member of the crowd.

rain then hit hard.The first of two marches in

Clayton was held in the morn-ing as the grand jury commenced its work. But County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch warned that it wouldn’t finish its task any time soon, despite numerous calls by protesters and some public offi-cials for speedy action.

“Our target date is, hopefully, by the middle of October,” Mc-Culloch said. “I certainly under-stand the concern, but we won’t rush it through. In the long run people, at least a majority of people, will appreciate the thor-oughness.”

Grand juries work in secret. The grand jury meets in his of-fice behind secure doors in the County Justice Center, across South Central Avenue from the St. Louis County Courthouse. Reporters have no ability to see anyone entering or leaving the grand jury room, or how they get to McCulloch’s office from out-side the building.

Handling the case before the grand jury are assistant pros-ecutors Sheila Whirley, who is black, and Kathi Alizadeh, who is white. Alizadeh, with 27 years’ experience, is the regular homi-cide prosecutor. Whirley has the grand jury assignment and 18 years’ experience.

McCulloch declined to discuss any evidence, but elaborated upon his decision not to rush the

investigation.“Some people say we are rush-

ing to judgment, and others say we are dragging it out,” he said. “We will do this as expeditiously as possible, but certainly not in any haphazard manner.”

Outside the Justice Center, about 50 protesters marched and chanted in the 7800 block of Carondelet Avenue. One held a sign saying, “Recuse McCull-och.”

The only tense moment was when Pattie Canter of Clayton walked to the protest area carry-ing a sign saying, “My family and friends support Officer Wilson and the police.”

Chanting “What about police rights?” and “Police officers have rights, too,” Canter walked near the protesters, some of whom shouted, “Go home! Go home!”

Replied Canter, “I have con-stitutional rights. I’m not going anywhere.”

As the crowd became more agitated, police officers escorted her to a police vehicle. Canter told a reporter she was not under arrest. “Why would I be?” she said before being driven away.

cleRGy MARcHOn Wednesday evening, a sec-ond march of about 100 people returned to the Justice Center after walking eight blocks from Clayton High School. The clergy group that organized the march called for the replacement of McCulloch with a special pros-ecutor, “an expedited grand jury hearing to indict Officer Darren Wilson” and an investigation

into racial profiling.Participants sang and carried

signs saying “Black lives matter” and “Taser, then talk.” A few of-ficers stood outside the Justice Center when the marchers ar-rived.

The Rev. Julie Taylor, a min-ister at Emerson Unitarian Uni-versalist Church in Ellisville, said she had been to Ferguson and be-lieved that clergy there had re-duced tension and saved lives.

“We uphold the principle that every life has inherent worth and dignity,” Taylor said. “Talk is talk, but I need to put my body on the line, too.”

The Rev. Chuck Tobin of Kan-sas City, a retired Roman Catho-lic priest, said he visited Fergu-son on Wednesday before joining the evening march.

“I’m here for solidarity more than anything and to listen to what’s going on with the people,” Tobin said. “Until you walk it, you really don’t get a feel for it.”

Also endorsing the call for a special prosecutor was Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eu-reka, who visited on Wednesday the spot where Brown was killed and spoke to Ferguson residents and reporters. Jones backed the call for replacing McCulloch and criticized Gov. Jay Nixon for hav-ing been “all over the map” in the 11 days since Brown was killed.

“When you have that many people asking (for a special pros-ecutor), the best thing to me is to avoid the appearance of impro-priety ... and appoint a special prosecutor,” Jones told reporters.

A regular critic of Nixon in Jef-

ferson City, Jones said the gover-nor should have gotten involved in the case sooner than he did. “This is the first time an incident of this kind has occurred in this state,” Jones said. In the early days, Jones said, “He himself was not very engaged at all.”

Jones said he listened to resi-dents’ concerns. “A lot of people still have a lot of raw emotions and are concerned,” he said. “They are concerned about jus-tice being truly served.”

sPeciAl MAss FoR BRoWnAt 5 p.m. Wednesday, about 500 worshippers gathered at the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica on Lin-dell Boulevard to pray for Brown and his family. Archbishop Rob-ert Carlson celebrated the Mass. Among those attending was Mayor Francis Slay.

Said Carlson, “We must ex-amine the tragic events taking place in the St. Louis area, seek to understand ‘Why?’ and work toward dismantling systemic racism. Until the causes are ad-dressed and rectified, there will be no change.”

Carlson said the archdiocese would re-establish a human rights commission and work to provide more school scholar-ships.

Among the concelebrants was Rev. Robert “Rosy” Rosebrough, pastor of Blessed Teresa of Cal-cutta parish in Ferguson. “Be-neath the surface of Michael Brown’s death are a lot of issues,” Rosebrough said.

Prayer cards handed out in-

cluded a special appeal to God: “May you console Michael Brown’s family with your healing grace, and walk with the family of the policeman involved in the shooting.”

Said Slay: “The archbishop in-voked St Louis’ bravest Catholic moments to call for a new activ-ism. I thought his tone was both inspiring and very practical.”

lAtest ARRestsCounty police reported Wednes-day that 51 people were arrested between 8 a.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m. Wednesday in the Fer-guson protests. Only one of the suspects lives in Ferguson.

Nine of them were from other states, including people from Chicago; New York; West-port, Conn.; Austin, Texas; and Cincinnati. Fourteen suspects are from St. Louis city, three from places in Missouri out-side St. Louis city-county, and the remaining 24 from St. Louis County, including five from Jen-nings, three from Florissant and nine from unincorporated neigh-borhoods.

Most are from North County, but one each are from Crestwood and Creve Coeur. Most of them were charged with refusal to dis-perse, but four were charged with unlawful use of a weapon and three were charged with posses-sion of burglary tools.

Kim Bell, Lilly Fowler, Steve Giegerich, Valerie Schremp Hahn, Joe Holleman, Walker Moskop, Tim O’Neil, Robert Patrick, Nicholas J.C. Pistor, Chuck Raasch and Leah Thorsen, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this article.

BRoWn •

FRoM A1

Two veteran prosecutors presenting case

08.21.2014 • Thursday • M 2 sT. LOuIs POsT-dIsPaTCh • A7

Ferguson Police shooting

messages seeking comment last week. His attorney has declined to comment.

