On August 9th, after smoking marijuana, an 18 year-old Black, Michael Brown, and his friend, Dorian Johnson, 22, robbed a convenience store in Ferguson, a predominantly black suburb of St. Louis, MO. A security camera in the store captured Brown stealing a box of cigars and then getting physical with the shop-keeper, pushing him into a display case. Such an afternoon does not seem out of character for these two young gentlemen.
Michael Brown was a product of teenage parents, his mother and father being 16 and 18 at the time of his birth, respectively. He was raised by a mother and stepfather. He socialized with gangs, played video games, and dabbled in drugs, not uncommon activities for a black lower-class North County teen. “He had taken to rapping in recent months, producing lyrics that were by turns contemplative and vulgar. He got into at least one scuffle with a neighbor,” reports the New York Times. He barely “overcame early struggles in school to graduate on time” – quite an achievement given that in America, only 67% Black students finishes high school on time. Once on summer vacation, rather than taking a menial part-time job at the local Walmart, Brown instead preferred smoking pot and robbing local convenience stores.
Johnson, Brown’s accomplice and subsequently the primary eyewitness to his shooting, has a noteworthy background in his own right. Currently, Johnson is wanted in Jefferson City, MO, on a 2011 theft charge. He is also being prosecuted for filing a false police report that same year. Johnson allegedly gave a bogus name and age to investigators in the case. Keeping in mind that Johnson is in the habit of lying to authorities, he is nevertheless trusted by the rioting crowds, their sympathizers, the leftist media and, most importantly, by Brown’s attorney.
Now, back to the story. After the shopkeeper was robbed, he called the police, and police officer Darren Wilson was dispatched. Meanwhile, Brown and his friend were walking down a street – or rather, in the middle of a street, to be more precise – when Darren Wilson intercepted them and told them to get on the sidewalk. The young men ignored the order. What happened next is unclear. The versions greatly diverge here – ranging from the testimony given by Johnson, who was hiding behind the police car at the crucial moment, to bystanders, and finally Officer Wilson himself. I tend to believe the following sequence of events, as put forth by Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson. As the officer started to get out of the car to question the two young men, they shoved him back in and Brown started beating the officer. Wilson tried to pull Brown into the squad car.
In response, Brown physically assaulted the officer, punched his face, and began struggling with him for his gun. Now imagine for a second – a 6-foot-4, 292-pound man (which are exactly Brown’s parameters) beating a police officer, a medium-sized man. The officer was nearly beaten unconscious and was left with severe facial injures including a bone fracture near one eye. Brown refused to get into the squad car and instead started to run away, which prompted the officer to draw his gun and order Brown to raise his hands. Brown refused to follow the order and instead started putting down his arm. The police officer was unaware whether Brown had a gun on him or not. Keep in mind that the young gentleman was high and had recently physically engaged with a shopkeeper just minutes before the encounter with the police. When Brown charged Officer Wilson, the officer unleashed a torrent of bullets to stop the apparent threat.
The shooting angered the predominantly Black community and sparked three nights of violent protests. The riots were generally driven by mass sentiments that could be boiled down to “racist White cops just killed another innocent unarmed black teenager!” Such sentiment was immediately followed by the idea that “racist Whites are discriminating and harassing us poor, honest people of color.” The crowds broke store windows, looted, vandalized, and set fire to buildings. The angry people also taunted police and assaulted journalists. More than three-dozen people have been arrested. In other words, to protest their unfair treatment at the hands of racist White cops, Blacks spent several days destroying the very businesses that serve their community. While this was transpiring, official Black spokespeople publically insisted that White policemen view poor Blacks as potential criminals for no reason. Ironically, many felt that the best way to prove how unfairly discriminated against they were, was with arson and vandalism. It also bears mentioning that the overwhelming majority of the protesters were not Ferguson locals – they came from the nearby towns to “support” their neighbors. If only those people were similarly passionate about working or at least finding a job.
A scenario where a white policeman injures or kills a black man (“for no reason”) with a series of violent riots that follows is not unique. In fact, examples are worldwide and abound.
LA Riots 1992
Rodney King, a black multiple convict and crackhead was stopped and beaten by the Los Angeles police, which resulted in days-long public unrest and millions of dollars damages to local businesses.
March 3rd, 1991, Mr. King is driving his car with two passengers around LA. The Police attempted to pull him over for speeding. Instead, King stomped the gas pedal to avoid arrest for driving while intoxicated. During the chase he reached speeds as high as 115 miles per hour. The police chased him, forced his car to the side of the road and ordered him to get out. King resisted, and the policemen started beating him. Besides being drunk, King was likely under some drug, because he was giggling at the policemen while they tried to handcuff him. At that point some passersby pulled out his video camera and started videotaping the scene of the beating. The video got spread across national TV-channels and provoked an immediate reaction. The mixed race jury found the officers not guilty in an 8-2 verdict. Soon thereafter, the locals, mostly Black, began rioting. 53 people died during the uprising, over 2,000 were injured, while damages to private property exceeded $1 billion.
