Essentially, the fragile social order in Ferguson County, Missouri, has collapsed.
On Wednesday, amid continued protests demanding “Justice for Michael Brown” prosecutors will bring evidence before a grand jury as they determine whether to indict Brown’s killer, Officer Darren Wilson. The power to indict rests with local prosecutors and pliant grand juries, and as Jonathan Cohn has pointed out, a prosecutor will usually refrain from indicting altogether if the accused faces a low likelihood of conviction. In this case, a combination of entrenched racial and occupational biases, and most importantly the details of Missouri law, all but ensures that a conviction is off the table.
The killing of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, by a police officer, Darren Wilson, and the protests that have followed have brought about calls for the much-ballyhooed — or bemoaned, depending on your perspective — conversation about race.
I remember the stunned reaction of so many Americans back in the summer of 2005 when legions of poor black people in desperate circumstances seemed to have suddenly and inexplicably materialized in New Orleans during the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.
Despite arguments against him doing so, President Obama needs to board Air Force One and travel to Ferguson Missouri and give a clear and strong message…
Last Thursday, the rapper Nelly went on the air of his hometown hip-hop radio station, St. Louis’s Hot 104.1, to announce a college scholarship fund for local teens in honor of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old killed by a policeman earlier this month.
There is a Ferguson near you. Many pundits are saying that the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., has revealed troubling racial tensions in America.
There were numerous rumors and partially reliable reports that the country was shocked and surprised to hear of and see its police in brutal action…
At times like this, with the raging protest in Ferguson, an implication hangs in the air that these events are leading somewhere, that things are about change.
Events like the complete civic breakdown in Ferguson, Missouri, inevitably get shoved through political filters. They play out before a polarized public…
The apparent murder by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, of Mike Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black youth who was shot a number of times while he was allegedly on his knees with his hands up in the air, pleading “Don’t shoot, I’m not armed,” is exposing everything that is wrong with policing in the US today.
On Saturday a police officer shot a teenager named Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. On Sunday the world knew the teen’s name, and by Monday Ferguson was on fire.