Among the many things that protest organizers in Ferguson, MO, are not anticipating is an indictment of Police Officer Darren Wilson. Had he not been a cop, he would have been indicted by close of business the day after Michael Brown was killed. But he is a cop. And he wasn’t indicted. And he won’t be. And everyone knows it.
While the rest of us have gotten back to our regular routine, protests continue in Ferguson without 24/7 cable TV news coverage. On the 100th day, protesters conducted a “die in.” It was a dramatic representation, but most of us were too busy contemplating the utility of Kim Kardashian’s butt to pay attention. Life goes on.
But the announcement that the grand jury will “no true bill” Darren Wilson will be coming soon, and those who have not forsaken either the killing of Michael Brown or the opportunity to use his death as part of a broader protest of the dehumanization of young black men by police are preparing for it.
Several dozen people gathered in a dim church basement here on Thursday night to share plans for what to do if a grand jury chooses not to indict the white police officer who shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black youth, three months ago. Among their ideas was to descend in large numbers on the nearby county seat of Clayton at 7 a.m. on the day after the grand jury’s announcement to snarl business.
[W]ith the grand jury’s decision expected in the coming days, the groups are preparing with intricate precision to protest the no-indictment vote most consider inevitable. Organizers are outlining “rules of engagement” for dealing with the police, circulating long lists of equipment, including bandages and shatterproof goggles, and establishing “safe spaces” where protesters can escape the cold — or the tear gas.
There is nothing new about protests being organized. The Sons of Liberty were nothing if not well organized. But this “disparate group” has crafted curious rules of engagement.
1) The first priority shall be preservation of human life.
2) Channels of communication will be established so that situations can be de-escalated if necessary.
3) Police will give protesters 48 hour advance notice before grand jury decision is announced.
4) Police will provide to the public information that makes clear the chain of command, who is making what decisions and the processes for deciding when the police response will be escalated.
5) Every attempt should be made to communicate with protesters to reach “common sense” agreements based on these protocols, both ahead of time and at the scene of protests.
6) Clear standards of professionalism and sound community friendly-policing [sic] will be maintained and adhered to at all times.
7) Police will wear only the attire minimally required for their safety. Specialized riot gear will be avoided except as a last resort.
8) Crowd control equipment such as armored vehicles, rubber bullets, rifles and tear gas will not be used.
9) Police or other government authorities will not interfere with the free flow of information through tactics such as limiting cell or internet access, interception of cell or other mobile conversations or unwarranted wiretaps.
10) Every attempt will be made to pinpoint arrests so that only individual lawbreakers will be arrested. “Kettling” and mass arrests will not be used.
11) Safe houses shall be considered sacred ground and only entered by police when called upon or if extremely necessary.
12) Media and Legal Observers shall not be considered participants n protests and shall be allowed to do their jobs freely.
13) Every attempt will be made to provide alternate routes or other means for non-involved persons to get to places of employment and meet other transportation necessities.
14) Strategically, police commanders will allow protests to take and occupy larger and more disruptive spaces than would normally be tolerated, and will allow occupation of those spaces for longer periods of time than would normally be tolerated.
15) Police will be instructed to be tolerant of more minor lawbreaking (such as thrown water bottles) when deciding whether to escalate the use of force.
16) Police rank and file will be instructed to provide every latitude to allow for free assembly and expression, treating protesters as citizens and not “enemy combatants.
17) Excessive force and other forms of police misconduct will not be tolerated.
18) Intimidation and harassment of protesters will not be tolerated. This includes pretextual pedestrian or traffic stops, contacting of employers or family members, pre-emptive arrests or detention of “leaders,” publishing of private information and any other means of intimidation and harassment.
19) Bond for arrestees will not be set above the levels which would be considered average over the last two years, and arrestees will not be held for periods longer than average lengths of time. Medical care will be liberally made available. Attorneys will be able to travel to and meet with clients without impediments.
On the one hand, these rules aren’t exactly “professionally drafted,” but then, this is a protest. Rules shouldn’t be too slick. Indeed, the predicate question is whether there should be rules at all?