Some have said they saw Wilson shoot Brown after Brown raised his hands in surrender. No one has publicly corrobo-rated what police said was Wilson’s ver-sion of the confrontation, in which Brown reached into the police car and attacked him. Perhaps the most widely shared tell-ing of what is purported to be his perspec-tive came from a woman who identified herself as a friend of Wilson and spoke on a radio show using a pseudonym.

Wilson hasn’t responded to calls or texts. Neither have his close friends or family members.

He’s taken a different path than central figures of almost every other major na-tional crime story from the past decade. In those cases, clues could be found on Face-book, Twitter and other social media, or they were described by friends and loved ones.

Additionally, authorities have released essential details in other major crimes. That has not happened in Ferguson.

“I can’t remember any time in the last 10 years, at least, where somebody’s com-pletely gone into hiding, for fear of his life,” said Jonathan Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management in Los Angeles. “Frankly, if I’d been advising his family, the first thing I would have said was, ‘Hide.’ In the near term, saving his life is more important than anything else.”

Bernstein, who has written textbooks and training manuals on crisis manage-ment, said he thought it unlikely that the

disappearance of Wilson and his family from online social media sites was hap-penstance.

“He’s had some advice to dive down a hole and take cover for now,” Bernstein said. “They’re doing everything possible.”

A few friends have stepped forward. Kevin Gregory, 22, a friend of Wilson for nine years and an aspiring police officer, said he rode along with Wilson on a rela-tively slow Tuesday night in March and came away impressed with Wilson as a dedicated officer who loved helping peo-ple.

“There isn’t even the slightest doubt in my mind: I’m 100 percent sure he feared for his life,” Gregory said. “He reacted just like you’re trained to be as a police officer. You fire at center mass. The largest part of the body of the threat. You’re not trained to fire a few times; you’re trained to fire until the threat is over, and that’s how you get home safely to your family.”

Gregory said there was one condition of the ride-along: He had to wear a bul-letproof vest.

“(Wilson) explained, ‘You’ll see some stuff you probably haven’t seen in other places,’ ” Gregory recalled.

He said they responded that night to help ambulance workers with an intoxi-cated woman of about 40 who was cursing and demanding to be taken to a hospital. He said Wilson told her several times to calm down, explaining he couldn’t let her in the ambulance if it would be dangerous for the paramedics.

“It was more warnings than I think I would give,” Gregory said. “But he made the determination that no way he could let her get on.” He suggested the family take her in their car; the woman’s mother and a sibling took her inside.

More details about Wilson’s life were found in public records. He was born in May 1986 in Fort Worth, Texas, to Tonya and John Wilson. Tonya Wilson was a 19-year-old receptionist at the Metro YMCA and John Wilson, 32, was a teacher and coach in a public school.

The Wilsons divorced in 1989; his mother married Tyler Harris and moved to the St. Louis area. They had a son, Jared, in 1991. In the late 1990s, they moved into a four-bedroom, two-bath house in St. Peters. The Harrises divorced in 1998, and Tonya Harris later married Daniel Robert Durso.

In February 1998, Tonya Harris was charged in St. Charles County with three counts of stealing by deceit for allegedly cashing bogus checks at Truman Bank. In May 2000, she was charged with steal-ing and forgery. The complaint claims that she took another woman’s credit card and passed a forged check for $9,000. She pleaded guilty to both cases and was sen-tenced in 2001 to five years of probation.

The Dursos struggled financially, filing for bankruptcy in June 2002. On Nov. 18 of that year, Tonya Durso died of blockages in arteries in her lungs. She was buried in St. Charles Memorial Gardens.

In October 2003, court records show, Tyler Harris filed for limited guardian-ship of Darren Wilson, so he could register for school and obtain medical insurance. Wilson wanted to finish his senior year at St. Charles West High School. His father signed off on the guardianship, which was canceled when Wilson turned 18.

He graduated in 2004 from St. Charles West, where he is listed on several pages of the yearbook. The first page shows him with a mop of hair, more like a surfer or rock star than the crew-cut police officer

depicted in a recent photo. He was on the yearbook staff and played varsity hockey.

Wilson married Ashley Brown on Oct. 15, 2011. They bought a house in Troy, in Lincoln County, in June 2012, but sold it a year later, two months after Darren Wilson filed for divorce and four months after the couple separated. The divorce was final-ized on Nov. 18, 2013.

He bought a home in October 2013 in Crestwood, which he now shares with his girlfriend, Ferguson police officer Barbara Spradling.

Wilson worked for Jennings police for two years before being hired by Ferguson police in October 2011. The department has said he had no disciplinary record. His salary was $45,302.

Chief Thomas Jackson has described him as a “quiet, gentle man” and an “ex-cellent officer.” He said Wilson was taken to the hospital after his confrontation with Brown because one side of his face was swollen.

At a City Council meeting in February, Jackson lauded Wilson for his handling of a suspicious vehicle call in which he had to struggle with a man in the car, according to a video of the commendation ceremony.

Wilson, Jackson said, was “able to gain control of the subject and his car keys.” Later, officers discovered that the man was preparing a large quantity of marijuana for sale.

That night, Wilson received a depart-ment award for “outstanding police work.”

Stephen Deere and Walker Moskop of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

Wilson •

from A1

By Kim Bell kbell@post-dispatch.com314-340-8115

CLAYTON • A criminal trial is public, but whether there will be one is often the decision of a grand jury in a secret process that may seem mysterious.

St. Louis County Prosecuting At-torney Robert McCulloch has chosen to have a grand jury consider whether Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson should face charges in the fatal shoot-ing of Michael Brown.

If McCulloch thinks charges are ap-propriate, he could file a complaint himself. That would trigger a prelimi-nary hearing, in which a judge would hear evidence and decide if it were suf-ficient to merit a trial. Officials say a little more than half the county’s pros-ecutions travel this route.

But a grand jury has some advan-tages. A prosecutor presents evidence in secret, and the decision of whether to file a charge — called an indictment — is made by a panel of citizens, poten-tially shielding an elected official from political consequences.

“In high-profile cases, the prosecu-tors use the grand jury to seek some cover for their failure to act on their own,” said James Cohen, an associate professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York.

Still, a prosecutor exercises substan-tial control by deciding what evidence to present and what specific charges to consider. A New York judge, Solomon Wachtler, famously said a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.

