Photo of the Moment: ‘Seasons Greetings’ From Ferguson, MO!

14 Comments on “Photo of the Moment: ‘Seasons Greetings’ From Ferguson, MO!”

1. “Must be the season of the witch.” – Donovan

2. Protesting: Criminal
   Covering protests: Criminal
   Blowing whistle on confirmed crimes(Snowden): Criminal

   Murder that inspires said protests: No trial

   Quite a country we’ve got here.

3. McCulloch’s presentation was weird last night.

   Ernie, perhaps you can speak to this–I don’t know anything about grand juries but it sounded last night that rather than make a case themselves the state handed over “all the evidence”(if that’s to be believed) to the grand jury and basically said here you figure this out. Is that what happened? And if it is, how normal is that?

   The other thing that was really weird was that from everything McCulloch was saying it sounded like he believed the no charges verdict was the correct one. And yet, he didn’t bother to make a compelling case for that to a national audience starving for clarification. He presented a little of this evidence and a little of that and didn’t bother to clear up much of anything. His narrative sounded pretty incoherent to me because there were so many gaps in whatever the hell happened there that a reasonable person would want filled. Basically, he was saying again to all of us–here you figure it out.

   So that was all weird, I thought. That said I gave him points for being there and allowing a bunch of questions. I thought he was very good at saying next to nothing in a sincere sounding way. Now that I’ve read above the suggestion that he may be running for office, it all makes more sense. Which is to say, not much at all. It’s more of the same old bullshit with lipstick.

   Brilliant of Brad to point out that there were white people doing damage to property. Hope that doesn’t get lost in the crazy wash that’s bound to gush now.

4. One other thing McCulloch was good at–framing everything to make it look like the whole thing was Michael Brown’s fault while paying tons of lip service to what a tragedy his death was and that we need to improve everything. Typical status quo promoting bullshit. But plenty of fodder for the continuing radical christo-fascist propaganda war. I would not be surprised to see Faux News quoting him ad nauseam to frame and rationalize their point of view.

5. My absolute favorite item of the Bobby Mac debacle is the self-described racist woman who becomes a witness for the defense.

   Bob decides to enter her ballpoint pen scrawled notebook journal as testimony for the defense. This is the most FAKEST story I have ever heard of. Let’s quickly review her claim:

   A self-described racist, white woman living in somewhere like Fenton or Arnold MO wakes up early at 8am with a mission to fight her inner bigot with a self-prescribed, some might say “alternative”, therapy of “randomly” driving in an area that she percieves as being “black”. This will help her in her own words: “stop calling them niggers and start calling them black people.” Does that sound reasonable or credible at all to you?

   For some unknown reason, this woman chooses at 8am to drive to Ferguson, which most St. Louisians are aware is one of the “nicer” areas of mixed populations on the North Side and not associated with major crimes or unrest in the metro area.

   At 4pm she is now lost on W. Florissant Ave. and pulls into a QT. Not any QT, THE QT. Hmmm. After asking for directions to highway 270, which is on the road just up the street she was on, she immediately gets lost and ends up in an apt. complex off a side street to ask for directions again. Immediately thereafter, Brown is shot in front of her.

   all of that was entered as evidence…

   I wonder if the anti-bigot driving therapy worked? Can we get Hannity some? We can rent a pt cruiser.

6. For those wondering about Matt in CWE’s reference, here is the document, from amongst the Prosecutor’s document dump last night, that he is describing.

7. Shit got real here last night. Right across the street from my Home was the Car Lot and Service Station that was burnt to the ground on W.Florissant.

   All of those buildings burnt down in Dellwood brings a flood of childhood memories of every business that occupied them in the past.

   Holding the news conference at 8pm instead of earlier cause you’re worried about traffic tie ups?

   Having a document dump after being a PR guy for Wilson yet can’t answer how the Jury voted?

8. Okay, just saw a local defense attorney explain how unusual McCulloch’s handling of this case was. Off chart unusual.

9. That is my photo not ruetuers???

10. With our racially-skewed cops:neighborhood, our racially skewed opportunities and lack thereof, with our racially-skewed justice system, with our racially-skewed most everything else we are in denial about, still and all, a trial-by-jury is about the most fair method we can come up with in the midst of a broken democracy.

    From Brad’s tweets:

    Wow. Lots of contradicting evidence in the case. Might have been nice to have a TRIAL to sort it all out.

    I couldn’t agree more.

11. Question to the lawyers here — am I wrong, or is a grand jury convened to look only at the prosecutor’s evidence to determine if there is probable cause for an indictment?

    It does seem from the prosecutor’s questions above as though he was working for the other side.

12. Lora @11–

    Chris Hayes covered this well last night. If you go to the website for his show of last night, there’s(at least as of a minute ago) a screen shot to the right with the words–Was Ferguson Grand Jury process unusual–under it? Click on there to get the info. Chris Hayes gives a little background and then there’s an excellent little interview with Peter D’Agrosa, a St. Louis defense attorney who knows McCulloch.

13. Thanks David,

    I checked it out. I’m still trying to parse it.

    What was the Grand Jury thinking? Did they play “fair” by going by all the evidence presented?

    And in terms of the evidence presented …”fair” is “not fair” in this case, but “not fair” is how the game is played in every other case…???

    Was the outcome predetermined? (How is it that no indictment was the result when 99++% of Grand Juries return an indictment?)

    Is the prosecutor bound by the Grand Jury’s decision?

    Why would the prosecutor deviate so much from SOP in this highly visible inflammatory case?

    I feel like the blind men and the elephant. There is an obvious answer, but I don’t want to go there, but I can’t not go there…

14. Lora @ #11,

    Question to the lawyers here — am I wrong, or is a grand jury convened to look only at the prosecutor’s evidence to determine if there is probable cause for an indictment?

    It does seem from the prosecutor’s questions above as though he was working for the other side.

    I am not a lawyer so I will direct your attention to Justice Scalia:

    It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor. Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.

    (Why Morning Joe Quit His Day Job). Federal grand juries that handled 162,000 cases in 2012 returned 11 no-bills (did not indict).

    Hence the famous saying, “a prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted.”

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