Surely no one wants to see more people harmed, or arrested, for the exercise of their right to protest. Many in this country are all for protest, provided it’s done in a manner consistent with their belief in order. Disorderly protesters are criminals and hooligans. Protesters who get along with the police and comply happily with their commands are the sort of protesters people prefer. The protest organizers in Ferguson realize this.
At the meeting here, Derek Laney, an organizer for a group called Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, drew a fine line on the question of how far to go. He said the protesters wanted to be peaceful, but they also wanted to rouse the community.
Mr. Laney said: “We want to appear strong and forceful because we believe in what we’re pursuing. But we also definitely want everyone to know we’re committed to nonviolence. We want to disrupt. We want to make the comfortable uncomfortable.”
It’s unclear how much discomfort can be caused when everyone is playing by an agreed set of rules. My personal favorite rule of engagement is number 17, “excessive force and other forms of police misconduct will not be tolerated.” Or what? Isn’t that what got them into this mess in the first place? If only there were rules. Oh wait, there were. That’s the problem.
Update: In anticipation of the decision by the grand jury, Gov. Jay Nixon has declared a state of emergency in advance.
The emergency order effectively puts the St. Louis County Police Department in charge of protests and civil unrest in the city of Ferguson. It also establishes a “unified command” — made up of county, city and state highway police — intended “to keep members of the public safe and protect property, while allowing citizens to exercise their constitutional rights,” the governor’s office said.
Mr. Nixon also authorized the state’s top National Guard officer to “call and order into active service such portions of the organized militia as he deems necessary to protect life and property and assist civilian authorities.”
On Sunday, protest leaders in St. Louis were advising crowds where to go and what to do to ensure that if violence occurs, police will be seen as instigating it, which organizers say will strengthen the protesters’ validity.
There will be rules. They may not be the protestors’ rules, but there will be rules.
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The idea that the “Rules of Engagement” would even be accepted by the cops speaks of level of entitlement that borders on disconnected from reality.
Clearly, listicles can be awesome. It’s weirdly compelling to see a piece of rhetoric disintegrate like that. Almost like a slo-mo effect.
I like the interplay of 13 and 14. The protest will be allowed to be more disruptive than normal, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience anybody.
Sigh. I don’t think the organizers have any illusions about how the cops will behave. After the inevitable police over-reaction, the organizers will hold up their rules and say, “Ahem, it didn’t have to be this way. We tried to talk to everyone about making this a peaceful protest, we tried to keep lines of communication open, but the racist thugs didn’t listen.” All the items on the list check someone’s box for how a protest should happen, allowing as many groups as possible to opine on how “the cops broke our special rules.”
I suspect the police will do nothing to rekindle interest in Ferguson. The interest has waned, and they know it.
You make 2 wrong assumptions about those in charge.
1 they’re able to control the union and force the police to behave.
2 they care about what people who don’t vote for them think.
They’re all on the same page here. It’s in the department’s interest, top to bottom, to put this behind them.
Your problem is that you are a rational, intelligent person with a grasp of what’s best in the long term, and you are thus assuming that the adults are actually in charge down Ferguson way. I hope for everyone’s sake that your theory of Ferguson is correct.
My theory of Ferguson is that the adults are NOT in charge, and that if there is any way they can screw things up they’ll do it. I guess we’ll see who’s right in the next couple weeks. Kudos to Mr. Barleycorn for his comment about the weather.
With the governor’s proclamation of a state of emergency, I fear you’re right and I am very wrong.
I hope for everyone’s sake that you’re the one who’s right. I’ll take playing it loud over playing it smart any day of the week.
PSA: Ferguson weather
http://forecast.weather.gov/afm/PointClick.php?lat=38.74422&lon=-90.30539
P.S. Yup “they know it”. I got fifty says the “no bill” release correlates nicely with the next cold front. I wouldn’t be expecting it this week.
That would be fortuitous.
At 6:53 a.m the sun will rise on the banks of the Mississippi River Tuesday morning.
Tonight is forecast to be the coldest night this week.