“It’s no joke,” Cohen said. “That viv-idly places the power of the prosecutor in context.”

Grand jurors are pulled from the same pool of ordinary people as petit jurors, the ones who decide trials, and are paid the same, in St. Louis County about $18 a day plus mileage.

A judge tries to balance members’ gender, race and geography. Here, a grand jury meets on Wednesdays for four months. The current one is set to expire Sept 10 but will be extended to hear all the evidence in the Brown case, McCulloch said. He said the grand jury had three black members, out of 12 to-tal.

The process provides no opportunity for a defense. Subjects of the inves-tigation are invited to testify, but few accept, and must leave their attorneys outside.

Nine votes are required for a “true bill,” another name for indictment. Otherwise, the result is the awkwardly named “no true bill.” Grand jurors elect a foreperson, and even the prosecutor must leave during deliberations.

Cohen said the prosecutor held great sway. “The prosecutor is responsible for presenting the evidence, calling the witnesses and instructing the jurors on the applicable law. The prosecutor can decide who to call based on what he ex-pects the witnesses to say.”

Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri, said pros-ecutors may use grand juries for their power to issue subpoenas. “That’s what is going on here,” he suggested.

McCulloch has told reporters he plans to have his staff present every scrap of evidence about the Brown case to the grand jury. He also pledged to seek a court order to open the evidence if Wilson is not indicted.

Cohen said such a promise may have a chilling effect on witnesses he fears would be “less likely” to testify if they think the information would ultimately go public.

Prosecutors have great sway over

grand juries

Photo by Sid haSting Pattie Canter of Clayton, a supporter of Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, is separated at the Buzz Westfall Justice Center on Wednesday from those demonstrating against Wilson’s killing of Ferguson teenager Michael Brown.

funerAl plAns Are setThe funeral for 18-year-old Michael Brown is scheduled for Monday at a St. Louis church.

The Austin A. Layne Mortuary, which is handling arrangements, says the fu-neral is set for 10 a.m. at Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, 5515 Martin Luther King Drive.

Brown’s uncle, the Rev. Charles Ew-ing, will deliver the eulogy, and the Rev. Al Sharpton will also speak.

Brown will be buried at St. Peter’s Cemetery in St. Louis County.

— Associated Press

schools to offer trAining; clAsses to stArt mondAy

Ferguson-Florissant School District of-ficials announced on Wednesday evening that nearly 2,000 staff members would undergo crisis training today. The dis-trict developed a program with the help of community experts and organiza-tions called RISE — response, interven-tion, support and education. Staff will be trained to look for signs of crisis in stu-dents and how to handle it.

School is scheduled to begin Monday after several days of cancellations. Other preparations include adding routes near Griffith Elementary so students who usually walk can get a ride.

— Jessica Bock

prosecutor hAs hArsh Words for governor

On Wednesday, St. Louis County Pros-ecuting Attorney Robert McCull-och blasted Gov. Jay Nixon for “double speak” as to whether McCulloch would recuse himself or whether Nixon might replace him with a special prosecutor on the Michael Brown shooting case.

Some in the community are calling for a special prosecutor, and Nixon has the power to replace McCulloch now that the governor has declared a state of emer-gency in the Ferguson matter.

Nixon needs to make a decision, Mc-Culloch said, because the lingering ques-tion is a distraction.

Among McCulloch’s critics is state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, who has led an online petition drive that has gathered 26,000 signatures demanding McCulloch’s removal.

McCulloch said he had “absolutely no intention of walking away from my du-ties and responsibilities. I’ve done it for 24 years and, if I say so myself, done a very good job of being fair and impartial.”

Nixon told the Post-Dispatch on Tues-day that he didn’t intend to ask McCull-och to step aside from the case amid crit-icism that McCulloch would be biased in favor of the police officer, Darren Wilson, who shot Brown. But he presented that as a defense of the sanctity of the legal process, rather than any statement of support for the prosecutor. The governor also made it clear he wouldn’t have any objections if McCulloch were to decide on his own to step down. “If he thinks that he wants to do that, certainly,” Nixon said. “That’s his call.”

McCulloch got in several digs at Nixon in media interviews Wednesday morn-ing, saying he should “stand up, man up” and make a clear decision.

“That is kind of a meaningless state-ment in terms of resolving this issue ... he’s ducking the issue,” McCulloch said of Nixon. “Make a decision and make it clear. The worst thing that can happen is we get deeply into this and he says he’s taking me off the case. Knowing him as well as I do, he doesn’t make a decision until he’s cornered and absolutely has to make one.”

But McCulloch said he didn’t want to begin with the possibility that the case would get yanked away from him at some point, even a month from now. By not making a clear decision, McCulloch said, Nixon “undermines everything except the cover that he’s pulled over his head.”

McCulloch disputed allegations from critics that the murder of his father, who was a police officer, made him biased. McCulloch was 12 when his father, St. Louis police Officer Paul McCulloch, was shot and killed July 2, 1964, in a gun bat-tle with a kidnapper in the former Pruitt-Igoe public-housing complex.

McCulloch spoke with emotion

Wednesday about the accusation, saying, “I know the pain of losing a loved one. If anything, it has made me a fierce advo-cate for the victims of violence.”

When that line of questioning was over, McCulloch wiped away a tear.

The man who killed Paul McCulloch, Eddie Glenn, was found guilty one year later in St. Louis Circuit Court and sen-tenced to die in the state gas chamber, but the Missouri Supreme Court reduced the sentence to life in prison.

His father’s death was a major theme for the campaign ads that first propelled McCulloch to office. McCulloch has been prosecutor for 23 years. He is running un-opposed for reelection in November.

— Kim Bell, Joe Holleman, Kevin McDermott and Tim O’Neil

Attorney for Witness dispels rumor thAt story chAnged

Dorian Johnson, witness to the Michael Brown killing, has not met with investi-gators since he was first questioned and has not recanted his statement, his attor-ney said Wednesday.

Attorney Freeman Bosley Jr. said John-son’s statement that Ferguson Police Of-ficer Darren Wilson chased Brown, who put up his hands in surrender before be-ing fatally wounded, stands. Bosley said he had been dealing with rumors that Johnson had changed his story most of the day.

