Facts on Ferguson

Once again American cities are burning. And once again, there is a truth deficit as to why this is happening. The mainstream media is putting its usual leftist spin on things, and in the meantime, anarchy and lawlessness are hitting our streets.

Thus it is time to state a few cold facts here. With so much commentary already available on all this, I will not reinvent the wheel, but simply share some of the insights and wisdom of others on this issue. Let me start with the basics.

fergusonOn August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri an 18-year-old black man, Michael Brown, was fatally shot by white police officer Darren Wilson. Later that month a grand jury hearing was initiated over the case, and on November 24 a decision was announced that the jury elected not to indict Wilson.

But the rioting has been going on ever since, both in Ferguson and in other cities. Leftists from Obama on down have been in fact instigating much of this, and the cultural Marxists are quite happy to use these occasions to continue their war on America. J. Christian Adams comments on this big-picture perspective:

When history remembers the Obama administration, the flames of Ferguson will light up our memories. It wasn’t just an AutoZone and Jade Nails burning up in the fires of Ferguson, it was also the “Hope” of 2008 going up in smoke. Instead of hope, the age of Obama has been characterized by racial division and discord. Obama and Holder commanded the police to behave themselves. The police behaved, and look what happened.
Last week, members of the New Black Panther Party were arrested by state officials for plotting to use pipe bombs against the St. Louis Gateway Arch and for purchasing guns in a plot to kill as many policemen as possible. Notice it was state officials who made the arrests. The Washington Times had a no-longer-surprising quote from an Obama administration official characterizing the plot to blow up the arch and kill (presumably) white police officers as “not a serious threat.”

And the Islamists are also quite happy to co-opt and exploit all this, marching in the protest rallies, even demanding that Israel get out of Palestine, etc. Talk about radicals using a local situation to push for global revolution. See more on this here: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/18/muslim-groups-seek-to-co-opt-ferguson-protests-says-watchdog-group/

As to the actual case, Ann Coulter offers a few salient facts:

Anyone following this case has seen the video of Big Mike robbing a store and roughing up an innocent Pakistani clerk about 10 minutes before being shot by Officer Wilson. They’ve seen him flashing Bloods gang signs in photos. They know Brown’s mother was recently arrested for clubbing grandma with a pipe over T-shirt proceeds. They’ve seen the video of Brown’s ex-con stepfather shouting at a crowd of protesters after the grand jury’s decision: “Burn this bitch down!” Liberals will say none of that is relevant in court, but apparently they don’t think actual evidence is relevant either. It’s certainly relevant in the court of public opinion that the alleged victims are a cartoonishly lower-class, periodically criminal black family.

Jason Riley offers more inconvenient truths, including the fact that the overwhelming majority of black homicide deaths are caused by blacks:

The black teen in Ferguson, Mo., robbed a store, attacked a white police officer and was shot dead while resisting arrest. That was the conclusion of a St. Louis County grand jury that brought no charges against the officer after considering all the physical evidence, along with eyewitness accounts from blacks in the vicinity of the confrontation. Not that any amount of evidence would have stopped the hooligans in Ferguson Monday night who were determined to use Brown’s death as a pretext for more bad behavior. Nor will evidence thwart liberals who are bent on making excuses for black criminality and pretending that police shootings are responsible for America’s high black body count.
According to the FBI, homicide is the leading cause of death among young black men, who are 10 times more likely than their white counterparts to be murdered. And while you’d never know it watching MSNBC, the police are not to blame. Blacks are just 13% of the population but responsible for a majority of all murders in the U.S., and more than 90% of black murder victims are killed by other blacks. Liberals like to point out that most whites are killed by other whites, too. That’s true but beside the point given that the white crime rate is so much lower than the black rate.
Blacks commit violent crimes at 7 to 10 times the rate that whites do. The fact that their victims tend to be of the same race suggests that young black men in the ghetto live in danger of being shot by each other, not cops. Nor is this a function of “over-policing” certain neighborhoods to juice black arrest rates. Research has long shown that the rate at which blacks are arrested is nearly identical to the rate at which crime victims identify blacks as their assailants. The police are in these communities because that’s where the emergency calls originate, and they spend much of their time trying to stop residents of the same race from harming one another.

What the MSM also is not telling us is that many of the shops destroyed by these roving gangs of thugs and militants were minority-owned small businesses, including black businesses. Where is the MSM outcry about this? Selective outrage is what the left and the MSM specialise in. And since then, we have had cases of black policemen shooting unarmed white citizens. The result? Crickets chirping.