The cop gets indicted, due to “public pressure” and/or widespread “negative publicity”. So now what? Now comes the waiting/stalling game which lasts, let’s say, a year and a half, during which time the public has cooled-off and moved onward and forward, forgetting all about,…
Now comes the trial before [highly vetted and pre-selected jurors from a narrow pool of the officer’s peers]. The trial is a typical Amerikan Kabuki dance where everything is orchestrated for the judge, jury, public and press. Voila! Cop gets exonerated by a jury of his “peers”. Everybody did his/her job according to script, and most got paid or will get paid in kind. It’s a farce and a very predictable charade. We’ve seen this movie before, and it’s not a pretty picture.
When will the Amerikan people wake up and smell the,… roses? (Not in my lifetime.)
Breaking news from the distillery:
The entire pre dawn weather forecast that was delivered by the dynamic duo from 1:30 a.m. – 1:54 a.m CST is a do not miss including the Q&A in its entirety!
Chief Jon Belmar of the St. Louis PD and Captain Ron Johnson of the MO Hwy Patrol give their take on the “inexplicable” and “unforeseeable” weather patterns of the evening.
Potentially the most colorful weather forecast I have ever witnessed.
We often don’t see these 1:30 a.m weather forecasts by the police but then again I can’t ever recall watching a prosecutor named Bob giving a “scientific” weather tutorial at 8:15 p.m. either.
Seasons Greetings…
Michael Brown is the wrong example to protest. The case facts definitely back the police
report. Anyone sticks their hand into a police car, especially if the contact has become
negative and aggressive (as admitted by Mr. Brown’s family attorney), color doesn’t matter.
There is an eyewitness recorded in secret whom states Mr. Brown charged back at the officer.
Mr. Brown was 6 foot 4 inches, 290 lbs. Come on Black America, you are losing all
your credibility pursuing this incident. If the officer was average 180 lbs that makes
Mr. Brown, 18 years (Young), nearly twice the officers weight at 290 lbs, and probably raised
in a very tough neighborhood (knows how to fight in the street), now if Mr. Brown was
disrespectful of authority (as admitted by Mr. Brown’s friend he was with) then you put yourself or any
of these protestors in the same position as the officer and Mr. Brown would still be shot dead.
Mr. Brown put the store owner in the same position, if the little store owner had a gun when Mr.
Brown raised his fist and came towards him he would have shot Mr. Brown. It is good that the video of Mr.Brown performing a strong arm robbery is available. If he hit the little store owner he could have killed him as easily. Black America its your choice, support criminals like Michael Brown and live in crime infested ghettos or back the police and allow the police to do their job to make the ghetto a better place.
Black America realize this fact: American Blacks in the Ghetto are part of the 1% when you take the worlds population into account. 350 million population of america. 15% Black, thats 3.5 million Black
Americans out of 7 billion people on the planet. If you are poor in the US you still enjoy the benefits of
the infrastructure, hospitals, running water, food, roads. A poor American lives like a king in many
poor countries. In Niger, the average pay is $3 per day, and a diet of banana and peanuts will cost you
$5 a day. They sleep on a piece of cardboard. But the thing is, Nigerians are a happy people overall.
There crime is no where near the levels found in a American ghetto, and Nigerians are not out trying to blame their problems on some other race. So why does Black America with 100 times the wealth of
Nigerians and lives much easier ( retirement begins at 49, because old Nigerians are hard to find.) complain? Why so much anger with the police for dealing with criminals? Yes they maybe your children but supporting a bad child will not make the child better or his friends or brothers any better.
By supporting Michael Brown, Black America supports crime, the bad behavior, they support attacking the police. Black America refuses to discipline their own, and by doing so they leave the discipline to the authorities, which is why people who don’t support crime pay taxes. This is not going to change no matter how much protesting happens. They can burn Ferguson to the ground and kill everyone, and tomorrow I will still pay my taxes, and those taxes will pay police and those police are going to shoot people whom attack them so they can go home to their families. Basically Protestors are delusional,
MLK had a valid point, these Ferguson protestors and Mr. Obama too, are in the wrong from the start.
PICK A BETTER EXAMPLE that MICHAEL BROWN for police brutality. Supporting Michael Brown is sending the wrong message.
We’ve been through this before. Not doing it again with each new person who shows up here.