Tag: Ferguson

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News The Fly-By

Panel Fuels Discussion on Economics, Race

CREDIT: Alexandra Pusateri

Not many panels at the University of Memphis have a security guard at the door, but apparently someone at the university thought a panel discussion on the Black Lives Matter and Show Me $15 movements warranted the extra measure.

The panel last week was the second stop on what is being called the “Freedom Tour,” a collaboration between the two movements to reach out to students on college campuses. The security officer’s services weren’t needed, as the panel remained peaceful.

“Economic oppression is very much a part of the physical violence, the structural violence, that happens to and against black people, both interracially and through state violence,” said Zandria Robinson, a sociology professor at the University of Memphis and facilitator of the event.

Alexandra Pusateri

Black Lives Matter/Show Me $15 panel

The Black Lives Matter movement rose from the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last year. The unarmed Brown was fatally shot by police, spurring a national debate about excessive police force and racial profiling, as well as an examination of the relationship between law enforcement and people of color. Protests were sparked across the country, demanding police accountability as well as demilitarization of local police.

The Show Me $15 movement emerged from fast-food industry workers in late 2012 but has grown into a nationwide movement to raise the minimum wage, encompassing other industries, including home health care and airport workers. Strikes, rallies, and sit-ins have occurred across the country — nearly 200 cities participated in protests in December.

Jeanina Jenkins, a representative of the Black Lives Matter movement from Ferguson, said the issues of the two movements intertwine. Before she got involved with organizing, she was a fast-food worker.

“It just confused me, how the system works — bring more police into the neighborhoods instead of bringing more jobs in,” Jenkins said. “You’re basically trying to come into the neighborhood like it’s a problem. The reason there’s violence is because we need jobs. We need living-wage jobs that pay $15 [an hour], and we need unions so they can protect us.”

In 1978, the federal minimum wage was set at $2.65 an hour. That minimum wage would be equivalent to $10.02 an hour today, but the current federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour — last raised in 2009. Some states have instituted a higher minimum wage, but for states like Tennessee, workers depend on the federal minimum.

“This is why crime is occurring in our city, in our country,” said Sha’Ona Coleman, a panelist and organizer with Shut It Down Memphis. “So many black and brown individuals are getting caught up in the cycle. That’s why we’re demanding $15 an hour, so that this won’t happen. We can cut all of this out in the next two generations if we were to get $15 an hour. We work just as hard as anyone else.”

Panelist Christopher Smith, organizer and Church’s Chicken employee, got involved with Show Me $15 and, once his employer found out, his hours were cut, restricting his income even further.

“I grew up in South Memphis. I sold drugs,” Smith said. “I’ve been through it all. I’m trying to make a change. I’m working every day and working hard, and I feel I deserve more. I’ve been working at Church’s Chicken for three years, and I’ve only gotten a 10-cent raise.”

Organizers asked the audience to join them on April 15th for a rally in Ferguson, which they hope will be the largest so far.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Fight or Lose

Congressional Democrats, wounded by the November midterms, are failing to capture the political energy of the youth movement that has sprung up in the wake of recent incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland, Ohio, and New York City. President Obama has met with young activists in the White House. He has gone on television to endorse peaceful protests and has spoken of his personal discontent with the “deep unfairness” in how the grand jury process can be manipulated by prosecutors to favor police. But the president, even the first black president, can only do so much.

It is up to Congress to address the cancerous distrust that young people and minorities harbor for the criminal justice system. Only Congress can bring the nation’s attention to high alert with public hearings and legislation to repair a broken judicial structure.

The Congressional Black Caucus has called for hearings on the shooting death of Michael Brown. But it will be up to the House Republican majority to call the hearings and set the agenda.

Speaker John Boehner and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers have said they are “absolutely” open to hearings on the death of Eric Garner, a New York man choked by police as he was arrested for selling cigarettes. Boehner told reporters the deaths of Brown and Garner are “serious tragedies.”

But Boehner’s base voters — older, white Southern conservatives in particular — are reflexively quick to defend all police and are therefore likely to resist him if he allows hearings to take place. Unyielding pressure from House Democrats will be needed to force the Speaker’s hand.

The same dynamic is also now coming into play around Obamacare.

