LOGIC 101 AND GETTING THE NYPD MURDERS TWISTED

LOGIC 101 AND GETTING THE NYPD MURDERS TWISTED

©Wendell Griffen, 2014

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.  Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.  Arthur Conan Doyle from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Adventure I--A Scandal in Bohemia

Last night New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio called for organized protests against racial profiling and police brutality to cease until the funerals of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu are concluded out of respect for the grief now suffered by the families of those New York City officers who were murdered on December 20 by Ismaaiyl Brinsley.  When one analyzes the facts known about the murders of Officers Ramos and Liu and about Brinsley, Mayor De Blasio’s call doesn’t pass a basic principle of deductive reasoning.

Ismaaiyl Brinsley was a lone gunman. 

Brinsley was a black man with a long history of anti-social conduct that included violence against his family members and numerous criminal acts before December 20.

Brinsley shot and wounded a former girlfriend before he murdered Officers Ramos and Liu.

Despite Brinsley’s recent social media comments announcing his plan to attack police officers, no information shows that he was ever involved with any nonviolent organized protests against racial profiling and police brutality after the deaths of Eric Garner on July 23 in Staten Island, New York and Michael Brown, Jr. on August 9 in Ferguson, Missouri at the hands of police officers. 

None of the organized protests against racial profiling and police brutality included calls for vigilante actions against people in law enforcement.  [However, Baltimore Fox News affiliate WBFF edited a chant by peaceful protestors who called for killer cops to be placed in cell blocks two days ago and televised an edited video in which the station accused the protestors of chanting “kill a cop.”  The televised video was a deliberate lie aired three times before the station finally admitted the fraud perpetrated on its viewers.]   

People associated with protests against racial profiling and police brutality have emphatically expressed outrage, grief, and sorrow about the murders of Officers Ramos and Liu.  They have denounced and condemned Brinsley’s conduct as murderous and unjust.  They have expressed condolences for the Ramos and Liu families, and for the grief-stricken colleagues of these slain police officers within the New York Police Department and across the nation. 

In my last blogpost—titled “Sorrow and Justice”—I wrote, “Brinsley’s murderous conduct was an act of injustice.  Let no one mistake that fact (or as young people might say “don’t get it twisted”).   Those of us who denounce and condemn police brutality and racial profiling also denounce and condemn what Brinsley did.  It is as wrong to profile and brutalize people in law enforcement as it is wrong for people in law enforcement to profile and brutalize others.  All lives matter equally.” 

These facts raise the following question.  How is it disrespectful to the memories of Officers Ramos and Liu and to their grieving  families to protest racial profiling and police brutality, whether before the murdered officers are laid to rest or afterwards?

It is wrong to condone profiling and brutality against people in law enforcement.  It is wrong to condone profiling and brutality against persons of color by people in law enforcement.  These things are always wrong.  They were wrong before Brinsley murdered Officers Ramos and Liu.  They are wrong now.  They will be wrong after Officers Ramos and Liu are laid to rest. 

Ismaaiyl Brinsley was a lone gunman who murdered two police officers as they ate lunch.  He shot and wounded his girlfriend before he murdered the officers.  He killed himself minutes after murdering the officers.  None of that conduct has anything to do with organized nonviolent protests against racial profiling and police brutality.  That’s basic logic.  It violates every basic principle of logic to assert that organized nonviolent protests against racial profiling and police brutality are somehow offensive because a lone deranged thug murdered two police officers. 

When Adam Lanza, a lone white mentally unstable gunman, murdered elementary students and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School after having already murdered his own mother in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 people weren’t asked to suspend protests about gun violence.  When James Eagan Holmes, a white man, allegedly killed 12 people on July 20, 2012 inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado during a midnight screening of the film “The Dark Knight Rises” people weren’t asked to suspend efforts to protest gun violence. 

When those lone white assailants engaged in murderous conduct politicians and pundits didn’t ascribe their viciousness to people who protest gun violence for a good reason.  It would have been nonsense to do so.  Flunking basic logic always produces nonsense.

Instead of the nonsense of asking people to suspend peaceful protests against racial profiling and police brutality Mayor De Blasio should have taken the following actions. 

