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T H E N O . 1 S T. L O U I S W E B S I T E A N D N E W S P A P E R
MONDAY • 08.18.2014 • $1.50
Vol. 136, No. 230 ©2014POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®
2 M
70°/87°PARTLY CLOUDY
72°/91°CHANCE OF STORMS
WEATHERA16
TODAY
TOMORROW
CLASHES, CHAOSCASE MAY BE PIVOTAL FOR CIVIL RIGHTS • 20,000 SIGN PETITION FOR SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
POLICE AGAIN USE TEAR GAS ON FERGUSON PROTESTERS
ROBERT COHEN • [email protected] Roberts has milk poured into her eyes by a stranger to ease the e� ects of tear gas used by police, as she sits outside the McDonald’s on West Florissant Avenue on Sunday. “We thought it could be a peaceful night,” said Roberts, who was marching in Ferguson to protest the killing of Michael Brown. “What the hell is going on in this world?”
Sharpton, King lead rally at church. A6
FROM STAFF REPORTS
The U.S. Department of Justice will conduct a third autopsy of Michael Brown, whose shooting death by a Ferguson police o� cer touched o� a week of volatile protests that boiled over for another night late Sunday.
Meanwhile, a private autopsy re-quested by the family showed Brown was struck at least six times, includ-ing a fatal shot to the skull, Anthony Gray, an attorney for Brown’s family, said Sunday night.
All bullets entered the front of his body; two shots hit Brown’s head
AUTOPSY SHOWS BROWN WAS HIT BY SIX ROUNDS
BY JOE [email protected] > 314-340-8254AND JESSE BOGAN [email protected] > 314-340-8225
FERGUSON • Cassandra Roberts said she just wanted to show her solidarity with protesters.
“It seemed like after last night, things were more peaceful,” Roberts said.
But on Sunday night, the Richmond Heights resi-dent found herself covered in tear gas as she knelt in the middle of West Florissant Avenue while police clashed with protest marchers.
‘WE’LL BE HERE UNTIL WE GET
AN EXPLANATION
BY JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEHAssociated Press
MONROVIA, LIBERIA • Liberian of-ficials fear Ebola could soon spread through the capital’s largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected patients and took items in-cluding bloody sheets and mattresses.
The violence in the West Point slum took place late Saturday and was led by residents angry that patients had been
brought to the holding center from other parts of Monrovia, assistant health min-ister Tolbert Nyenswah said Sunday.
As many as 30 patients were staying at the center, and many of them fl ed at the time of the raid, Nyenswah said. Once they are located they will be transferred to the Ebola center at Monrovia’s largest hospital, he said.
West Point residents went on a
Islamic State forces fl ee assaultIraqi, Kurdish troops on verge of taking back dam.
BY LIZ SLY, CRAIG WHITLOCK AND LOVEDAY MORRISWashington Post
BADRIYA, IRAQ • Islamic State fi ght-ers were on the run in northern Iraq on Sunday after Iraqi and Kurdish forces, backed by U.S. airstrikes, closed in on a strategically vital dam in the most sig-nifi cant attempt yet to reverse the mili-tants’ blitz through Iraq.
Iraqi and Kurdish commanders
claimed to be making swift progress, slicing through a series of villages and then reaching the dam after a wave of U.S. attacks in which fi ghter jets, drones and bombers pummeled the extremists’ positions.
It was the biggest o� ensive since the latest U.S. intervention in Iraq was an-nounced 10 days ago, and it signaled an expansion of what was originally defi ned
Looted clinic raises Ebola threatLiberian officials fear deadly virus will spread more quickly.
See IRAQ • Page A9See EBOLA • Page A9
CARDS WINBut ’Birds remain 3 games back in NL Central.
SPORTS • B1
MIZZOU BEGINS SEASON
AT NO. 24SPORTS • B1
Nixon: McCulloch should ‘step up’ investigation
Page A4
City gets one shot to repair reputation
Editorial • A12
ROBERT COHEN • [email protected]
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A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 2 • MOnDAy • 08.18.2014
By CHUCK RAASCH [email protected] 202-298-6880
WASHINGTON • In multiple appearances on national televi-sion Sunday morning, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon repeatedly em-phasized the role of the federal investigation over the local one in the shooting death of Michael Brown.