Poor oppressed Rodney, who was beaten by cops for no reason in the middle of the road, got $3.8 million in compensation, money that he immediately wasted on drugs and alcohol. In between his stays in rehabs, poor oppressed Rodney repeatedly got involved into multiple car accidents. Once, while drunk, he drove over his wife, another time he crashed his car into his own house breaking his tailbone. Another time he engaged in a hit and run. Ultimately, King drowned in his own swimming pool, or maybe was murdered by his fiancé; it’s unclear.
Oakland Riots 2009
A wave of riots engulfed Oakland, California, in 2009, after a white policeman shot and killed Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old unarmed Black man. On January 1st, 2009, following “a night of celebrating New Year’s Eve in San Francisco,” Mr. Grant traveled on the BART back to the East Bay. In response to reports of fighting on a BART train, police detained Oscar Grant and a few other passengers at Fruitvale Station. Grant resisted arrest and “appeared to be moving one arm toward the waistband of his pants,” prompting Officer Mehserle to decide to subdue him with a Taser. The officer instead accidentally drew his pistol, fatally shooting Mr. Grant with a single bullet.
Following the death, Oakland erupted with riots. “Rioters, some dressed in black and wearing black masks, smashed shop and car windows, helped themselves to goods ranging from jewelry to groceries and trainers, and attacked police lines. Journalists were also attacked,” the Guardian reports. As many as a thousand rioters descended on downtown Oakland, raiding Foot Locker, a jewelry store, a pawn shop, a beauty shop, a Sears store, a Subway sandwich shop, and a Whole Foods store. More than 100 people were arrested during the riots. The angry, mostly Black mob, raged, accusing the police of racism, mass incarceration, and brutality.
The liberal press unanimously depicted Oscar as the most innocent and kind young man with a bright outlook. As a boy, he would “open up in prayer in front of the congregation,” recalled Oscar’s mother. “He took pleasure in helping people in small ways.” He wanted to become a barber. “He just wanted to change his whole life,” said Grant’s girlfriend, also a mother of his 4-year-old daughter. As an aside, again we see a pattern of unmarried, teenage parents. And as in other cases: another innocent Black life ended by a racist White cop. An angel, deprived of everything – of his life, of his family, of his dear dream to become a barber. Understandable that the rioters were chanting “Justice for Oscar!”
Consider a few other choice moments from Oscar’s biography, which again have been painstakingly ignored by liberal journalists, that might explain how and why he found himself handcuffed face down on a BART platform.
Oscar Grant was born to a single mother, because his father was already in jail serving a life sentence for murder. Grant dropped out of high school and was arrested five times between age 18 and his death, records show, spending a total of nearly two years behind bars. In 2006, Grant was stopped by the police while illegally carrying a loaded handgun. Grant turned to flee, but the officers used their Taser to stop him. Despite being tased, he still required a kick to subdue when he refused to put his hands behind his back. Witnesses on a train before the fatal shooting said Grant had been in an altercation, described as either a scuffle or a fight, over little more than pride – with another Black man, whom prosecutors identified as David Horowitch, a man that had once served time with Grant.
London Riots 2011
North of London, August 4th, 2011. Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old black drug dealer and a senior member of Tottenham Man Dem gang (which traded in violence, intimidation, and drugs) collected a BBM Bruni model 92 blank-firing replica handgun from Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, another drug dealer. He got into a minicab and headed back to Tottenham. Police started to chase him. Duggan’s cab was pulled over. Refusing to obey the police officers, Duggan attempted to escape and pulled the gun from his sock. The police officers shot and killed him. “What an appalling example of racism and police brutality! Those bloody Whites have apparently declared open season on Black men!” cried the crowd in the aftermath. Might not some context regarding the innocent “peacemaker” Mark Duggan help? Eight years before his death, Duggan was repeatedly arrested for a range of serious crimes, including murder, attempted murder, and a range of firearms offences. The gangster was said to have shot a reveler in a crowded nightclub on Christmas 2010, and fired shots in a car park outside a club in February the following year. Quite a typical English gentleman, isn’t he? Somehow, commentators thoroughly ignore these facts.