First, he should have restated public outrage, grief, and sorrow about the murders of Officers Ramos and Liu.  He should have emphasized that there is no information linking their murders to the many peaceful protests against racial profiling and police brutality. 

Mayor De Blasio should have also called on people in law enforcement and protestors against racial profiling and police brutality to express concern and support for the Ramos and Liu families and share their sorrow.

Mayor De Blasio also should have reminded us that Officers Ramos and Liu’s deaths highlight the wickedness of profiling and brutalizing people, whether people in law enforcement or people like Ismaaiyl Brinsley do so.   

What Mayor De Blasio should have not done was suggest that there is anything disrespectful, insensitive, or offensive about peaceful protests against racial profiling and police brutality now, tomorrow, next week, or at any other time.  Officers Ramos and Liu were profiled and murdered by one twisted person.  That doesn’t justify twisting logic to associate their deaths with peaceful protests against profiling and brutality.

So we should respectfully dismiss Mayor De Blasio’s call to suspend nonviolent protests against racial profiling and police brutality until Officers Ramos and Liu are buried because it flunks basic logic.  People who flunk arithmetic aren’t reliable authorities on algebra, let alone calculus.  

SORROW AND JUSTICE

SORROW AND JUSTICE

©Wendell Griffen, 2014

Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu of the New York Police Department were murdered on December 20.  Their assailant, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, also shot a former girlfriend before killing the police officers and then killing himself.  Officers Ramos and Liu were murdered.  Their families are permanently wounded.  Their colleagues in law enforcement grieve as only those who know the loss of professional comrades from violence can grieve. 

Ismaaiyl Brinsley was, from what has been reported thus far, one man with a long record of violating the law and mental instability.  Brinsley reportedly invoked the deaths of Eric Garner (who was killed July 23 on Staten Island, New York) and Michael Brown, Jr. (who was killed August 9 in Ferguson, Missouri) as the motivating factors for his hateful and murderous actions.  But nothing shows Brinsley had any connection to the peaceful protests about police brutality and racial profiling that have occurred during recent months. 

Brinsley’s murderous conduct was an act of injustice.  Let no one mistake that fact (or as young people might say “don’t get it twisted”).   Those of us who denounce and condemn police brutality and racial profiling also denounce and condemn what Brinsley did.  It is as wrong to profile and brutalize people in law enforcement as it is wrong for people in law enforcement to profile and brutalize others.  All lives matter equally. 

It is also wrong for law enforcement leaders (including Patrick Lynch, president of the New York City police union) to attribute Brinsley’s vicious behavior to the legitimate calls for reform and the non-violent protests and acts of civil disobedience that have occurred in recent months.  Officers Ramos and Liu were murdered.  Their assassination was evil.  The people who are protesting abusive and homicidal conduct by police officers know this painfully well.  Grief and shock at the murders of Officers Ramos and Liu are no excuse for anyone to blame people who are protesting abusive and homicidal conduct by police.

That is why we join police officers in New York and elsewhere in mourning the assassinations of Officers Ramos and Liu.  We join the families of two police officers in sorrow for their horrible loss. 

People who believe in justice believe that it is wrong to brutalize and slaughter other people.  We who condemn and denounce racial profiling and police brutality should not allow anyone to suggest that Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s murderous conduct was vengeance for Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Jr., or any other victims of abusive and homicidal conduct by law enforcement agents.  Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s actions were hateful, not honorable.  People who believe in justice should say so.  And people who believe in justice should say that racial profiling and brutality by law enforcement agents is hateful, not honorable.      

We who believe in justice must mourn the deaths of Officers Ramos and Liu.  We must denounce and condemn Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s murderous conduct as hateful and unjust.  And we must continue to denounce racial profiling and police brutality as unjust until racial profiling is ended and long demanded concerns about police brutality have been resolved.   