Nixon said that St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, who has publicly criticized Nixon’s de-cision to bring in the Missouri Highway Patrol, had an oppor-tunity to “step up here and do his job.”
Nixon appeared on four morning talk shows, and shortly after his last appearance the Justice Department announced that it would conduct its own autopsy — separate from that conducted by local authorities — of Brown, 18, who was shot and killed Aug. 9 by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
The governor said that his conversation on Thursday with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had led to the deploy-ment of 40 more FBI officers to investigate the shooting.
“That is the kind of indepen-
dent, external national review and investigation of this that I think will assist everyone in making sure we get to justice,” Nixon said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
But Nixon was far more mea-sured when asked about the lo-cal investigation being led by McCulloch, who has faced criti-cism and calls for him to step aside. McCulloch told the Post-Dispatch last week that Nixon’s decision to turn security over to the Missouri Highway Patrol was “shameful” and “disgrace-ful” and that it had been done without consulting local police.
Nixon, asked about those characterizations on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” called McCull-och “a seasoned prosecutor that has an opportunity to step up here and do his job.”
Nixon said something very similar on CNN. “He is an expe-rienced prosecutor and it is his opportunity to step up,” Nixon said. Nixon said he had no time-table estimates of the investi-gation, except to note that Mc-Culloch had said publicly that the case would be presented to a grand jury.
“I will let the prosecutor speak for himself on what his time frame is, other than I know
when I talked to Attorney Gen-eral Holder that the response to that was to bring 40 additional agents into the region to acceler-ate those interviews,” Nixon told CNN. “Everybody is working re-ally, really hard. ... To get justice it has to be transparent justice, it has to be thorough justice.”
Nixon also told ABC’s “This Week with George Stepha-nopoulos” that his office was unaware that Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson was go-ing to release on Friday a vid-eotape showing what is alleged to be Brown, 18, in what police have called a “strong-armed” robbery of cigars in a conve-nience store shortly before he was killed.
“We were certainly not happy with that being released, es-pecially in the way that it was,” Nixon said. “It appeared to cast aspersions on a young man that was gunned down in the street. It made emotions raw.”
On “Meet the Press,” Nixon called the decision to release the tape “not right” and “not help-ful.” “Rest assured we have had very serious discussions about that action” and its effect on Brown’s family, Nixon told NBC.
As the investigation has un-folded, McCulloch has been
criticized by some local politi-cians. U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, who also ap-peared on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said in an appearance in Ferguson Friday night that “we don’t have any confidence in the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office.”
“Bob McCulloch tried to taint the jury pool by the stunt he pulled today,” Clay said Friday night, referring to the conve-nience store videotape. “I have no faith in him, but I do trust the FBI and the Justice Depart-ment.”
Clay, who told the Post-Dis-patch on Thursday that he con-sidered Brown’s death a mur-der, told CNN Sunday that “I want the legal system to take its course.” He criticized what he said had been a “way too heavy-handed” police response to pro-testers, and applauded efforts in Congress to review the transfer of excess military equipment to local police forces, including those in St. Louis County.
“I don’t think I am usurping (the investigation) by calling it a murder,” Clay told CNN’s Candy Crowley. The congressman said he had made a commitment to Brown’s family to “pursue jus-tice.” Last Monday, two days
after the shooting, Clay co-authored a letter asking for the Justice Department to take over the investigation.
Nixon was asked repeatedly on the Sunday morning talk shows why it had taken him so long to become more visibly in-volved. The governor said he had been involved through phone conversations all week before appearing in Ferguson. He said the crisis in Ferguson had ex-posed “old wounds” and “deep wounds.”
Post-Dispatch editor Gilbert Bailon, appearing on “Meet the Press,” noted that Ferguson’s black population had grown.
“What has not grown with that is the political representa-tion, the economic opportunity,” he said. “They feel very isolated and additionally, a deep mistrust for the police there.” Many cit-ies around the country, he said, have similar issues.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who was among civil rights demonstrators beaten by Ala-bama State Troopers on what became known as Bloody Sun-day in Selma, Ala., in 1965, agreed. “It may be Ferguson today, but tomorrow it could be someplace else,” he said on “Meet the Press.”
NIXON STRESSES FEDS’ ROLE McCulloCh ShoulD ‘STEP uP’ hIS INVESTIGATIoN, GoVERNoR SAYS.
police shooting in ferguson
and four hit his right arm, according to a report by the New York Times.