— From staff reports

site rAises funds for officer

A fundraising site has been created to support Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department. As of 12:15 a.m. today, it had raised more than $108,000. It has a goal of $150,000.

The site says, “We stand behind Officer Darren Wilson and his family during this trying time in their lives. All proceeds will be sent directly to Darren Wilson and his family for any financial needs they may have including legal fees.”

The site is at http://www.gofundme.com/SupportOfficerWilson

— Valerie Schremp Hahn

Notes from ferGusoN

A10 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 2 • THUrSDAy • 08.21.2014

Ferguson Police shooting

WA S H I N G T O N • Ferguson has proven again that the mere election of an African-American presi-dent, as momen-

tous as it was in the history of a nation created with legal slavery, did not bring a post-race Amer-ica.

The crisis playing out in Fergu-son also has an underlying mes-sage about the stage itself.

There is tacit but undeniable truth that the solutions to the fissures exposed in Ferguson do not lie in presidential declara-tions or national elections. They can be found only in the very neighborhoods where the drama is now playing out — streets now walked by protesters, tarnished by violent outside opportunists, policed by the National Guard and Highway Patrol and under the spotlight of 24-7 global me-dia.

Many of these actors will eventually go home, taking the international spotlight to the next crisis, of which there are plenty, from a terrorist behead-ing of an American journalist in Iraq to fresh bombings in Gaza.

But the streets and neighbor-hoods of Ferguson will remain.

Right now in Ferguson, the election of St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch has more relevance to the out-come of this crisis than the elec-tion of Barack Obama.

McCulloch’s staff is taking to a grand jury the case of the shoot-ing death of African-American teenager Michael Brown by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The objectivity of Mc-Culloch, who is white, has been questioned because his father, a police officer, was killed by a black man. But like Obama, Mc-Culloch also was elected to his position by significant majori-ties.

Shortly after Obama’s elec-tion, his new Attorney General Eric Holder — who visited Fergu-son Wednesday — tempered the hope and change aspirations of the moment with the declaration that on the issue of race, we are “essentially a nation of cowards.”

But as the world has witnessed from Ferguson in recent days, courageous people have stepped forth in this crisis, preachers and

community leaders stepping into the space where police and pro-tester could not abide, to soothe and calm and enable peaceful ex-pression.

The president’s actions so far in Ferguson are subtly but sig-nificantly different from his re-action after the Trayvon Mar-tin shooting, a reflection of the power of language in moments such as this.

After the shooting death in Florida of Martin, an unarmed black teenager, Obama person-alized the crisis into the White House itself, saying that had he had a son, that son might have looked like Martin. After the acquittal of George Zimmer-man, who shot Martin, Obama said that black Americans were

feeling pain from “a history that doesn’t go away.”

Coming from the presiden-tial bully pulpit as they did, they were powerful expressions that justice was still not colorblind in America. The statements drew emotional praise and criticism, and they resonate anew in the Ferguson crisis.

But Obama has spoken less personally and more broadly af-ter the Brown shooting, discuss-ing problems that preceded him and will outlast him. At a press conference on Monday, looking much grayer than he did dur-ing the Trayvon Martin case 30 months ago, Obama spoke about the challenges of young black men.

“Part of the ongoing challenge

of perfecting our union has in-volved dealing with communi-ties that feel left behind, who, as a consequence of tragic histories, often find themselves isolated, often find themselves without hope, without economic pros-pects,” he said. “You have young men of color in many commu-nities who are more likely to end up in jail or in the criminal justice system than they are in a good job or in college. And part of my job that I can do, I think, without any potential conflicts is to get at those root causes.”

Words matter from leaders in times such as this, as Gov. Jay Nixon is discovering.

His call for a “vigorous pros-ecution” on the eve of McCull-och’s presenting the Brown case

to a grand jury drew criticism from Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and on Twitter. Critics said he was pre-judging the case.

Nixon’s communications di-rector later told the Post-Dis-patch that that “is something we might have been clearer about.

“The governor was referring to the prosecutorial PROCESS, meaning conducting an investi-gation, gathering all the evidence and — if the evidence shows that a crime was committed — bring-ing criminal charges,” the news director, Channing Ansely, said in an email. “In other words, he used the word ‘prosecute’ ac-cording to its definition of con-tinuing with a course of action.”

Change starts at home, not D.C. LETTER FROM WASHINGTON • Chuck raasch > craasch@post-dispatch.com 202-298-6880

Race in Obama-led ameRica

to defuse the nightly showdowns have made him a national figure.

“My hope is that the trip I’m making out here ... will have a calming influence on the area,” Holder told reporters. He said his appearance should be a signal to residents that “a thorough federal investigation is being done.”

Holder stressed that the pend-ing federal investigation had a dif-ferent angle than the local crimi-nal investigation. “We’re looking for violations of federal civil rights statutes,” Holder said.

Holder landed in the region about 11 a.m. His motorcade headed first to St. Louis Commu-nity College at Florissant Valley in Ferguson. The attorney general met with about a dozen students and hugged one of them after the meeting.

One of the students, Molyric Welch, 27, a mass communica-tions student, said Holder had told them that “change is com-ing.”

“He told us we are the future and we need to stay focused on getting our education,” Welch said. The attorney general also “wanted to know how it felt to be a resident of this area.”

Student Dominique McCoy, 22, said, “We talked about how things can be changed, and how it has to start with us, the younger genera-tion.”

Shortly before 1 p.m., Holder attended a closed-door meeting at the school. The Community Relations Service organized the meeting with about 50 Ferguson residents, according to the attor-ney general’s office.

“The eyes of the nation and the world are watching Ferguson right now,” Holder told them, according to a transcript provided later by his office. “This is something that has a history to it, and the history simmers beneath the surface in more communities than just Fer-guson.”

The attorney general shared his own experiences of being singled out because he was black, includ-ing one incident in which he was

stopped by police while going to watch a movie.

“At the time that he stopped me, I was a federal prosecutor. I wasn’t a kid,” he said, according to the transcript. “I worked at the United States Department of Jus-tice. So I’ve confronted this my-self.”

The attorney general later went to Drake’s Place, a restaurant just a few blocks from the site of nightly violence in Ferguson. He greeted customers — including the mayor of nearby Cool Valley, who hap-pened to be there for lunch — and asked how they were doing.