TO THOSE WHO CAN'T BREATHE

TO THOSE WHO CAN’T BREATHE

A Sermon delivered December 14, 2014

3d Sunday of Advent

New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas

©Wendell Griffen, 2014

Isaiah 61:1-11

61The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; ²to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; ³to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

⁴They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. ⁵Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines; ⁶but you shall be called priests of the Lord, you shall be named ministers of our God; you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you shall glory.⁷Because their shame was double, and dishonor was proclaimed as their lot, therefore they shall possess a double portion; everlasting joy shall be theirs. ⁸For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. ⁹Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.

¹⁰I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.¹¹For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

          “I CAN’T BREATHE!”

      

When compassionate people hear those words we rush to help the victim.  We loosen collars.  If there is reason to suspect food is lodged in the person’s throat the Heimlich maneuver is performed.  When we hear someone say “I can’t breathe!” and when we see someone appear to have trouble breathing we rush to help.

We rush to help because we know humans can’t survive without oxygen.  Although the human brain makes up less than five (5) percent of our body weight, our brains require 20 percent of the oxygen our bodies need. 

Decrease of oxygen to a part of the brain is called cerebral hypoxia.  When oxygen is cut off from the entire brain the term is anoxia.  When oxygen flow is completely cut off to our brains (anoxia) we lose consciousness in ten (10) seconds. 

Brain damage depends on how long we are without oxygen.  If oxygen flow is restored momentarily people usually make a full recovery.  But the longer the victim is in an unconscious state the lower the chances are for recovery because brain cells begin dying after 4 to 6 minutes without oxygen. 

This is why performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a person who can’t breathe is so important.  That is why we call 911.  People who can’t breathe die without immediate help.

“I CAN’T BREATHE!” were the last words Eric Garner gasped as Daniel Pantaleo of the New York Police Department choked him from behind and as other police officers tackled him.  “I CAN’T BREATHE!” are the words we hear on the video filmed by an onlooker as Eric Garner was assaulted by the police on Staten Island on July 23.  “I CAN’T BREATHE!” is what Eric Garner said 11 times—11 times!  

“I CAN’T BREATHE!” was Eric Garner’s desperate final struggle to be treated as a child of God. 

Meanwhile Daniel Pantaleo was choking him.  Another police officer was pressing his knees onto Garner’s torso.  A police supervisor, a black woman, was watching.  Their collective response to Eric Garner’s gasps for help amounted to “WE DON’T CARE!”

They didn’t treat Garner’s words as cries for help from a suffering person.  They didn’t protect or serve him.   Eric Garner wasn’t treated like he mattered to his wife and children, to his community, to humanity, or even to God! 

Eric Garner was treated by the police—people sworn to protect and defend life—as a threat simply because he was standing on a Staten Island sidewalk and the police claim he was selling loose cigarettes.  Police killed Eric Garner.  Other police watched him suffer and die without doing anything to stop their colleagues from killing him. 

A Staten Island grand jury refused to charge Daniel Pantaleo with a crime for choking Garner to death.  When other people choke their neighbors to death we call it murder.  Daniel Pantaleo, a policeman, choked Eric Garner to death, but the grand jury decision amounts to an official declaration that Pantaleo was simply doing his job when he killed Garner, an unarmed black man.    

But Eric Garner’s death and the official response to it isn’t about one notorious tragedy.  Eric Garner’s death actually represents what is happening across the world in the “ordinary course of business.” 

In the ordinary course of business Palestinians are being killed, starved, attacked, robbed, and otherwise brutalized as a matter of official policy by the Israeli government.  Palestinians can’t breathe.  The U.S. is doing nothing to help them, but is, instead, actually bankrolling their oppressor.  U.S. corporations are making profits by selling equipment and services to the Israeli government so that Palestinians can’t breathe. Every day, Palestinians are saying, “I CAN’T BREATHE!”  Can we hear them?  Will we help them? 

In the ordinary course of business wealthy people decided to sell defective cars with safety defects that maimed and killed people.  Every day, people who’ve been killed, wounded, and left grief-stricken are saying “I CAN’T BREATHE!”  Can we hear them?  Will we help them? 

In the ordinary course of business agents of the U.S. government tortured people.  In the ordinary course of business, people are being held hostage in Guantanamo, Cuba.  In the ordinary course of business innocent civilians are being killed and maimed by U.S. drone attacks.  Every day, the tortured, captured, killed, and maimed people and their families are saying “I CAN’T BREATHE!”  Can we hear them?  Will we help them? 