According to the Times, Dr. Michael M. Baden, who conducted the autopsy, said: “This one here looks like his head was bent downward,” indicating the wound at the very top of Brown’s head. “It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”
Baden is the former chief medical ex-aminer for New York City and has been in-volved in numerous high-profile cases in-cluding reviewing the autopsy of President John F. Kennedy. Baden told the Times the shots did not appear to have been fired at close range, but he was unable to examine Brown’s clothing for gunshot residue.
Baden also said the number of gunshot wounds Brown sustained could have been released by authorities immediately.
In a statement earlier Sunday when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered the Justice Department to conduct its own in-dependent autopsy, Holder cited the “ex-traordinary circumstances” surrounding the fatal shooting on Aug. 9 of Brown, 18. Members of Brown’s family sought the federal autopsy, saying they lacked confi-dence in the state investigation being con-ducted by St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch and St. Louis County Police.
The federal autopsy will take place “as soon as possible,” according to a Justice Department statement.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon emphasized the role of the federal investigation over local efforts during a series of appearances on Sunday morning news shows.
Nixon said McCulloch, who has pub-licly criticized the decision to bring the Missouri Highway Patrol into Ferguson,
had an opportunity to “step up here and do his job.”
Brown was unarmed when he was fa-tally shot by Ferguson police officer Dar-ren Wilson, 28, police say.
Gray said the preliminary private au-topsy was conducted Sunday. The family
planned to react to the report this morning at a news conference.
The autopsy is the second — the first was conducted locally.
Dorian Johnson, 22, may be the closest eyewitness to the shooting. He has repeat-edly told media that he and Brown were walking in the middle of the street when the officer pulled up and ordered them to “get the F on the sidewalk” and grabbed Brown by the throat. Johnson disputed a statement by St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar that Brown had reached into the car and struggled for the officer’s gun.
Johnson has said that the officer shot Brown, who ran. The officer ran after him and Brown turned and put up his hands in surrender, and the officer shot him again, Johnson said.
Brown’s death has sparked more than a week of protests, outrage and looting. Allegations of racism are at the heart of the protests because Brown was a black teenager and was shot by a white Ferguson police officer.
On Sunday, Col. Ron Replogle, superin-tendent of the Missouri Highway Patrol, announced Ferguson would be subject to a curfew for a second straight night.
Replogle said he remained in Ferguson during the first night of curfew and noted “challenges posed by a very few individu-als.” There were reportedly several arrests, but few details were available Sunday.
Chuck Raasch, Jesse Bogan, Joe Holleman, Margaret Gillerman, Denise Hollinshed, Michael D. Sorkin and Ken Leiser, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.
AUTOPSyfROm A1
Christian Gooden • [email protected] Attorney General Chris Koster (right) greets the Rev. Tommie Pierson, pastor of Greater St. Mark Family Church, on Sunday after speaking to the congregation. “A member of your community died at the hands of a member of my community,” Koster said. “Not just the Caucasian community but the law enforcement community.” The Justice Department will conduct an autopsy on Michael Brown, who was allegedly shot by Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson.
juSTIcE DEpT. TO cONDucT auTOpSy
robert Cohen • [email protected] sea of protesters occupy West Florissant Avenue at Canfield Drive on Sunday. Shortly after this picture was taken, shots rang out on Canfield, hitting one person.
08.18.2014 • Monday • M 2 ST. LoUIS PoST-dISPaTCH • A5
police shooting in ferguson
RALLY FOR POLICE OFFICERAbout 150 people including law enforcement officers stood in front of KSDK (Channel 5) on Market Street in downtown St. Louis late Sunday afternoon to rally in support of Ferguson Po-lice Officer Darren Wilson, the officer police say fatally shot Mi-chael Brown, 18, on Aug. 9.
Across the street were about 15 people who opposed the rally for Wilson. They said they learned about the rally through social media only after it had started.
Some people at the rally said they were protesting the station because a broadcast Friday had been held in front of Wilson’s home. KSDK issued an apol-ogy Saturday after airing the broadcast and said that the sta-tion “immediately felt using that video was a mistake and pulled the video of the home from future newscasts and from our website.”
At the rally, police and rela-tives of police said media cover-age generally had been unfair and they wanted their voices heard.
