Five years since PO Darren Wilson did his job and an entire community was punished for it
/Five years since PO Darren Wilson did his job and an entire community was punished for it
By Kirk Lawless
It’s been five years since Michael Brown made the bad choices that led to his death.
The media across the country weighed in on the shooting and so many were quick to condemn a police officer for doing his job. They ran with the “Hands up don’t shoot” mantra, which was proved to be a lie, but the damage was set in motion. And just as Nero played his fiddle while Rome burned, Ferguson too was to become a conflagration that only Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego would find comfortable.
There were others to blame for the “unrest,” later referred to as “The Ferguson Effect” (soft words really, used as justification for anarchy, rioting, looting, mayhem, and violence, lots of violence). Blood would be spilled in the name of “Justice” for a criminal who was killed by a police officer.
The media fanned the flames locally, nationally and internationally. Then President Barack Obama weighed in on it before the facts were in. Attorney General Eric Holder weighed in on it before the facts were in also and elected to inject himself into the situation, coming to Ferguson, bringing a team of agents to ensure that “justice” was meted out.
The president didn’t get personally involved in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, killed on 15 December 2010, by a criminal wielding an illegal weapon. That weapon, an AK-47 style rifle, was traced to Operation Fast and Furious under the supposed watching eye of AG Eric Holder. Holder, arguably, had direct knowledge of the operation that allowed illegal weapons to leave the United States only to be purchased by folks across the border and ultimately be used against American law enforcement officers.
In my opinion, when Holder came to Ferguson, he had the blood of Agent Brian Terry on his hands and it was still wet. He should have stayed in Washington and investigated and prosecuted himself.
Al Sharpton smelled money, cameras and microphones and decided to come as well, but savvy community folks ran him out of town almost as soon as he arrived.
Michael Brown was no Emmett Till. This was not 1955. This happened in 2014 and it was as close to Emmett Till as anybody was going to get. Unfortunately the narrative was not even close but it was close enough to get the party started and it got started quickly.
The notion was the police were the enemy; more precisely the “white” police were the enemy, the enemy of black folks. Non-white cops were just as bad, if not worse, labeled as race traitors and Uncle Toms. The narrative was that white cops were just “willy-nilly” shooting and killing unarmed black kids.
The media poured in and set up their circus tents. Professional agitators were bused in to do their dirt and they were good at it. Several blocks on two borders of Ferguson were made to look like the Gaza Strip sans RPGs.
While all of this was taking place, the Ferguson cops and cops from outlying agencies donned riot gear and descended on the area in an attempt to keep the peace. The agitators looked at it as though the cops were coming in to beat the asses of everyone on the streets. Not the case. Believe it or not, the police were there in force to ensure the folks’ right to protest was unhindered. You can protest all you want. It’s your right to protest. But as everyone saw, the right to protest turned into mayhem and provided an opportunity to loot and burn, and assault the police officers (and anyone else who presented themselves to be a worthy target).
The media referred to it as “acting out,” citing the frustration of a portion of the protesters who could only show their frustration for the “injustice” by stealing hair products, tennis shoes, cash registers and car rims. Soon, they had stolen what they could from local convenience stores, including the one where Michael Brown started making his bad choices. When there was nothing left to steal, the buildings were set on fire.
So, “Black Lives Matter.” I understand that. I believe that. As a long-time police officer from that area, I believe that all lives are precious and matter. Hell, I signed up to make sure I could protect those lives, no matter what race they were.
I question the BLM folks who chanted their motto incessantly while setting fire to a convenience store where a young black man was working and who barely escaped being burned to death after his store was torched and he was trapped in a back room.
Just this past week, more than a dozen young black children were murdered, shot to death for no reason. Pretty sure their lives mattered. They mattered to me. They mattered to the cops who tried to save them and the cops who had to tell the parents that their babies were dead. So “Black Lives Matter” what do you do now? These children were gunned downed in their own neighborhoods and they weren’t marked for execution by the police. The cops weren’t pulling the triggers. Where are the protests for these murders?
How about “Hands up, don’t shoot” because I’m a little kid riding my bike down the street and having fun before school starts, or “Hands up, don’t shoot” because I am in my bed doing my homework. “Hands up, don’t shoot,” because I’m a little old grandma sitting on my front porch on a summer evening, not bothering anybody. “Hands up, don’t shoot,” because we’re senior citizens on our way to church and don’t kill us because you want to steal our car. You can have the car, but you’re going to kill us anyway? “Hands up, don’t shoot,” because you have the gun and are the predator, and I’m the prey, and we have the same skin color, and why exactly are you doing this to me, or anyone for that matter?
So, with Ferguson in flames in 2014, the BLM folks, The “New Black Panther Party” and a host of community “activists” marched arm-in-arm with a Missouri Highway Patrol captain, as what, a sign of solidarity? Just because you put the word “New” in front of a hate group, it doesn’t make them less of a hate group.
Had Chief Tom Jackson marched arm- in-arm with a group of Klansmen or neo-Nazis, the flames we saw during the “unrest” would have looked like a Girl Scout campfire compared to the inferno such an act would have ignited.
And while the peaceful protesters exercised their right to protest under the watchful eyes of the police, the agitators and criminals took pot shots at the police from behind a wall of peaceful protesters, and lots of women and children.
An officer from another agency sent to provide support was shot in the face by a coward who fired on the police line while using women and children as his shield. That’s what is known as a coward. This young officer nearly died and eventually lost his job as a result of his injuries so, “Hands up, don’t shoot” because I’m out here to protect the peaceful protesters, because it’s their right to protest.
Another officer from SLMPD with whom I attended the police academy got hit in the head by a 16-ounce bottle of frozen water thrown by another coward from a third-floor window, leaving him blind in one eye and having to rehab for several months while convalescing from a TBI and learning how to walk and talk again so, “Hands up, don’t hit me in the head with a one-pound projectile, damn near killing me.”
While fending off a group of “protesters” and severely outnumbered at a local gas station, one of my former partners was injured when one of the cowards threw an explosive device at him. Had it not been so primitive, he could have lost his leg or been killed, so “Hands up, don’t throw bombs at me while I’m protecting someone’s property from theft and vandalism.”
Meanwhile on this five-year anniversary, the St Louis Post-Dispatch ran the front-page headline “A Time To Remember,” the top story was devoted to Michael Brown. Five years later and the media still portrays him as a victim, the person ultimately responsible for his own death.
On her official Twitter page, Elizabeth Warren posted, “5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael was unarmed yet he was shot 6 times. I stand with activists and organizers who continue the fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systematic racism and police violence head on.”
(Apparently she, like many others, choose to ignore factual data and would like to violate the rule of law by attempting to refile a case, already adjudicated)
Later the same week, while on the road traveling through Memphis, Tennessee, on a nameless street corner, I saw one of Louis Farrakhan’s boys hawking copies of the Nation of Islam newspaper “Final Call.” The headline was “White Terror.” I tried to flag him over to get a copy, but I guess he didn’t hear me, or maybe he assumed I was part of the “White Terror?”
Is it just me, or are folks spoiling for a race war based on a lie, and the first targets will be the cops on the front line?