In the ordinary course of business, black and brown men, women, and children in Arkansas and elsewhere throughout the U.S. are racially profiled as criminal suspects.  In the ordinary course of business they are stopped, frisked, humiliated, and insulted.  In the ordinary course of business they are beaten, shot, electrocuted by Tasers, chemically assaulted by tear gas and pepper spray, and killed.  Every day, people of color in the United States are saying “I CAN’T BREATHE!”  Can we hear them?  Will we help them?

In the ordinary course of business children from families with modest incomes who attend public schools in rural and urban communities are receiving sub-standard education.  Every day they are gasping and saying “I CAN’T BREATHE!”  Can we hear them?  Will we help them?  Meanwhile, in the ordinary course of business people in power are refusing, every day, to finance early childhood education.  Every day, these people and their functionaries in government are working to build new prisons and jails. 

Every day and in the ordinary course of business men, women, and children who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender are being oppressed.  Children are bullied, shunned, and otherwise mistreated at schools.  Workers are fired from jobs.  Families are evicted from places they live.  Every day these children of God are saying “I CAN’T BREATHE!”  Can you hear them?  Will you help them?   Meanwhile, in the ordinary course of business other people who are privileged in their sexual orientation and gender identity—including some who claim to love God—claim that it is right to discriminate against others based on sexual orientation and gender identity. 

In the ordinary course of business, lest anyone forget, the world’s drug manufacturers and the governments that allow them to operate stood by as the virus known as Ebola sickened, infected, killed, and then spread as an epidemic in nations within the continent of Africa.  Every day the victims of Ebola and their surviving families and care givers are saying “I CAN’T BREATHE!”  Can we hear them?  Will we help them? 

These atrocities and injustices are not aberrations.  They are the ordinary course of business across the world for people who can’t breathe. 

These “I CAN’T BREATHE!” atrocities and injustices are moral and ethical issues that challenge our faith in the love and justice of God.  We wonder how God can breathe in the face of pervasive and systemic disregard for love and mercy.  We wonder how God cannot see the suffering.  We wonder what God is doing to bring deliverance and justice for those who can’t breathe.

Isaiah 61 answers our concerns.  There an anonymous figure declares that he or she has been endowed with the spirit of God and anointed to proclaim good news to the poor and downtrodden.  This anonymous person has been commissioned to proclaim the jubilee year of release from bondage for all who are enslaved. 

These “good news”—meaning gospel—words were originally intended for Hebrews in Judah who suffered the effects of Babylonian oppression and power.  But they apply to oppressed people everywhere and in every age. 

The good news for those who can’t breathe is that God sees!  God knows!  God cares!  And God is acting to overthrow oppression and liberate oppressed people! 

God sees every Eric Garner situation including those that go unreported, unrecognized, and unattended.  God knows the anguish and sorrow of every wounded soul and every victim of injustice everywhere. 

God cares that the ordinary course of what passes for business in our world is strangling the powerless and vulnerable to death.  God cares that violence and viciousness has become our ordinary course of business instead of justice and mercy.  God cares that people who should be performing physical, economic, social, emotional, and moral CPR in the world are instead using their power and privilege to help compress the throats and chests of people and a creation choking to death. 

All the choking, strangling, suffering, and grieving we see, feel, know, and tolerate offend God’s love and justice.  It’s a stench to God that people who claim to believe in love and justice will march for the unborn but won’t move a muscle to save living people who can’t breathe. 

It’s an outrage to God that people sworn to protect and defend life use power and privilege to abuse and slay their helpless brothers and sisters.  God is furious when a nation claims to be the leader of freedom and peace in the world on one hand while it enables genocide and viciousness against Palestinians and racial profiling against its own people and immigrants.

Isaiah 61 also shows God’s response to the plight of a world trapped in a stranglehold of violence, hate, and systemic injustice and oppression.  Unlike the imperialistic responses that people get so fired up with patriotism about, God’s response to violence isn’t to train more killers.  God’s response to robbery isn’t to create a religious order of better crooks. 