They carried signs that said: “We love and support you Dar-ren,” “Pray for peace in Fergu-son” and “Justice takes time; As-sumption takes seconds; Please be fair; Wait for the facts.”
Martin Baker, a 2014 unsuc-cessful candidate in the Republi-can primary for the Congressio-nal district that includes north St. Louis County, was among the people at the rally.
“I’m supporting due process of law and a fair and unbiased and honest investigation,” he said.
A man who said he was an un-dercover police officer and could not give his name was one of the leaders. The rally was posted on the Support Darren Wilson Face-book page, which shows thou-sands of supporters. Rally orga-nizers sold navy T-shirts with a picture of a white police badge with Wilson’s name. Others at the rally wore T-shirts bearing the emblems of other police de-partments. Cars drove by honk-ing in support.
On the pro-Wilson side, a staff sergeant stationed at Scott Air Force Base said, “It seems right now that you’re only hearing one side from the media. There are other sides to the story.”
CRITICISM OF RESTRICTIONS
Some residents and visitors say they’re frustrated with restric-tions on travel they’ve faced in the Ferguson area.
Latasha Gray, a resident and alderwoman in Velda City, said she had had to bring food to her mother because of the difficulty of getting to area groceries and restaurants.
“It’s an inconvenience,” Gray, 40, said. “I understand it’s a safety issue, but we want to get on with our lives. … It’s like a Third World country here in St. Louis.”
Gray said some shift workers who live in the curfew area, in-cluding UPS workers, had to get company statements verifying their schedules to police.
She’s also concerned about what happens when classes be-gin today in the Ferguson-Floris-sant district. “How are the chil-dren going to concentrate when they’re seeing this in their com-munity?” Gray asked.
The curfew restriction also af-fected at least one family in need of emergency assistance.
Fannie Powell-Davis, 57, said she took her husband, James Da-vis, 63, to the hospital Saturday night after waiting nearly half an hour for an ambulance to arrive at their residence near the corner of Lang Drive and West Floris-sant Avenue. Her husband, who has a heart condition, was in dis-tress and vomiting.
She alerted her alarm com-pany, which, in turn, notified the Ferguson Fire Department at 6:42 p.m., Powell-Davis said. Although Ferguson has a station on West Florissant Avenue, it took until 7:13 p.m. for an ambu-lance to arrive, accompanied by two police cruisers, she said.
The alarm company dispatcher told her the reason it had taken so long was because they had had to wait for a police escort.
Even though the ambulance arrived, Powell-Davis said she drove her husband to the hospital herself because she was “so up-
set.” She ended up spending the night at the hospital because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to return home because of the curfew.
— Denise Hollinshed
FEEDING THE COMMUNITY
Law-enforcement officers, pro-testers, residents and visitors were among beneficiaries of free meals brought by volunteers.
Near the police command cen-ter at Northland Shopping Cen-ter, a group of volunteers arrived before noon to grill hot dogs and burgers, and offer free chips and bottles of water to show their support for Ferguson.
“We’re offering free lunch to anyone who comes by and the police,” said Mary Skees, 43, of Ferguson.
Tim Littrell, 46, who took charge of the grilling, said he had brought more than 300 hot dogs. “We’re trying to let everyone know that we’re here for peace,” said Littrell, a former Ferguson
resident who now lives in St. Pe-ters. “Everybody wants justice — in a peaceful way,” he said.
At the QuikTrip on West Flo-rissant, a gathering spot for pro-testers, Keith Griffin II, 37, was passing out free pizza, chips, fresh fruit and bottled water. Griffin, publisher of DELUX Magazine, said he had grown up in the area and was concerned about the welfare of residents. He also was providing “care pack-ages” to people stuck at home because of the protests and cur-few, he said.
— Denise Hollinshed
MATHENY ADDRESSES UNREST
When the Cardinals returned home to Busch Stadium this week, set to play in St. Louis for the first time since turmoil gripped Ferguson, the club de-cided not to play without first acknowledging in a statement its support for the municipality and its residents in the wake of “vi-olent events that do not reflect who we are as a people.”
Manager Mike Matheny, one of the first Cardinals to speak per-sonally about Ferguson and the protests there, echoed that senti-ment Sunday.
“It’s a sad situation. It’s a tough situation for our city,” Matheny said before the team’s series finale against the San Di-ego Padres. “Hopefully all of the voices who are trying to get this resolved get it resolved quickly.”