As if all this were not bad enough, consider how the despicable leftist New York Times actually printed the home address of Wilson! How low can you go. The only sniff of justice here is that the favour was returned, and alternative media outlets began offering the addresses of the reporters who did this: http://rightwingnews.com/media/two-new-york-times-reporters-posted-darren-wilsons-home-address-look-see-home-addresses/

Add to this the fact that when the opposite verdicts are reached, we don’t see whites rampaging in anarchist riots. Recall the O.J. Simpson case for example: http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/flashback-oj-simpson-verdict-reactions-no-justice-no-rioting

But consider also the thoughts of some leading black Americans on this. American footballer Benjamin Watson who plays for the New Orleans Saints posted a powerful piece on his Facebook page about Ferguson, and he concludes with these words:

I’M ENCOURAGED, because ultimately the problem is not a SKIN problem, it is a SIN problem. SIN is the reason we rebel against authority. SIN is the reason we abuse our authority. SIN is the reason we are racist, prejudiced and lie to cover for our own. SIN is the reason we riot, loot and burn. BUT I’M ENCOURAGED because God has provided a solution for sin through his son Jesus and with it, a transformed heart and mind. One that’s capable of looking past the outward and seeing what’s truly important in every human being. The cure for the Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner tragedies is not education or exposure. It’s the Gospel. So, finally, I’M ENCOURAGED because the Gospel gives mankind hope.

Finally, Christian pastor Voddie Baucham highlights the real issues here, and it is not systemic racism as the lefties scream:

Rest assured, I do believe there are systemic issues plaguing black men. These issues are violence, criminality, and immorality, to name a few. And all of these issues are rooted in and connected to the epidemic of fatherlessness. Any truly gospel-centered response to the plight of black men must address these issues first and foremost. It does no good to change the way white police officers respond to black men if we don’t first address the fact that these men’s fathers have not responded to them appropriately.
There is indeed an epidemic of violence against black men. However, that violence, more often than not, occurs at the hands of other black men. In fact, black men are several times more likely to be murdered at the hands of another black man than they are to be killed by the police. For instance, in the FBI homicide stats from 2012, there were 2,648 blacks murdered. Of those, 2,412 were murdered by members of their own ethnic group. Thus, if I am going to speak out about anything, it will be black-on-black crime; not blue-on-black. I want to apply the gospel and its implications in a way that addresses the real issue. If a few black men being killed by cops requires a national “dialogue,” what in the world does the overwhelming number of black-on-black murders require? If the police do not see black men through the proper gospel-centered, image-of-God lens, what does the black-on-black murder rate say about the way we see ourselves?…
The underlying malady that gives rise to all the rest of these epidemics is immorality and fatherlessness. We know that fatherlessness is the number one indicator of future violence, dropout rates, out-of-wedlock births, and future incarceration. And in the black community, more than 70 percent of all children are born out of wedlock! Fatherlessness is the bane of the black community.

He concludes:

In the end, the best lesson my children can learn from Ferguson is not that they need to be on the lookout for white cops. It is far more important that I use this teachable moment to remind them that “God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Moments before his death, Michael Brown had violently robbed a man in a store. A man doing the best he could to make a living. Minutes later, Brown reaped what he sowed, and was gunned down in the street. That is the sad truth.
My sons have far more to fear from making bad choices than they have to fear from the police. The overwhelming majority of police officers are decent people just trying to make a living. They are much more likely to help you than to harm you. A life of thuggery, however, is NEVER your friend. In the end, it will cost you . . . sometimes, it costs you everything.

Now that is a voice of reason and balance in the midst of all this madness. We need more men like him. And we need to get truth into the public arena about what is happening in Ferguson.

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2014/11/25/flames-of-ferguson-illuminate-age-of-obama/?singlepage=true
http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2014/11/26/liberals-willing-to-fight-to-the-last-drop-of-black-blood-n1924469
http://online.wsj.com/articles/jason-riley-the-other-ferguson-tragedy-1416961287
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2850325/New-York-Times-sparks-anger-publishes-Darren-Wilson-s-address-pictures-home.html
http://www.khq.com/story/27489010/nfl-player-benjamin-watsons-ferguson-post-on-facebook-goes-viral
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/thoughts-on-ferguson

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15 Replies to “Facts on Ferguson”

  1. If the policeman had been black and the victim white and facts otherwise the same there would have been no outrage and no riots and arson. And no posturing Obama addressing the nation. But we should still be asking hard questions about a policeman of any race who fires 12 shots at a petty thief and thug and hits him with 7.