“We’re doing pretty good, though it’s affecting a lot of mu-nicipalities,” Mayor Viola Murphy said of the protests and clashes in and around Ferguson. “We don’t want the world to know us for what is going on here.”

At the restaurant, Holder also encountered Johnson, who was put in charge of security in the Ferguson area by Nixon last week. Holder and Johnson embraced under the glare of television lights as patrons looked on.

Holder lauded Johnson for his leadership: “If you sustain that and get the community involved, we can turn this around.”

Johnson said the situation was getting better. Holder told him to “keep up the good work and get a little rest.”

After Holder’s appearance, Johnson said that the visit “will show the people of Ferguson and the country that their voices are heard.”

Holder then went to the FBI headquarters in St. Louis to meet with U.S. Attorney Richard Calla-han and others. The attorney gen-eral briefly addressed reporters, saying that he wanted to be able to “look in the faces” of the agents who will conduct the federal in-vestigation.

Late in the day, Holder went to the Eagleton Federal Courthouse in downtown St. Louis to meet with Michael Brown’s parents.

Afterward, in the same build-ing, he met with elected offi-cials, including Nixon, U.S. Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and U.S. Reps. Wil-liam Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, and Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City.

Clay said in a statement: “I made a promise to Michael Brown’s mother that we would fo-cus every possible federal resource to bring justice to her family, and I intend to keep that promise.”

HOlder •

frOm A1

By leAH THOrSeNlthorsen@post-dispatch.com > 636-937-6249

Ferguson police officers restrained a mentally ill man and repeatedly shocked him with a Taser, causing him to die of a heart attack, a federal lawsuit alleges.

The suit was filed Tuesday by Tina Moore, who says of-ficers used excessive force in arresting her husband, Jason Moore, on Sept. 17, 2011.

It names as defendants the Ferguson police department; the city of Ferguson; Police Chief Thomas Jackson; Ferguson police officers Brian Kaminski and Michael White; Mayor James Knowles; and City Council members Mark Byrne, Kim Tihen, Dwayne James, Tim Larson, David Conway and Keith Kallstrom.

Kaminski and White responded to a 911 call at North Mar-guerite Avenue and Airport Road in Ferguson, where Jason Moore was naked and unarmed, the lawsuit says.

Kaminski was the first to arrive and saw Jason Moore walk from behind a building and stand on the curb. He “was suf-fering from a psychological disorder and demonstrated clear signs of mental illness,” the suit says.

A witness said Moore had been yelling “glory to God” and “I’m Jesus,” according to a police report provided by Tina Moore’s attorneys.

Kaminski ordered Moore to put his hands in the air and walk toward him. When Moore did so, Kaminski fired his Taser. One prong struck Moore in the left side of the chest near his heart and another prong hit him in the right thigh, the suit says.

The police report says that Kaminski shocked Moore three times, each in five-second bursts, because he wouldn’t com-ply with orders to stay on the ground. It says White hand-cuffed him during the third shock and laid him on his abdo-men.

Moore, 31, stopped breathing and became unresponsive while being shocked with the Taser, the suit says. He died of a heart attack, the suit says.

The St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s office said Wednesday that Moore’s cause of death was “agitated de-lirium.”

The police report said White gave Moore chest compres-sions in an attempt to revive him.

The suit alleges that police officers were not properly trained in using appropriate levels of force or how to identify people suffering from mental illness.

It also alleges that officers use Tasers without regard for whether a suspect poses an immediate threat, that they use the same “methods and levels of force” with mentally ill people as with criminals and that Ferguson police officers “conspire with one another to cover for and protect one an-other from criminal and/or civil sanctions that might arise from the violation of the constitutional rights of a citizen.”

Efforts to reach Peter Dunn, the attorney representing Fer-guson, were not successful. Tina Moore’s attorneys declined to comment.

Suit alleges fatal use of Taser on mentally ill

man in 2011

LAuRIE SkRIvAN • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com“We feel like we don’t have equal rights,” Bryant Stewart said as he protested Friday at the burned QuikTrip in Ferguson, where he lives.

J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder embraces Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron S. Johnson after a meeting Wednesday at Drake’s Place restaurant in Ferguson. Holder lauded Johnson for his leadership.

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On Wednesday, we published a message from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to the people of Ferguson, in which the nation’s top law enforce-ment officer committed the “full resources” of the Department of Justice in investigating the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

But the most important part of his message had nothing to do with justice. It was about trust.

“Good law enforcement requires forging bonds of trust between the police and the public. This trust is all-important, but it is also fragile,” Mr. Holder wrote.

In visiting Ferguson on Wednes-day, Mr. Holder made this case personal, perhaps bringing a level of trust to the local African-American community that doesn’t have much faith in the efforts of St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch or Gov. Jay Nixon.

This editorial page has had its disagreements with Mr. McCull-och. And we have a 23-year history of feuding with Mr. Nixon. But we have questioned their judgments, not their integrity.

What Mr. Holder and the Department of Justice can bring to the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson case is a backup on judg-ment calls. He doesn’t need to take over the case; the DOJ’s parallel investigation ultimately should ease concerns over the county’s investigation.

But Mr. Holder’s involvement is important. This case is part of a larger effort, one in which Mr. Holder is using his office to further the cause of civil rights for Afri-can-Americans and other minori-ties. In the past couple of years, he has significantly increased DOJ’s involvement in local cases of questionable police shootings. Mr. Holder is also pressing voting rights lawsuits across the county

that directly challenge Chief Jus-tice John Roberts’ errant view that the era of racial discrimination in the United States is over.

Ferguson is our nation’s wakeup call that Judge Roberts and his head-in-the-sand Supreme Court majority not only got the law wrong last year in the Shelby County v. Holder case about the Voting Rights Act, but that they are dangerously out of touch about the challenges that continue to face African-Americans in a political structure still stacked against them.

The Shelby County deci-sion overturned section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which required some Southern states with a history of racism to receive

Department of Justice approval before changing voting laws. Since then, several of those states have passed restrictive photo voter identification measures intended to make it harder for traditional Democratic constituencies — African-Americans, disabled voters, some seniors and college students — to exercise their con-stitutional rights.

Despite the roadblocks caused by the court’s ruling, Mr. Holder is pushing back, aggressively seeking to protect voting rights in multiple venues.