Before the first pitch of Thurs-day’s game, the Cardinals orga-nization had a statement read over the public address system at Busch. The club asked fans to “join us in taking a stand against violence as we unite as one com-munity.” It also mentioned the unifying effect that baseball has for a culture, especially one such as St. Louis that has embraced and often been defined by the game. Matheny referenced base-ball’s role after the 9/11 attacks.
“Baseball, not just in St. Louis but in our country as a whole, has served very well in that regard,” Matheny said. “This is a great city with a lot of great people. I would like to see this resolved.”
— Derrick Goold
NOTES FROM FERguSON
Christian Gooden • [email protected] woman who did not want to be indentified by name shows her support outside KSDK (Channel 5) in St. Louis on Sunday for Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson on Aug. 9. The group of about 100 people were upset that Channel 5 ran video footage of Wilson’s home, though the station later apologized.
robert Cohen • [email protected] retreat from tear gas after marching toward the police command post on West Florissant Avenue on Sunday.
A member of the crowd grabbed Roberts, 32, and helped her to the nearby McDon-ald’s restaurant, where workers bathed her face in milk.
“I knelt down because I trusted them,” she said of police, “be-cause they’re not supposed to hurt me. I thought it was a sym-bol of surrender.”
Roberts said she only remem-bers “things” hitting the ground around her and then exploding, before releasing the gas.
“It felt like my eyes got knocked out of my head,” she said. “My nose was running and I couldn’t breathe.”
Police at the scene had no immediate comment on what touched off the exchange with demonstrators. But on Twitter, the St. Louis County police re-ported that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail at police at an undisclosed location some-time after 9 p.m. County officials added that shots had been fired at Solway Avenue and West Flo-rissant.
Police began firing tear gas at protesters in Ferguson shortly af-ter 9 p.m., causing some to flee for safety.
The gas was fired at the south-ern end of the protest area, near Solway.
Protesters began marching south on West Florissant Avenue toward Lucas and Hunt Road.
Police made their way north
on West Florissant to Canfield Drive. Many officers wore riot gear and gas masks.
Demonstrators laid bricks on West Florissant in the path of police. Officers continued to push north toward the QuikTrip station that was burned during the first night of looting and fire.
Officers ordered protesters to “disperse from the area imme-diately” and warned that those who didn’t comply “are subject to arrest.”
Protesters shot off aerial fire-works in the area. Police ordered television news photographers to turn off their lights. About 10 to 15 minutes into the march, police began firing tear gas.
Some of the tear gas canisters landed in nearby neighborhoods.
“This is terrible,” said George
Clay, 41, who lives on Ellison Drive near Solway Avenue. “It is making it bad for people just try-ing to get to work.”
In the wake of demonstrations and looting, Ferguson was sub-ject to a midnight curfew for the second night in a row. As the cur-few neared, police vehicles began moving through the area and of-ficers were ordering people to go home again.
Firefighters responded to a fire at the Dellwood Market near Chambers Road and Lakemoor Drive after 10:30 p.m. The store appeared to have been broken into and looted. Three people were arrested near the scene.
Earlier in the night, demon-strator Terrence Moore warned that police should not expect crowds to get smaller.
“They were hoping, I guess, that this would dissipate,” Moore said. “But it won’t. We all know that problems exist, and then when something like this (Mi-chael Brown’s killing), everyone wonders why. We’ll be here until we get an explanation delivered with a level of respect.”
At nightfall, people were openly wondering what would unfold.
Protesters vowed more intense events if there isn’t an indict-ment against the officer who shot Michael Brown.
“I have never seen anything like this before, a whole neigh-borhood coming together to-day,” said Brittany Watson, 22, of Nashville, Tenn. She was with a group called “the Brown justice chasers.”
PROTESTFROM A1
tear gas again used on protesters
A6 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 1 • MOnDAy • 08.18.2014
police shooting in ferguson
Church of the Living God Temple of Faith Ferguson Heights Church of Christ Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Church
spreading the word
By Josh Renaud • [email protected] • 314-340-8162
First Baptist Church of Ferguson Ferguson Christian Church Zion Lutheran Church
messages seen on church signs in and around Ferguson on sunday
J.B. ForBes • [email protected] Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson is confronted by a protester in Ferguson on Sunday afternoon. Johnson said the man apparently wanted to go to jail.