God’s response to the toxic realities and threats of evil and injustice isn’t to let loose a religious version of the CIA, NSA, FBI, or the KKK!

Instead, the divine remedy and deliverance for those who can’t breathe, and for our strangled world, is the power of redemptive love made personal.  The reality of redemptive love made personal is what we read about in Isaiah 61.  The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, … the LORD has anointed me …; he has sent me to bring good news, … to bind up …, to proclaim liberty … and release … the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn…(Is. 61:1-2).  God performs CPR on God’s strangling children and strangled creation by empowering persons as counteractive agents of divine love, liberation, justice, and peace! 

This good news of redemptive love made personal is summed up by the life, ministry, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ!  The good news of God’s redemptive love made personal is what Jesus presented the world and now calls us to embrace. 

Jesus calls us to be divinely appointed agents of redemptive love.  Jesus calls us to confront and counter the systemic and institutionalized violence and oppression that is choking people and the world to death. 

Jesus calls us to do more than offer condolences to people who are being choked to death by the systemic violence and oppression that passes for the ordinary course of business.  We are called to be more than religious funeral directors for casualties of oppression and injustice. 

No!  God has appointed us as messengers and methods of liberation, truth, justice, mercy, and peace.  And God has appointed us as messengers and methods of divine judgment on the purveyors, practitioners, and apologists of systemic violence and oppression.

Finally, God promises that justice will triumph over oppression.  Because of God’s redemptive love made personal, those who can’t breathe are promised a garland instead of ashes, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display [GOD’s] glory.  They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.  (Is. 61:3-4). 

The reason for that promise is found at Isaiah 61:8:  For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 

Because God loves justice and hates oppression, redemptive love made personal will triumph over violence, greed, hate, and fear. 

Because God loves justice and hates oppression, God will avenge those who are choked to death by agents of violence, greed, hate, and fear. 

Because God loves justice and hates oppression, God’s people of redemptive love must not stand by as people and the creation gasp “I CAN’T BREATHE!”  We must not be content with reading Bible lessons and singing praise songs and hymns.  We must not, should not, and will not be satisfied with symbolic prayer meetings and vigils, goodwill and fellowship meals, time-consuming and pointless meetings filled with political excuses, posturing, and other commonly accepted pretenses for peace and righteousness while our brothers, sisters, children, and the rest of creation are strangled to death. 

So as people inspired by the gospel of redemptive love made personal in obedience to the life, ministry, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, let us do moral, physical, intellectual, economic, social, emotional, and global CPR for those who can’t breathe.  In God’s name and as people empowered to live out the gospel of redemptive love made personal let us intervene and stop officious and officially-sanctioned violence, robbery, and every other oppression.    

Then those who can’t breathe will see themselves and be acknowledged as people whom the LORD has blessed (Is. 61:9).  They will rejoice in the LORD (Is. 61:10).  For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations (Is. 61:11).

Amen.

TERRORISM BY ANOTHER NAME

TERRORISM BY ANOTHER NAME

©Wendell Griffen, 2014

When armed people snatch others from among us, hold them hostage, mistreat them, and kill them we call such people “terrorists” no matter what aims they profess, no matter what grievances they claim, and no matter what titles they hold.    So why do we call law enforcement officers who do such things “patriots” and defenders of “law and order”? 

Why are law enforcement agents who routinely profile, harass, snatch, hold, mistreat, and kill people of color and religious minorities considered valiant while others who do similar acts are called vicious?  Why don’t we admit that racial profiling and the stuff that goes along with it is terrorism? 

People of color and others who are not considered part of the dominant mainstream know that racial profiling by people in law enforcement is terrorism.   These people live with the constant and daily threat of being stopped, frisked, considered criminally suspicious, and deemed dangerous simply because of who they are, how they dress, and how they worship.  They suffer that terrorism every day in the name of “law enforcement.”  People who have moral insight and cultural competence know racial profiling is wrong. 

However, many politicians, judges, law enforcement personnel, and others in our society support racial profiling.  Last week the Obama administration issued law enforcement guidelines that allow racial profiling for immigration and other government agents in the name of “national security.” 