    The step father intrigues me. He sees nothing wrong with inciting fellow blacks to arson? With a father figure like that no wonder the youth went astray.

  2. Thanks John. You are mostly correct, but what hard questions are needed? Are you more privy to these matters than the grand jury was with its 70 witnesses? I agree with the words of one commentator here:

    “So let’s be clear. The death of Michael Brown, while tragic and senseless, was the result of many factors: the insouciant parenting of Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown, Sr., the constant racist rhetoric of profiteering fools and a lack of personal responsibility inherent in the decedent. Officer Darren Wilson only held the weapon; there were many fingers on the trigger.”

  3. Very well put Bill. Love the encouraging quotes from Watson and Baucham.

  4. Hi John,

    7 bullets to take down a huge fellow that he was is not actually that strange, considering the low powder load most police bullets run with.

    I am not sure which calibre he uses, but if it was a 9mm, they are only designed to wound, not kill outright.
    If it was a 45, they have to be run with a very low powder charge, otherwise it could go right through a perpetrator and hurt or kill someone behind.
    Low charge is also in case police have to fire on a perpetrator in a crowded area.

    Now that those icky facts are out of the road, the other main reason it took so many shots is, he was high on Maryjane (can’t spell the real thing LOL), had been using for an extended time, thus reducing his ability to feel pain of a gun shot. therefore, he would have been able to keep coming at the officer not realising he had been shot.

    What I would be more worried about is he missed 5 times. For a police officer, that is not good at all, almost a 50% miss rate.

    Hope that clears things up for you mate.

    P.S. Ex military, most family have served in the Police, some current friends are also serving police officers.
    Just for full disclosure.

  5. Yet another link relevant to all this. During a Fire and Police Commission meeting where black on black crime was being discussed, a Milwaukee policeman was seen texting on his phone and accused of a lack of respect and insensitivity to the situation. Unbeknownst to those who were critical of his insensitivity, the policeman had just received a call to attend a drive by shooting in which a 5 year old girl was killed by 2 black men who fired on her house. The policeman was texting in response to that call – not mindlessly playing on his phone as was thought. This clip shows his response to being taken to task, just before he leaves the meeting to respond to the call.

    http://www.tpnn.com/2014/11/26/video-youll-clap-when-you-see-this-milwaukee-police-chief-shut-down-race-baiters-in-this-intense-press-conference/

  6. Hi Bill.
    Ann Coulter says “it’s relevant that the alleged victims [ie the dead teenager’s family] are cartoonishly lower class”. Other contributors have added factors such as “insouciant parenting”, fatherless families, out-of-wedlock births, drop-out rates and the like. Is it being suggested here that the likes of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner deserved to be — in effect — summarily executed because they came from such backgrounds? Because their families were “cartoonishly lower class”? I have seldom read such sickeningly snobbish stereotyping.
    All the black-on-black statistics in the world don’t alter the fact that these boys or young men — most or all of them (needs checking) unarmed at the time — at the very least deserved a fair trial, not to mention a chance to complete their lives. It beggars belief that in this high-tech age, American police are not carrying tasers or spray or some other effective non-lethal disabling agent to deal with unarmed suspects.
    And the searching question still hangs uncomfortably in the air — would the outcomes have been identical if these young men had all been white? I suspect very few would give, or believe, an affirmative answer.
    Finally Bill, you won’t be surprised when I say it’s disappointing that you should use terms like “cultural Marxists” in relation to the nationwide public reaction to these fatal shootings. In terms of Marxism, the cartoonishly lower class folks among the demonstrators probably wouldn’t know Karl Marx from Groucho. (Yes I admit it. Now I’m guilty of snobbishly stereotyping.)
    Rowan Forster.

  7. Thanks Rowan. But given that neither I nor anyone else here have said anything about anyone deserving to be “executed”, you owe us all an apology for this appalling claim. Shame on you. That is the only obvious case of “sickeningly snobbish stereotyping” I have come across here. And given that most of what you quote comes from black Americans, what are they? Nothing more than white supremacists in your rather distorted eyes?

    And for your information, just the other day an unarmed white teen was gunned down by a Black policeman in the US. The results: crickets chirping. But obviously moralistic outrages are rather selective here, depending on skin colour. I think that is called racism.