By MichAel D. [email protected]
Organizers said Sunday that more than 20,000 people had signed online petitions seek-ing a special prosecutor to in-vestigate the death of Michael Brown.
St. Louis County Prosecut-ing Attorney Robert McCull-och is in charge of the investi-gation. The petition asks him to step aside.
“Many community mem-bers don’t believe he can be fair and impartial,” state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, said. She launched the peti-tion drive with the goal of gathering 50,000 signatures. “We will continue to put pres-sure on him to resign,” she said.
Nasheed cited McCulloch’s investigation into the actions of two undercover drug de-tectives who killed a suspect and his passenger in a car on the parking lot of the Jack in the Box restaurant in Berkeley in 2000.
Grand jury proceedings are secret. McCulloch, in telling the public what the grand jury had found, repeatedly insisted that “every witness” had tes-tified that the two detectives fired to defend themselves after the suspect tried to run them over with his car.
The Post-Dispatch re-viewed the previously secret grand jury tapes and found that McCulloch’s public statements were untrue.
Only three of the 13 detec-tives who testified said the suspect’s car had moved for-ward, in the direction of the two officers who shot him and his passenger. Two of those were the shooters themselves. The third was a detective who McCulloch later said he con-sidered charging with perjury because his account was so at odds with the facts.
Contrary to McCulloch’s public statements, the grand jury tapes showed that four other detectives testified that they never saw the suspect’s car travel toward the officers.
McCulloch never brought independent evidence before the grand jury to sort out who was right.
Nor did he request the tes-timony of a nationally noted collision expert who investi-gated the case for the Justice Department. He determined that the suspect’s car had al-ways been in reverse.
Another controversial case involving McCulloch’s use of the grand jury was dubbed “Kinkogate.”
In 1997, McCulloch used a grand jury subpoena to iden-tify a whistleblower who con-tacted the FBI and reported what he said was improper behavior by a member of then St. Louis County Executive George “Buzz” Westfall’s cab-inet. The whistleblower was Russ Signorino, then an em-ployee of the St. Louis County Economic Council. He sent an anonymous fax to the media from a Kinko’s store in Creve Coeur.
Without telling the grand jury what he was doing, Mc-Culloch gave the subpoena to the St. Louis County police, who used it to obtain a video recording from Kinko’s show-ing who sent the fax. After he was identified, Signorino was forced to quit his county job.
McCulloch at first claimed that he had issued the grand jury subpoena because the fax contained a “threat.”
He later admitted that there never had been any threat and conceded that no crime was involved. He denied that he had abused the grand jury process to identity a whistle-blower who was acting law-fully.
According to the Missouri attorney general’s office, only an order from a judge can re-move McCulloch from the case; he can also step aside himself. Nasheed said the pe-tition would put pressure on McCulloch to step down vol-untarily.
McCulloch did not respond to a request for comment. On Saturday, he said the county grand jury would begin hear-ing evidence in the Brown shooting case this week.
Denise Hollinshed of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
20,000 sign petition
for special prosecutor
By lilly Fowler [email protected] • 314-340-8221AnD JeSSe [email protected] • 314-340-8255
FeRGuson • Civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton told a packed church on Sun-day afternoon that the Michael Brown case would mark a defining moment in civil rights history and fundamentally change the way police engage with the African-Ameri-can community.
“Michael Brown is going to change this town,” Sharpton said to a massive, boister-ous crowd that clapped and shouted in re-sponse.
Hundreds filled the pews of Greater Grace Church, 3690 Pershall Road. More crowded into the foyer, and hundreds remained on the parking lot unable to enter, all in a show of support for the African-American teen-ager who was shot by a police officer on Aug. 9.
Sharpton announced a future march in Washington on policing. He criticized the militarization of police, saying they act as if they are “at war with … citizens.” Sharp-ton urged the crowd to start showing up at the polls to vote and make a difference in the lives of African-Americans.
“Nobody can go to the White House un-less they stop by our house,” Sharpton said. “We’ll be here until justice is achieved.”
In addition to Sharpton, Capt. Ronald S. Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who took over the police security patrol in Ferguson last week, was on hand to offer support to Brown’s family, as was U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis.
“I want you to know these parents are not going to cry alone, they’re not going to stand alone,” Sharpton said, referring to Brown’s parents, who were also at the church. “We’ve had enough.”