“People should understand that there’s steel here,” Mr. Holder told the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin in February. “I am resolved to oppose any attempts to try to roll back

the clock … to try to make it more difficult for people to exercise the most fundamental American right.”

Here in Missouri, Republicans have been trying for several years to diminish that right by passing unnecessary voter ID laws. Thank-fully, the courts have stood in the way. But it doesn’t take much parsing of words to understand the dynamic that is at play.

Just Tuesday, Matt Wills, the executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, said it was “dis-gusting” that some activists at the protests were registering people to vote.

“If that’s not fanning the politi-cal flames, I don’t know what is,” Mr. Wills told Breitbart News,

a strange characterization of a peaceful attempt to help people exercise their constitutional rights. “Injecting race into this conversa-tion and into this tragedy, not only is not helpful, but it doesn’t help a continued conversation of justice and peace.”

Meditate on that for a moment.The director of the state political

party that controls the Missouri Legislature by veto-proof margins doesn’t believe that the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer, and the fol-lowing 11 days of nonstop protest, have anything to do with race.

Welcome to Missouri, Attorney General Holder. You’ve got your work cut out for you.

The Ferguson tragedy can be turned into a national opportunity. Mr. Holder has the right experi-ence and passion for civil rights to do that.

It has been reported that Mr. Holder plans to leave his post in the Obama administration by the end of this year. If true, that means he’s unlikely to see the slow-mov-ing Michael Brown case through its end. It means the important voting rights cases he is champi-oning likely will have to be carried forward by somebody else.

But if Ferguson is the spark that lights a worldwide blaze of civil rights revival, then it’s going to need a champion. Much of the local unrest, on the street and in the political ether, comes from the inability to find a leader who is comfortable in both settings, someone with the gravitas of an establishment figure and the heart of a civil rights warrior.

“Change is coming,” Mr. Holder told community college students in St. Louis on Wednesday.

It’s going to take somebody with steel to effect that change. Maybe, Mr. Holder, that somebody is you.

CHANGE IS COMINGOur view • Maybe Eric Holder is the leader Ferguson has been waiting for.

Cast of characters continues to grow along with the problems

The Ferguson protests have become a tour-ist attraction, and each day the size of the mob continues to grow as people come from other parts of the country to join in the “fun.” Local authorities with their quick-change tactics just look weak and clueless. A show of force one day, then a stand-down the next, followed by an even bigger show of force. A curfew one day, then lifted the next. It’s like they’re experimenting with different approaches and none of them are working.

This thing has morphed into something way beyond protests over the unfortunate death of one 18-year-old. That may have been the catalyst but the fuel for this is more than just that, and I believe it’s not just one thing. It’s decades of frustration over many things. It’s an excuse for some to loot and destroy, and for a small group of politicians and public fi gures like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, it’s “face time” in the media, as they strive to convince the public they’re still relevant.

Meanwhile, this small town is being decimated as goods and services become eliminated one by one, and with them an ever-reducing tax base for the city of Fer-guson. Along with that is the cost to the shop owners, as well as the growing cost to the city of Ferguson, St. Louis, and the state of Missouri as each of those entities run up their own tabs providing personnel and equipment in their failed attempts to quell the protesters/rioters.

St. Louis, unfortunately, has now achieved a level of infamy on par with the Iraq conflicts, the Israel conflict and the Ebola outbreak as evidenced by 24-hour news coverage on an international scale, and a mention at the U.N. At present it seems like none of those crises have a simple and quick solution, and as a result, things will probably get worse before they get better.Stu Cassell • Bridgeton

Right now, Gaza Strip is safer than FergusonDoes it seem odd to anyone else that the Gaza Strip is currently a more peaceful and

safe place to live than Ferguson, Mo.?Michael Van Wallis • Kirkwood

When Ferguson hits home

I never thought I would be living so close to conflict. If I jumped on the highway and zoomed down a few exits, I’d be visiting Ferguson. We are that close, yet we are so far away. Our entire city and country has become focused on what is, and even more alarming, what is not happening in a town within our town. Yet we attempt to put distance between our neighborhoods, just like we attempt to say what’s happening in the Middle East is happening “over there.” Well, folks, “over there” just came to our backyards, and it is madly screaming for our attention.

None of us know the whole story of the incident that led to this massive turmoil my neighbors are embracing without choice. I grieve with every single person involved in this story. There is not one person who is una� ected by this tragedy, including those of us who attempt to drown out the sirens because it’s happening “over there.” It’s “here,” people. The world is watching us, and most importantly our children are si-lently observing every step we take.

I wonder what would happen if we embraced all those who were hurting tonight, and realized that grieving is actually taking place on both sides of the police line. What if we all held ourselves accountable and allowed each other to take a deep breath when confusion, fear or anger sets in to release a potential breath of hope? I wonder if we’d find peace.Jen McCurdy • St. Louis County

Real fear of retaliation for cooperating with policeIn response to the Your Views (Aug. 17) writers criticizing Bill McClellan for asking where’s the outrage when so many other African-Americans are killed on the street, the writers say that the outrage is due to the police “menacing” the African-American community and that the murders are “not likely to be investigated.”

But as McClellan pointed out, when po-

lice try to investigate a crime, they are often met with little or no cooperation. Like the owner of the liquor store who wanted to make it clear that he was not the one who dialed 911, it is obvious that the real fear is one of retaliation within the black commu-nity for cooperating with a police investiga-tion or even reporting a crime.

According to the Violence Policy Center, the FBI’s homicide report, there were 6,309 black homicide victims for 2011, the most recent year for which such information is available. If there is to be an outrage, and there should be, that is where the outrage belongs. The police have become the scape-goat.Robert Bailey • Maplewood

Militarized police force has been exposedThe citizens of Ferguson are making me proud to be a Missourian! We have suffered in this state far too long from a militarized police force that views the average citizen as the enemy.

Out here in the heartland we have the same problems that citizens of L.A., New York and Chicago have been complaining about. And you don’t have to be a black male to know it. But fi nally, due to this horrible tragedy, the citizens of Missouri, especially those in Ferguson, are bringing this disre-gard that law enforcement has for the aver-age citizen to light. They are bringing this to the light of the nation and to the entire world.