Duggan’s death sparked several days of riots in London and across much of the UK. The rioters blamed the state authorities for institutionalization of racism and decried the brutality of Scotland Yard. The angry predominantly Black mob set buildings on fire, threw bottles at patrol police cars and then set them alight. Angry crowds looted local stores, pushing trolleys full of goods – “They owe us! They are racist and believe we are prone to violence!” In the end, more than 500 people were arrested, at least 111 police officers were injured, a 68-year-old man was killed when trying to prevent the violent outbreak, and several buildings were burned to the ground.
Riots in East Flatbush, Brooklyn 2013
Kimani Gray, a 16-year old Black (also known as Kiki), was shot dead in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, on March 10, 2013. Walking back home from a party, he separated himself from a group of other young men to allegedly adjust his waistband and was stopped by two undercover police officers. In response to the officer’s remarks, the teenager turned and pointed a .38 Special Röhm revolver at them. The officers fired and fatally injured the man. Following the standard pattern, Gray’s death ignited violent clashes with angry protesters in East Flatbush. The Flatbush residents, predominantly of Jamaican and Afro-Carribean descent, marched on the streets tossing bottles at cops and looting local businesses for four subsequent days. The Church Farm Market was ransacked by a mob that stole money and destroyed produce. At U Farm Land, CBS New York reported that, “produce was thrown and $1,000 from the register and flowers were taken,” a Rite Aid was looted, and at least 46 people were arrested. The shooting again was clearly an assault by “racist policemen” on an innocent, unarmed young man of color. Actually, despite his young age, Kiki had already scored a notable criminal record, including charges for breaking into a car, possession of stolen property, grand larceny, and rioting.
Additionally, Gray was a member of the infamous Bloods, a dominant gang in Brooklyn. “He didn’t have no gun,” said Mark King, a witness who also lives on Kimani’s block. “The cops planted a gun on him.” Yeah, right. It was out of question that the revolver was recovered from the scene. Additionally, the officers were themselves minorities. One was a dark-skinned Egyptian, who identified himself as Black, and the other was Hispanic.
Conclusion
By and large, all the earlier riots carry one and the same quintessential edifice: “racist Whites are harassing us, people of color.” Sharing their sentiments, the progressive media complains how America is cruel and unjust towards its minorities. The dominant left-liberal interpretation can be paraphrased to the following: “White America bears infinite guilt for prior discrimination and enslavement of its minorities. Even today, when people of color have finally found some peace, once they step outdoors they immediately risk being gunned downed by the Wilsons and Zimmermans of America.”
The picture that the preceding anecdotes paint, however, is not that White cops are waging a racist war against Black men. The problem remains: people who fail to integrate into a modern civilized society, who fail to even take steps towards such a goal through honest work and respect of the law. To make matters worse, such an indolent lifestyle is encouraged by the state itself. The state disincentivizes work, discourages stable two-parent households, and tries to use public schools as a replacement for effective parenting. Unfortunately, the people most affected by these policies are the Black and Hispanic underclass.
The preceding should not be seen as attempt to completely exonerate the American police from the excesses well-documented by Radley Balko. The American police clearly suffer from a competence problem. Three of the more common types of accidental killings by policemen occur from either poor judgment, poor gunhandling skill, or poor marksmanship. Almost weekly we see nervous cops shooting people making “furtive movements” aka reaching for their cellphone, wallet, keys, or ID card. Also, as in the Oscar Grant shooting, officers drawing their service weapon rather than their Taser have fatally shot suspects on multiple occasions. Finally, police marksmanship is abysmal. Recall the recent shooting at the Empire State Building, during which the police accidentally shot and wounded 9 people while trying to stop one armed individual.
Looking back at the Michael Brown riots, even if you view them as a righteous response to police brutality, what is next for Ferguson? It brought about irreversible damage to numerous local businesses, whose owners are most likely to flee the area and settle in safer neighborhoods. The remaining shops will likely raise their prices to compensate for the risk of operating in such a climate, making matters even worse for the locals. The remaining Whites of Ferguson who see the handwriting on the wall will move away. The consequences of the demographic replacement of Whites by Blacks can be explicitly seen by “thriving” examples such as Detroit, Gary, Birmingham, Newark, and Camden.
Lastly, instead of breaking negative stereotypes by having civil protests, waiting until evidence is gathered,and respecting the rule of law, Ferguson residents have rioted, proclaimed the guilt of Officer Wilson, and threatened further insurrection should Wilson’s Grand Jury return an unfavorable ruling. Thus by their own actions, the rioting Blacks of Ferguson are only boosting their stereotype as uncivilized brutes.
A good, and balanced, summary of the situation. It’s always nice to have reference materials like this once details are known.
typo in london riots “revelver” instead of “revolver”
good article though