Benjamin Crump, the Brown family’s law-yer, also took the stage.
“We’re here to talk about justice,” said Crump. “We’re here to stand up for our children, because if we don’t stand up for our children, nobody will stand up for our children. They just want what anyone else would want if their child was shot in broad
daylight,” he said.When Johnson of the Highway Patrol
spoke he compared Brown to his own son.“When this is over I’m going to go into
my son’s room, my black son, who wears his pants sagging, wears his hat cocked to the side, got tattoos on his arms. But that’s my baby,” Johnson said. “Michael is going to make it better for our sons, so they can be better men.”
Crump told supporters not to lose focus amid news that Brown is alleged to have robbed a convenience store just before the shooting. He called the allegations an at-tempt to assassinate Brown’s character.
Sharpton first took the stage with the Brown family receiving a standing ovation. Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, over-whelmed by the response, bowed her head, breaking down in tears.
As at previous forums, Sharpton urged demonstrators protesting Brown’s death to do so in a peaceful manner.
“We’re angry, but we’re not more angry than the parents,” Sharpton said. “Don’t take advantage of their child. We’re not looters.”
He also said Ferguson residents would take to the streets with bright yellow T-shirts, calling themselves “Disciples of Jus-tice,” or DJs, to help contain any violence on the streets.
Sharpton announced a class-action law-suit for demonstrators who had been victims of tear gas and other injuries at the hands of police, though he gave few specifics.
People turned out with families, babies in strollers and children on shoulders.
Laronda Hodges, 46, a counselor for St. Louis Public Schools, was outside the church with her husband and 13-year-old
daughter. “I just want to be a part of making a difference,” Hodges said. Nothing seems to change, she added, pointing to discrepan-cies in pay, in positions, in elected offices.
Marilyn McKinney, 57, of St. Louis, was there with family members, holding a photo of her nephew, De Andreis Demeko McKin-ney, who was fatally shot by police 20 years ago. “It relives 1994 for me,” McKinney said. “My nephew was shot, hands up.”
One pocket of people huddled around a radio station van broadcasting what was be-ing said inside the church.
Cornell Carter, 24, of north St. Louis, was on the parking lot with five of his children. “People are all getting together. That’s all that matters, even if we can’t get in to hear what they have to say.”
But not everyone was happy with Sharp-ton’s speech.
“He always wants to hush us without handling the whole situation,” said Zsazzi Powell, 27, a stay-at-home mother in Fergu-son. “We’re tired of all the pacifying.”
“I want to know, will my boys have a chance to grow up,” Powell said, saying Sharpton needed a more concrete action plan.
Alicia Berry, 38, a teacher in Florissant, said Sharpton should pressure the media to not always emphasize the negative. She said the media had paid too much atten-tion to the looting that happened last week, rather than shining a light on those who had worked hard to keep the rallies safe.
“Every race has its handful of fools,” she said.
Berry called Sharpton’s speech “power-ful” but said she wanted to know — “What’s going to happen after this?”
After the service, a reporter asked Mar-tin Luther King III, the son of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., what he’d say to the violent protesters.
“What I would say to anyone who is en-gaged in violence is that approach will not ultimately yield the greatest benefit for the community. It may temporarily accomplish an objective. If the philosophy of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth was one we all em-braced, most of us would be without eyes and teeth.”
BacKers VoW cHangecase is PiVoTaL For ciViL righTs, sharPTon says
raLLY at greater graCe ChUrCh
ConFrontation
“i want you to know these parents are not going to cry alone, they’re not going to stand alone. we’ve had enough.”
Civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton
08.18.2014 • Monday • M 1 ST. LoUIS PoST-dISPaTCH • A7
Ferguson Police shooting
RobeRt Cohen • [email protected] chairs are carted to Greater Grace Church in Ferguson after it was filled to capacity well before an afternoon service for the Michael Brown family on Sunday. Hundreds of people unable to get into the building gathered in the parking lot.
RobeRt Cohen • [email protected] members of Michael Brown sit in the front row of Greater Grace Church in Ferguson on Sunday as the crowd overflowed into the parking lot for the service.