The ugly and painful reality is that the terrorism of racial profiling is condoned by the wider society because its victims are not white.  Oscar Grant (age 22), Eugene Ellison (age 67), Tamir Rice (age 12), Michael Brown, Jr. (age 18), Eric Garner (age 43), Malissa Williams (age 30), Ricardo Mason (age 16), Kathryn Johnston (age 92), Pearlie Golden (age 93), Jack Lamar Roberson (age 45), and Monroe Isadore (age 107) were people of color violently and deliberately slain by law enforcement agents.  Their tragic deaths and countless other abuses associated with racial profiling show how our society has become morally blind and dead from what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the “giant triplets” of racism, militarism, and materialism. 

When the insults, violations, violence, suffering, and death regularly inflicted on people of color through racial profiling happen to white people the news media, pundits, politicians, and general public call it “terrorism.” Those who engage in it are called vicious, not valiant.  Those who suffer from it are considered victims, not viewed as getting what they deserved. 

We shouldn’t require that white people suffer the terrorism from police that people of color routinely suffer because of racial profiling before we decide to condemn and punish the terrorists who do it while disguised as agents of law enforcement.  Racial profiling by law enforcement officers is simply terrorism by a different name no matter what excuses we manufacture for it.   

DARREN WILSON CAN STILL BE CHARGED

DARREN WILSON CAN STILL BE CHARGED

©Wendell Griffen, 2014

Although the St. Louis County, Missouri prosecutor orchestrated a grand jury proceeding that resulting in the grand jury deciding there is no probable cause to charge Darren Wilson, formerly of the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department, with shooting unarmed Michael Brown, Jr. to death on August 9, 2014, that does not necessarily end the prospect of Wilson being charged with a crime for killing Brown.

Recall that Jonathan Farrell, another unarmed black man, was shot to death in September 2013 by Randall Kerrick of the Charlotte, North Carolina Police Department. Like in Wilson's case, the local prosecutor referred the issue of probable cause to a grand jury. Unlike the St. Louis County prosecutor, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg prosecutor sought a specific indictment for voluntary manslaughter against Kerrick from the grand jury. After the grand jury declined to return an indictment for voluntary manslaughter and issued a statement asking that the prosecutor seek an indictment for a lesser charge, the prosecutor decided to resubmit the case to another grand jury for the same charge (voluntary manslaughter). Here is a link to an article about that development:  http://www.wbtv.com/story/24510643/charlotte-officer-not-indicted-in-deadly-shooting.  This could also happen in Darren Wilson's case.

It is clear that St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch's office mishandled the grand jury presentation in a number of egregious ways. If the Governor and Attorney General of Missouri hope to restore any semblance of confidence in fairness they could and should denounce McCulloch's handling of the Wilson grand jury proceeding as a sham, remove his office from the case, appoint a special prosecutor, and have the probable cause issue considered by another grand jury based solely on the information needed to establish probable cause.

Darren Wilson and his defense team, like that of Randall Kerrick in North Carolina, will be very displeased about the prospect of his case being considered by another grand jury and handled by a different prosecutor than Robert McCulloch and McCulloch's staff. However, there is no legal ban on that happening.

Submitting Wilson's case to a different prosecutor and grand jury will not violate the Eight Amendment ban on double jeopardy because Wilson has never been criminally charged with killing Michael Brown, Jr., let alone brought to trial. Jeopardy attaches only after a person has been charged and brought to trial. Even when people are charged and tried double jeopardy does not prohibit retrial when the first trial results in mistrial. So Darren Wilson would not be subjected to double jeopardy by submitting his case to another grand jury.

I believe that probable cause exists to charge Wilson with murder in the first degree (purposely causing the death of Michael Brown, Jr.), which would include the lesser-included offenses of murder in the second degree (knowingly causing Brown's death) and manslaughter (recklessly causing Brown's death). I have also consistently emphasized that probable cause to charge is based on a different and lesser standard of proof from proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the evidentiary standard that must be met to convict someone of a crime at trial.