Let’s hope the recent action by Sen. Claire McCaskill and those on Capitol Hill bear fruit. Demilitarize, retrain and weed out the police forces throughout the city, county and state levels. This is a crisis, and law enforcement’s incompetence, arrogance and fear of their fellow citizens is too great to ignore any longer.Jeanne Kennedy • Owensville, Mo.

It’s not all about you, Post-DispatchReading the editorial page cartoon of Mon-day, “Police states that suppress journalists,” left me full of sympathy with and empathy

for ... the law enforcement community of the St. Louis area. Those individuals are truly the ones who work long hours and incredibly hard, ones who literally put their lives on the line to protect and serve us. We should all be grateful to them. “Suppres-sion”? Come on!

As for the Post-Dispatch’s alleged con-tribution to our community, well, it’s not all about you, Post-Dispatch. You’re out of step with St. Louis, as usual.Robert Specker • Wildwood

Stable, two-parent families make for stable neighborhoodsWith all the tension and civil unrest we are currently experiencing in the Ferguson/Dellwood communities, it seems that sug-gested answers to the problems that led to the situations of violence have come from numerous sources. It might be said that all the solutions have pieces of fact in them.

There are a number of elements that are common to most every instance of violence experienced in this country:

• They occur in areas of concentrated poverty.

• They occur in areas that are inhabited predominantly by black Americans.

• They occur in areas where the schools have a di� cult time getting students to graduate at all, or, if they graduate, few of them are successful in higher education.

• Another common element, possibly the most telling one, is broken families, or one-parent families.

Nearly every solution to the problems leading to violence and civil unrest, from the media, from politicians, from educators, in-volves spending more money, hiring better teachers, more generous entitlements, etc. While each of these may o� er a little help, the stable, two-parent family would be the biggest asset to make stable neighborhoods.

Only the individuals have the power to make stable, two-parent families. That must begin with the people; not politicians, not law enforcement, not schools, not media. Churches can surely help; most already do, but they can’t do it alone.Charles Koetting • Valley Park

YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS

DAN MARTIN • dmartin@post-dispatch.com

08.21.2014 • Thursday • M 1 sT. LOuIs POsT-dIsPaTCh • A17

Cheye Calvo was the mayor of Ber-wyn Heights, Md., in 2008 when law enforcement officers raided his home as part of a botched drug raid. The mayor and his mother-in-law were held at gunpoint, and officers shot and killed the mayor’s two dogs — one while it was trying to escape to safety. Calvo and his mother-in-law were innocent, yet the officers involved in the raid faced no repercussions. In fact, the local sheriff was even so bold as to say, “We’d do it again. Tonight.”

Mayor Calvo began lobbying the Maryland Legislature for reform, and succeeded in passing a bill that would bring a bit of transparency to law enforcement. It required every Mary-land police agency with a SWAT team to periodically issue a report on how many times the team was deployed, whether shots were fired, the nature of the alleged crime, etc. It did not enact any restrictions on law enforce-ment activity, yet it was opposed by every police organization in the state. Still, it passed. Crisis paved the path for reform.

This story is important because

a similar situation is unfolding in Ferguson, Mo. 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police, sparking riots and protests in the small city. The conflict has signifi-cantly escalated, and peaceful pro-testers and reporters alike are being targeted and arrested by police offi-cers —some of whom want to shield their activity from public scrutiny. Ferguson residents are rightly con-cerned about the justice surrounding Brown’s death, but Americans else-where have become interested pri-marily because of the heavy-handed response on the part of law enforce-ment officers.

After the proverbial (and literal) smoke clears, what will follow? As tragic as Brown’s shooting is, it’s not unique — people are harmed and killed every day by law enforcement officers. There is hope, however, that his death can serve as a catalyst for important reform.

That’s what happened in Utah. The shootout between Matthew David Stewart and police officers over a few marijuana plants in early 2012 turned

the state into “a hotbed for police reform.” As in Calvo’s case, the Utah Legislature overwhelmingly approved a transparency bill — an even stronger one than Maryland’s — that will help inform policymakers regarding the level of force being utilized around the state. But Utah went further, passing other legislation that included actual restrictions on the use of force by police officers.

Maryland and Utah are not unique. Crisis in Ferguson can also pave a path for reform for Missouri, if reasonable minds can come together to promote systemic changes that can help pro-tect civil liberties while appropriately restraining law enforcement activity. Gov. Jay Nixon recently said that he’s “committed to making sure the forces of peace and justice prevail.” He can’t do it alone, nor should concerned citizens wait for his lead. Brown’s memory can best be honored not by angry protest, but by substantive political change.

Connor Boyack is president of Libertas Institute, a libertarian think tank in Utah.

It could have happened anywhere. We just didn’t want it to be here, in this town I love so much. This is the place that nurtured my children into adults who are unafraid of diversity. Here I have known care from people of color as well as from those who are white like me. It is where we cook out with neighbors, soak up crowds at a dynamite farmers market, bring people from all over to our wine bar, microbrewery, concerts, parades and the annual Twilight 20k run.

To those of you who think I live in hell, I don’t. I don’t imagine a place I’d be happier than I am here. To those of you who have called in concern for my safety, thank you. I love you for it. However, I am just fine — except, of course, for the turmoil in my heart. The destruction sickens me. To see the television news vans in front of my favorite Office Depot, the skeleton of a QuikTrip I’ve patronized, “closed” signs on business doors, looters roaming the streets — these things are really, really hard.

Even more difficult, however, is the struggle with our truths. It is time for us to be accountable to our collective conscience, too — not just that of Ferguson and the St. Louis metropolitan area, but the world’s conscience and my own, too. We can-not disown these events by saying the looters come from outside our city limits, as though none of the anger came from here. We cannot blame the speak-ers who come from out of town for increasing the tension either. This, too, belongs to us.

The statistics don’t lie. We do have a mainly white police force. Of course, that’s something we can explain away, too: It is enormously challeng-ing to recruit black police officers, as any police chief in the metropolitan area can tell you. On the other hand, if a boy has been questioned when seen riding a new bicycle or a girl harassed for being in the wrong neighborhood, how likely is that young person to want to be a cop when he or she grows up? I have seen the traffic courtrooms filled with black defendants and white lawyers, certainly in Ferguson but also in every other municipal court I have ever visited.