The incoming Republican majority on Capitol Hill is looking for ways to dismantle the law. It is clear who will get hurt if that happens. Before the Affordable Care Act took effect, 28 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 lacked health insurance, as did 10 percent of children under 18. Those young Americans are looking to the Democrats to replicate the fury of the Tea Party caucus on the far right and become loud, unabashed advocates for the success of national health care.

President Obama can talk about the success of Obamacare, specifically the 25 percent drop in the total number of Americans without insurance. He can veto efforts to defund and repeal the health-care act. But it will be up to Democrats on Capitol Hill to wage the day-to-day fight and open eyes to the benefits of a program that is lagging in polls because of unyielding attacks from the GOP.

Don’t expect to see Senate Democrats make the fight. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is already blaming Obamacare for the party’s declining fortunes in Congressional races. The liberal heart of the party is going to have to find its blood, its passion in the House.

On both fronts — the police killings and health care — the central political audience is young America, the voting base that will determine Democrats’ fortunes in 2016 and beyond. Almost a quarter of the U.S. population is under the age of 18. Another 36 percent of Americans are between the ages of 18 and 44. And these groups are filled with minorities, immigrants, and children of immigrants, as well as a disproportionate share of college graduates and single women of all races.

Congressional Democrats gave those voters little reason to go to the polls in 2014. No one on Capitol Hill was standing up for their agenda. As a result, exit polls from this year’s midterms gave Democrats only an 11-percentage-point edge over Republicans among 18 to 29 year olds and a mere 3-point edge among 30 to 44 year olds.

Basically, the Democrats’ lead over Republicans among young voters was cut in half in 2014. And among 18 and 19 year olds, turnout dropped from 19 percent in 2012 to 13 percent in the midterms, a loss of about 14 million voters.

The exit polls also showed a five-percentage-point jump in young voters who self-identify as Republicans — 31 percent this year as compared to 26 percent in 2012. The big question for the coming Congress is whether the House Democrats will get off the floor and fight for the interests of young voters.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Chris Rock and a Hard Place

“If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, ‘Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.'”

The quote is from an interview with comedian Chris Rock in New York magazine this week. It was widely shared online and is well worth the two clicks it will take you to find it. His point with the above quote?

“To say [electing] Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years.”

Anyone who’s been in this country for a few decades can see that racial progress has been made from the pre-civil rights era, but the recent events in Ferguson have opened new wounds and have pulled the covers off a nasty strain of American bigotry.

Rock also said, “I’ve invented a new app that helps you find out which of your friends are racists. It’s called Facebook.” Boy, did he nail that one. The posts on social media vilifying Michael Brown and his family are almost unavoidable at this point. Lots of people now seem to think it’s important to convince others (and themselves) that Brown deserved to die. It’s ugly out there in social media land.

There’s little doubt that Brown was foolishly aggressive with a cop and that his behavior contributed to his death. And there’s no question that the ensuing burning and looting in Ferguson gave those who wanted to turn this incident into an excuse to paint all blacks as “thugs” a great opportunity to do so.

But it’s also likely that if a cop shot and killed a teenager who lived in your neighborhood and left his body in the street for hours in broad daylight, you and your neighbors would be upset and angry. There’s also little doubt that the prosecutor in this case gamed the grand jury system, putting his thumb on the scales to keep Officer Darren Wilson’s actions from objective legal scrutiny.

Little noticed in all the Ferguson furor was the subsequent case of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was shot by Cleveland, Ohio, police on November 21st. Unlike in the Brown case, there is video of this horrific killing. The cops pulled up at high speed, screeched to a halt, jumped out, and shot Rice within three seconds. I urge you to watch it, and then try to convince yourself this kid did anything that would make him deserve to die — or that the cops followed any kind of logical protocol. And ask yourself if you really think the cops would have done the same thing to a white kid playing with a toy pistol in a park in the suburbs.

Yes, there’s been progress, but we have a lot more work to do. Ratcheting up the hate and anger won’t get us anywhere. We’ve got to stop punching each other in the face.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Ferguson Decision Brings To Mind Memphis Police-involved Shootings

CREDIT: Louis Goggans

Protests were organized across the country last week, following a Ferguson, Missouri, grand jury’s decision to not indict police officer Darren Wilson in the August killing of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Some in Ferguson held peaceful protests. But others looted and vandalized local shops and burned buildings and cop cars. In other areas of the country, including Memphis, demonstrations in opposition to the decision remained peaceful.