    And if I had to choose between a grand jury which spent three months carefully investigating this matter with over 70 witnesses, or some critic on the other side of the globe who thinks he knows it all, I know which one I will side with.

    And given that 800 American policemen have been killed in the line of duty over the past 6 years, I again know who I will side with on this difficult situation: the one who risks everything to defend the innocent and maintain order, even though not always getting things perfect, or the armchair critic who has never spent a day of his life in such a dangerous position.

    Moreover, if you think cultural Marxism does not exist, or has nothing to do with the situation in Missouri, then you may need to get up to speed with reality. I think Jewish commentator Dennis Prager may be more aware of what is actually happening here: ‘The Democratic Party cultivates black anger at America, separatism, victimhood, group grievance and dependency on government. Nor is this the only way in which Democrats do terrible damage to America. They are also tearing America apart…. The Democratic Party has been become a wholly destructive force in this country. Even though you may not intend to, if you vote for any Democrat, you contribute to that damage.’

  8. Rowan, what other term beyond “cultural Marxism” is appropriate for such blindness?

    You do realise pitting groups of people against one another on the basis of things like skin colour and wealth are the fundamentals of Marxism right? And what have the mainstream media (and Obama) been pushing incessantly?

    There is a good reason the term “useful idiots” is used in relation to those who support Marxist goals without understand the Marxist endgame.

    Ferguson’s “racial conflict” is the same old proletariat bourgeois conflict played out in a different arena.

    Any collective (the poor, blacks, homosexuals, even Muslims) will serve their purposes as long as it weakens those in power for Marxists to step in.

  9. While armchair critics always believe they could do far better in a situation they have never faced, those who actually experience this for a living know better, Consider what former Green Beret Michael Yon has to say on this:

    Ferguson: Why did the officer not shoot Brown in the legs?

    Many people are innocently asking this question. The answer could go on for pages, but to be succinct, a couple handfuls of reasons:

    1) This ain’t the movies
    2) Most police do not fire their weapons much. Most are not great shots.
    3) He would have to be an incredible shot to be crazy enough to fire wounding shots.
    4) Nearly all firefights are “stress shoots.” The other guy is moving. Heart is beating fast, often out of breath. The officer in Ferguson had just been punched in the face and had been in a wrestling match for his pistol, according to him.
    5) Bullets that miss can hit someone else.
    6) You always are low on ammo, and you do not want to waste a single bullet.
    7) Time spent reloading is dangerous
    8) I have seen many people shot who kept fighting. Shot with weapons far more powerful than any officer’s pistol. Many police and combat troops have seen this and will verify.
    9) Police and Soldiers never train to shoot to wound. (None that I know of.) All combat shots are center mass of any part of the target that you can see. If you see only a foot. Shoot the foot. If you see a chest — aim for the middle. That is the way troops and police train. If the officer is pointing his pistol at someone, he is one click away from going lethal. There is no in between.
    10) This ain’t the movies.

    During the firefight at the link below, I was photographing when two people were shot a total of seven times. Two men, shot seven times. (US Soldier three times, al Qaeda four times with M4 point blank.)

    After the US Soldier was hit three times in front of me, he continued to fight well. He was hit badly at nearly point blank. The al Qaeda terrorist was hit 4x. He was still standing trying to shoot. One shot took off a testicle, and then he got tackled by a US Soldier. Despite being hit 4x, he then engaged in aggressive hand to hand combat.

    Again, this ain’t the movies. When officers or troops shoot, they must shoot to kill.

  10. You know, just this morning at church I was commenting to a friend that one of the problems with the left is that it imagines or invents motives for people they disagree with. So when the federal Liberal government wants to stop the boats arriving because people are dying at sea, because many of those arriving by boat are not genuine refugees, because they are jumping the queue, etc. etc., and despite the Liberal government being in favour of accepting genuine refugees and others from all over the world, the left imagines that their motive must be racist. After all, how else can the left explain the Liberals having a different view than them? It can’t possibly be for good reasons, can it?

    Or the supporters of the ABC claiming that criticism of the ABC is coming only from Murdoch, and that journalists at Murdoch papers are simply doing their boss’s bidding. They couldn’t possibly have opinions of their own, and for good reasons, could they?

    Then I come home and read the comment above from my old mate Rowan, suggesting that Ann Coulter and others believe that the likes of Brown, Martin, etc. deserved to be summarily executed because of their backgrounds. Although Rowan may not be as far left as almost all the prominent personalities currently working for his former employer, it seems that some of that thinking has rubbed off on him.

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