If Wilson is charged, the prosecution will have to prove at trial beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty of a crime in killing Brown. At trial Wilson will be able to assert any defenses he has to the charge. At trial, the defense will be able to challenge the evidence presented by the prosecution. Wilson may choose to not testify at trial, which is his absolute constitutional right. At trial, the jury may find Wilson not guilty or may convict him. But that only happens at trial, not in a grand jury proceeding.

The issue is not whether Wilson will be subjected to double jeopardy but whether Brown's death will receive proper probable cause analysis in a process that isn't tainted by prosecutorial misconduct. If Missouri officials want to do right concerning Brown's death, they should admit that McCulloch's handling was a sham, remove him from the case, and appoint a special prosecutor to present the probable cause issue to another grand jury.

If Missouri officials say that can't happen don't believe them. Prosecutors are always free to re-open cases, re-submit cases to a grand jury, and re-file charges based on reconsidered positions, different conclusions about the evidence, and changed circumstances.  The question isn’t whether Missouri officials can do the right thing.  It’s whether they want to do the right thing and have the courage to do it.  Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

THE CONTINUED PRICE FOR IGNORING DR. KING'S WISDOM

THE CONTINUED PRICE FOR IGNORING DR. KING’S WISDOM

©Wendell Griffen, 2014

On April 4, 1967, exactly a year before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered at Riverside Church in New York City the most prophetic sermon of his life, titled “A Time to Break Silence.”  Sadly, that is the sermon most politicians and pundits least remember and almost never quote.  The sermon made news because it marked Dr. King’s most public denunciation of the U.S. military adventure in Southeast Asia and his call for the U.S. to immediately end the war in Vietnam. 

But Dr. King also uttered the following prediction after issuing that call.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy-and laymen-centered committees for the next generation…  We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy… It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us.  Five years ago he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”  Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken—the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible… I am convinced that … we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.  We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society.  When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

The giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism have been on full display in the tragedy surrounding the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. by Darren Wilson, formerly of the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department. 

When Wilson testified before the grand jury he likened Brown to a demon—something inhuman.  Several days after Brown was killed a local policeman was captured on videotape calling describing lawfully assembled protesters “animals.”  The idolatrous cancer of racism pervades American society despite those who pretend it doesn’t exist.  The killing of Michael Brown exposes how much that cancer has metastasized within law enforcement. 

When Ferguson, Missouri Police Chief Tom Jackson finally identified Darren Wilson as Brown’s killer he released convenience store security video footage that purportedly showed Brown stealing a handful of tobacco products shortly before Darren Wilson shot him to death.  The idolatry of materialism was evident as a law enforcement leader clumsily tried to suggest that theft of a handful of tobacco products somehow justified killing an unarmed robbery suspect.

When Brown’s family and neighbors peaceably assembled in their own community to protest his death they were attacked by the St. Louis County, Missouri law enforcement apparatus armed with military weapons and armored vehicles.  The idolatry of militarism has been pervasive since Wilson killed Brown. 

President Obama’s announcement that the federal government will fund body cameras for law enforcement officers doesn’t address any of the giant triplets Dr. King warned about.  Mr. Obama could have announced a multi-million dollar cultural competency training campaign for law enforcement agencies.  Attorney General Eric Holder’s much heralded recent remarks in Atlanta could have criticized racism in law enforcement.  Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder, like so many other law enforcement leaders, seem unable to admit that people in law enforcement are susceptible to behavior driven by implicit bias during encounters with people of color. 

It is easier to hand out body cameras than to confront systemic bias within law enforcement. Law enforcement agencies are typically eager to accept tactical equipment.  They are unwilling to confront the systemic reasons why they are viewed with distrust and resentment by people of color. 

Tiresome calls for “calm” and “peace” despite pervasive racism, materialism, and militarism suffered by people of color under the guise of “law enforcement” show that Dr. King’s wisdom is still rejected.  The grand jury charade orchestrated by St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch and the angry outcry after the grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown remind us of Dr. King’s haunting warning when he quoted President Kennedy words:  “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”    

Societies reject prophets at the risk of their own peril.  Our nation is paying the penalty for murdering its greatest prophet and ignoring his wisdom.   We can’t afford that cost.