Louis Goggans

A protester at the Ferguson solidarity demonstration in Memphis last week

On Tuesday, November 25th, more than 100 people gathered at the intersection of Poplar and Highland, holding signs and chanting. Jordan Brock, a 24-year-old University of Memphis student, was among the peaceful group of protesters. However, he said he didn’t feel like the local protest would bring change.

“I was under the impression that we were going to march somewhere to try to talk to some kind of public official [and] get some answers to prevent a Mike Brown [incident] happening in Memphis,” Brock said. “But no, it was just us with signs on the intersection making good chants every five minutes. I understand that everybody wanted to be a part of a movement, but there’s no point of doing that if you don’t know what you’re protesting about.”

On August 9th, Wilson, 28, reportedly stopped Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson as they walked down the middle of a two-lane street in Ferguson. While in his Chevrolet Tahoe police vehicle, Wilson requested the two get on the sidewalk. After an exchange of words, a tussle ensued in the SUV between Wilson and Brown.

During the struggle, Wilson’s weapon was unholstered and discharged inside his SUV, according to reports. After being grazed in the hand by one of the bullets, Brown reportedly ran away from Wilson, who pursued him.

But at some point, Brown allegedly stopped running, turned around, and charged toward Wilson, according to Wilson’s account of the story. Subsequently, Wilson fired 10 shots, several of which struck Brown in his head, chest, and right arm, killing him.

Despite avoiding indictment in the shooting, Wilson resigned from the Ferguson police department on Saturday. He attributed his resignation to being concerned about his continued employment jeopardizing the safety of colleagues.

Although locals have focused attention on Ferguson, numerous controversial police-involved shootings have taken place over recent years in Memphis.

Following the December 2012 death of Martoiya Lang, a police officer who was fatally shot while serving a search warrant at an East Memphis home, several people were shot by Memphis police officers.

Memphis attorney Howard Manis is the defense attorney for the families of two of those victims: 24-year-old Steven Askew and 67-year-old Donald Moore. Both families have filed lawsuits against the MPD and city of Memphis, alleging civil rights violations.

On January 11, 2013, Memphis police officer Phillip Penny fatally shot Moore with an assault rifle at his Cordova home. Penny alleged that Moore pointed a gun at him and several Memphis Animal Services employees who were there to serve an animal cruelty warrant.

A week later, on January 17th, Memphis police officers Ned Aufdenkamp and Matthew Dyess shot and killed Askew as he sat in his car in the parking lot of the Windsor Place Apartments. The officers shot Askew nine times after he allegedly pointed his handgun at them.

Manis said with police-involved shootings occurring locally as well as across the nation, it’s imperative for officers to receive additional training on how to handle people of all races during intense situations.

“We shouldn’t be afraid of the police, and the police shouldn’t be afraid of us,” Manis said. “No matter what the color of our skin, what neighborhood we live in, the way we dress [or] act, no one should make generalized assumptions about people and then act solely based on those assumptions.”

According to Memphis Police Department policy, “Officers shall use only the necessary amount of force that is consistent with the accomplishment of their duties, and must exhaust every other reasonable means of prevention, apprehension, or defense before resorting to the use of deadly force.

“Officers are authorized to use deadly force in self-defense if they have been attacked with deadly force, are being threatened with the use of deadly force, or has probable cause and reasonably perceives an immediate threat of deadly force. An officer can also use defense if a third party has been attacked with deadly force, is being threatened with the use of deadly force, is in danger of serious bodily injury or death; or where the officer has probable cause and reasonably perceives an immediate threat of deadly force to a third party.”

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said (December 4, 2014) …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

About Derek Haire’s Viewpoint, “Playing the Bike Card” …

Thank you for a very well-written rebuttal to Wendi C. Thomas. I didn’t know what “intersectionality” was until I read your article. I am not a sociologist. The only thing I came away with from Thomas’ article is the same thing I’ve come away thinking from most of her articles for the past two years: Her style of writing appeals to certain people but very few people, I think, in the demographic she’s wanting to influence.

Brunetto Latini

Greg Cravens

It’s important in discussions of structural racism to openly admit the subconscious effects that living within a culture of differential privilege has on people, based upon characteristics of race or ethnicity. I, unfortunately, find it all too rare that people who charge others with racism understand how that subconscious enculturation has affected even victims of that racism in ways that make certain of their behaviors and reactions racist.