The questions don’t get easier: What are these young people telling us with their pants dropped down like those of prisoners? Why is it that girls come to school in clothes we wouldn’t let our daughters wear? What is it like to have adults assume you have no potential to succeed? How does

it feel to have the secu-rity guards follow you when you go shopping? What do you think about a school board that terminates your black superintendent without explanation under the cover of the privacy of personnel decisions? How does the Trayvon Martin story strike a teenager who is regarded with suspicion any time he shows up where his profile “doesn’t fit the neighborhood”?

What is it like to know that to some white folk, at least, you are just “one of those people”? How is it to always be told that someone else knows better than you what is best for you? Or worse yet, to have people look past you as if you were not there. Even after the prayer vigils, many leaders pray their pas-sionate prayers, then walk away without speaking once to the very protesters for whom they advocate.

We cannot delude ourselves that people of color are unaware of the white people who think all black people are lazy and want something for nothing, that others actually think everyone who protests should be shot, that many, many of us look at our television sets and see only unruly mobs, not angry, hurting people who don’t know how else to be heard. Do you imagine that our racist remarks go unheard in the black community?

I don’t know what to do. I watch the news, read the paper, listen to NPR and pace the floor. Is there any hope anywhere? Possibly there is in this: We are awake now. This wonderful, wonderful Ferguson in which I live was possibly the first town in all the metropolitan area to directly address racial issues with its formation many years ago of the organiza-tion, PROUD, People Reaching Out for Unity and Diversity. More recently, we are being inspired by FYI, the Ferguson Youth Initiative, which provides opportunities for young people to learn, grow and serve together in the community and diverts first-time minor offenders by offering them community service.

Ferguson is resilient. We can find in these events the lessons we need to learn and, if we learn them well, we can again move forward into the unique, hospitable community we have always aspired to be. But we do have to listen. To look at one another as human beings with hearts and souls like ours. To actually hear the voices of those who come from a different place. To let ourselves be taught. The les-son belongs not only to the city of Ferguson and its police, but to all of us everywhere.

We didn’t want this to happen here, not at all. Still, perhaps it can be our opportunity to lead oth-ers toward a better future, perhaps even the begin-ning of a new song for our tired, stressed-out old world.

Carla Fletcher is as a retired Disciples of Christ pastor and longtime Ferguson resident.

John McDonald of Ferguson says, “Hopefully, one of the lessons learned from this tragedy is that different races simply living in the same area is not integration. An integrated society is one in which the interdependence of the residents provides strength and vitality.”

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Cristina Fletes-Boutte • cfletes-boutte@post-dispatch.comA chain link fence surrounds the burned out QuickTrip on West Florissant Avenue.

Other views

Connor BoyaCk

by CArlA FletCher

Law enforcement • Examples of heavy-handed policing have led to legislative changes in other states.

Shooting aftermath • a resilient city ‘can find in these events the lessons

we need to learn.’

After Ferguson, an opportunity for reform

A Ferguson resident reflects

To the best of my knowledge, I never met Michael Brown, but I knew him well. That’s to say that I know his world and all that he was up against.

Back in the day, my barber worked at two shops on West Florissant Ave-nue. The QuikTrip that was burned down in protest is around the corner from my grandmother’s home of the past two decades. When I visit her, I always make a point to fill up at the QuikTrip because the gas is usually a few pennies cheaper than at the gas stations right off the interstate, and their fountain drinks are cheap in the summer. A few doors up is North-land Chop Suey, one of my favorite Chinese restaurants. Growing up, my mother worked for the Northwoods Police Department under Mayor Charlie Dooley, the current St. Louis County executive.

At 18 when he died, Michael Brown is the same age as my brother. Also, like my brother, Brown was scheduled to start college this month; the Mon-day after his death would have been his first day in trade school. Brown graduated from Normandy High School, the longtime rival of my alma mater, University City Senior High School. One time my best friend, Lawrence, and I braved enemy terri-tory for a concert at Normandy and to meet Outkast backstage.

I also had my share of casual and potentially fatal run-ins with police

in North County. In high school and college, my friends and I used to hang out at O’Fallon Park and cruise around north city and county. It was a popular spot then, and trouble occasionally broke out. In order to gain entry to the park, we submit-ted to police pat-downs and vehicle searches. Police summoned us at their whim. Once, a police officer called me over to his patrol, maybe 100 yards away, to inspect the can of Arizona tea — the same brand Trayvon Martin had bought before he was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch vol-unteer — presumably to make sure I, a minor at the time, wasn’t sipping on a tallboy of brew.

At the time, I thought if the cop was curious about the contents of my bev-erage, he should have approached me instead of making me walk halfway up the street just to avoid getting up off his ass. But we were more happy to forgo a few of our civil liberties to listen to music and look at girls, and the police knew it.

Another time, after a fight broke out at a party I attended near UMSL, a police officer summoned me to his squad car because the color of my shirt matched the color of the shirt of the alleged instigator of the fight. I wasn’t scared at the time, but in light of recent events, it occurs to me that one wrong, sudden move could have been the end of me.

The night of the Ferguson protests, after I called to check on my grand-mother, a friend who is white and was also following the news sent a message on Facebook that said she worried about me because I am a black man in Mississippi and reporter covering things that powerful people would rather I did not write about.

I don’t worry about these things. I can’t. And it’s not because I am fear-less, but because, like most black men in this country, I resigned myself long ago to the fact that I could be killed at any time. Every set of flashing lights in my rearview mirror, every time a sheriff’s deputy arrives at my home for a false burglary alarm is a chance for a cop to blow me away.

I have the personal cell phone numbers of Jackson’s mayor, chief of police and the local sheriff, but I do not operate under the assumption that any of that means a cop or any-one else couldn’t take my life when-ever they feel like it.

Some might disagree, but I consider my outlook to be liberating especially for a journalist.

After all, if a quick trip to the store could mean the end of one’s life, what more is there left to fear?

R.L. Nave is a reporter for the Jackson Free Press, where a version of this column first appeared.

r.L. nave

Reporter’s take • Most black men resign themselves to the fact they could be killed at any time.

I know Michael Brown’s world

The Killing of Michael Brown

to those of you who think i live in hell, i don’t. i don’t imagine a place i’d be happier than i am here. to those of you who have called in concern for my safety, thank you.