OakTree

About the Flyer‘s editorial, “After Ferguson” …

I spent Thanksgiving day at the home of a retired Marine — a white guy — who had served on a grand jury. He couldn’t believe the procedure used for the Ferguson grand jury. From his experience, the grand jury is used to decide if there is enough evidence to go to trial. In his case, they found that there was enough evidence for most of the cases they considered, but the grand jury that he served on found that there wasn’t enough presented in one of the cases.

Sue Williams

Why aren’t the parents admitting to their failure to raise Michael Brown to be a positive member of society? He was obviously free to run amok with no restraints on his behavior. The stepfather of this child should be arrested and tried for inciting riots, and the mother charged with child abuse. That’s who should pay for this incident — the parents.

CoryatJohn

CoryatJohn, you are making the same mistake as the Brown deifiers. Brown was an adult, just barely, but an adult. Do the math. Should your parents be held responsible for your crimes? Should they not mourn your death because you are an adult?

🙂

About Bianca Phillips’ story, “Laying Down the Law” …

Kudos for the report by Bianca Phillips on the legal steps being taken regarding Uber and Lyft in Memphis. Readers should also hear about ITN — Memphis’ engagement of the national working model of the Independent Transportation Network, which provides rides for seniors and the visually impaired.

Like the aforementioned new providers, ITN utilizes volunteer drivers. Unlike Uber and Lyft, ITN went through a careful, lengthy process of ordinance revision before it began giving rides.

Kudos should also go to Memphis City Council leaders like Myron Lowery and Kemp Conrad for seeing the need and helping with non-government paths to meet that need. Ditto with compliments for Ham Smythe of Yellow Cab, who embraced the ITN concept and wants things to be fair and square.

Mark Matheny

About Congressional Republicans …

Didn’t Americans suffer enough the past six years at the hands of “do-nothing” Republican obstructionists? Apparently not. And now they’re in charge for the next two years.

Remember the change Republicans John Boehner and Mitch McConnell promised right after the midterm elections? The talk of “working together”? That was just so much hocus pocus. 

House Speaker Boehner is already talking about another government shutdown if Republicans don’t get their way. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is talking about impeaching President Obama if he continues his approach to immigration reform. And Tea Party darling, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, continues to blame everything from the economy to immigration to health care to possible government shutdowns on Obama. 

Oh, and don’t forget, we need to investigate Benghazi for the 11th time and vote to repeal Obamacare for the 140th time. Get ready: The next two years are going to be a long, bumpy, dysfunctional ride.

Art Schrader

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Prosecution Rests

Like many Americans, I watched St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch make his announcement on television Monday night regarding the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson case. And like many Americans, I wasn’t surprised that the grand jury decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson, nor was I surprised at the unrest that followed.

The signs had been clear. For days in advance of the announcement, we’d heard and read stories about an increased police and National Guard presence in St. Louis. The Ku Klux Klan had announced they’d be there to help stir the pot. Protestors had been organizing for weeks. The kettle was simmering, just waiting for the heat to be kicked up a notch. McCulloch’s announcement was all that was needed.

As any lawyer will tell you, prosecutors use grand juries to build a case for indictment, which sends the case to trial. They are not obligated to present both sides of the story, and they seldom do. And it is a rare grand jury that does not indict when presented with prosecutorial evidence. For example, prosecutors at the federal level pursued more than 160,000 cases in 2009-2010 (the most recent available data), and grand juries voted not to return an indictment in 11 cases. If a prosecutor wants a grand jury to indict, they will, literally 99.9 percent of the time.

It was quite apparent, given his long recitation of evidence supporting Wilson’s story, that McCulloch did not want to prosecute. And it’s true, police have the right under law to shoot to kill if they feel their safety or the safety of others is threatened. That’s pretty much a “get-out-of-prosecution-free” card, unless there’s strong evidence to the contrary, especially given the symbiotic relationship between prosecutors and police.

There’s a reason those photo-ops for drug busts and gang arrests always feature the district attorney and the police chief standing side by side. Cops need the district attorney to validate their arrests by prosecuting the offenders, and district attorneys need cops to testify in their prosecutions.

So why go through the charade? Why not just say there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute? And why, for heaven’s sake, would you make the announcement at 8:30 p.m., when crowds are most likely to be able to gather and when darkness provides cover for looters, making the situation more dangerous for the police, businesses, legitimate protestors, and citizens just wanting to stay safe in their homes? Wouldn’t common sense suggest a better time might be, say, 8:30 a.m.?

There are many questions lingering around this story, and many witnesses and much evidence that will never see a courtroom, and that’s where the frustration comes from. It’s possible that Wilson’s story would have held up in court, and it’s also possible that a forthright prosecutor could have torn holes in his story. Now we’ll never know. The truth is lost in the fire and tear gas and darkness of night.

Categories
News News Blog

Locals Protest at Intersection of Poplar and Highland

CREDIT: Louis Goggans

Louis Goggans

A protester near the intersection of Poplar and Highland.

A day after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting unarmed teen Michael Brown, a large group of protesters gathered at the busy intersection of Poplar and Highland.

Wielding signs emblazoned with words like “Film the Police,” “Protect Us, Don’t Kill Us,” and “No Justice,” the group began gathering around 5 p.m. The amount of protesters quickly increased from a couple dozen to more than 50 by 5:30 p.m.

Protesters chanted, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” and “Stand up, stand down, we’re doing this for Mike Brown!” as a handful of Memphis police officers looked on.

Several people spoke to the large crowd, motivating them to fight against police brutality and racial injustice. And numerous cars that passed by honked their horns in support of the protest. 

The event was orchestrated by the Mid-South Youth Collective, Enough is Enough Memphis, and the Brotherhood & Sisterhood.

View some images from the protest below. 

Categories
News The Fly-By

Cohen, Memphis Activists Turn Attention to Ferguson

CREDIT: Memphis United Facebook Page

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis signed on to a letter issued last week demanding a hearing on the use of force by local law enforcement officials during the protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

Cohen, and Reps. John Conyers and Robert Scott issued the letter to Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, after Ferguson police broke up a protest last week with “brutal force: confronting demonstrators in riot gear and armored vehicles, arresting journalists, and firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd.”

The protests in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb, were sparked when local police shot and killed an unarmed African-American teenager, Michael Brown, more than a week ago. 

Protests there briefly calmed after the initial show of force by police officers outfitted in riot gear and driving armored vehicles. Security of the protest was handed over to the Missouri state police last week, who shed the riot gear and walked among the protestors. Violence picked up again Sunday and Monday nights as some protesters threw Molotov cocktails at police and several people were shot. The National Guard was called in to Ferguson on Monday. Cohen and others want an investigation into the events “as soon as possible.”

“These incidents raise concerns that local law enforcement is out of control, and, instead of protecting the safety and civil liberties of the residents of Ferguson, is employing tactics that violate the rights of the citizens and hinder the ability of the press to report on their actions,” the letter reads. “This situation requires immediate congressional scrutiny.”

The congressmen want to discuss “what appears to be a pattern of the use of deadly force by police against unarmed African Americans in cities around the nation.” They also want an investigation into the arrest of two journalists — Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post and Ryan J. Reilly of The Huffington Post. Finally, Cohen and the others said they want to address the “extensive militarization of state and local police.”

“In Ferguson, why do local police dress in military-style uniforms and body armor, carry short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles based on the M4 carbine, and patrol neighborhoods in massive armored vehicles?” the letter reads. “In all likelihood, the decision to adopt a military posture only served to aggravate an already tense situation and to commit the police to a military response.”

The protests in Ferguson have sparked action in Memphis. Vigils, gatherings, and marches sprang up all over town last week at parks, major intersections, and the National Civil Rights Museum.

Memphis United Facebook Page

Supporters took to the main intersections along the Poplar corridor on Monday holding signs that read “#handsup” and “#dontshoot,” Twitter hashtags inspired by Ferguson protestors. That protest was organized in part by Memphis United, the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center, and others.

Memphis United wants to use the energy surrounding the events in Ferguson to push for a slate of changes in Memphis. The group wants body cameras on all local police officers, action on the city’s backlog of untested rape kits, and an end of militarization of the Memphis Police Department and private security officers, among other things.

“We are all outraged by the events in Ferguson and around the United States, where we see people of color disproportionately targeted by police violence,” says the group’s Facebook page. “We should be outraged, and our voices should be heard.”