J.b. FoRbes • [email protected] are parked more than a mile from Greater Grace Church on Pershall Road in Ferguson on Sunday afternoon as people arrive to hear Martin Luther King III and activist and television show host the Rev. Al Sharpton speak about Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by a Ferguson police officer on Aug. 9.
faith rallythousands overwhelm ferguson church
ChRistian Gooden • [email protected] Rev. Al Sharpton speaks at Greater Grace Church in Ferguson on Sunday at the rally about Michael Brown.
RobeRt Cohen • [email protected] Luther King III, the eldest child of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., addresses visitors at a service for the Michael Brown family at Greater Grace Church on Sunday.
ChRistian Gooden • [email protected] McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr., the parents of Michael Brown, raise their hands to acknowledge support during a rally Sunday at Greater St. Mark Family Church.
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One of the police commanders who had been on the ground in Ferguson last week came away convinced that what has hap-pened there changes every-thing.
“This is a generational event,” he said.
From now on, he said, local public policy decisions will be measured in “pre-Ferguson” and “post-Ferguson” terms. The challenge for this com-munity, for its cops and politi-cians and civic leaders, as well as residents of all races and all addresses, is how we adapt to life after Ferguson.
St. Louis hasn’t gone through anything like this in 51 years, not since the Jefferson Bank protests that began in late August of 1963. No one died in those protests, but nearly a hundred protesters were arrested. Shamefully, some of them were jailed until March.
At issue were hiring prac-tices among city businesses. The civic and political leaders of that day dragged their feet. The police and judicial sys-tem backed them up. It took federal court intervention in March 1964 to embarrass the city’s leaders into changing policies.
That was a different time. There was no 24-hour news cycle, no social media, little in the way of international interest in this story. There were civil rights stories all over the country, many more dra-matic than people sitting on the floor of a bank and being hauled off to jail.
But this one was ours. And it did some good, created some jobs, spawned a generation of leaders. The city’s 26th ward alderman, William L. Clay, Sr., was among the leaders who was jailed. Four years later, he was elected to Congress and spent 32 years there. His son, William Lacy Clay Jr., suc-ceeded him in 2000 and has been there since.
There was progress. But it didn’t transform St. Louis.
Because of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Vot-ing Rights Act of 1965, many of the more egregious manifesta-tions of racism have been miti-gated. They have not all been erased, no matter what the U.S. Supreme Court suggested last year when it struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act.
Until an unarmed 18-year-old man, Michael Brown, was shot dead by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson a week ago Saturday, St. Louis has enjoyed, if that’s the right word, 50 years of racial peace and some important progress. Not enough, but some.
Fifty years is two gen-erations. In most cases, two generations of whites enjoyed those years more than their blacks counterparts, who found fewer job opportunities, fewer good schools and fewer housing options. The reasons for that are many and compli-cated, but the least that can be said is that St. Louis didn’t often go out of its way to do much about it.
As our colleague Bill McClellan has observed, we are the descendants of those who stayed behind when bolder people opened the West. Complacency is in our
marrow.Now we’ve been called on it.
Now we have been summoned to a generational change.
“Whenever there is a major event that is not positive, it al-ways accelerates change.”
That’s what Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings told the Dallas Morning News last year as the city prepared to mark the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Fairly or not, Dallas became labeled “The City of Hate,” an image city fathers took pains to address. Still, the image persisted until the glory years of the Dallas Cowboys and an eponymous television soap opera.
In the nine years since Hur-ricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city has been rebuilt with billions of federal dollars. It is smaller by 100,000 residents, but a higher percentage of them are entrepreneurs. Today’s New Orleans has more knowledge-based industries, far better schools and a reputation among young people as a cool place to live.
The assassination of a president and a hurricane that killed nearly 1,000 people are entirely different generational events than what has gone on in Ferguson. We will not have Roger Staubach or J.R. Ewing to change our image, and in this day and age, the odds that St. Louis will get infusions of billions of federal dollars to address its mistakes are slim and none.
No, we’re going to have to do this ourselves.
Eventually the television cam-eras and news reporters left Dallas and New Orleans. They will leave St. Louis, too, along with the visiting civil rights fi remen, the outside hell-rais-ers and the self-anointed ex-perts. The ubiquitous #Fergu-son hashtag will fade.
We will be left to work this out on our own, beginning with the judicial process, including a Justice Depart-ment investigation. What does it say about St. Louis that the Justice Department doesn’t even trust a medical exam-iner’s autopsy?
As the judicial process unfolds this fall, we’ll see Fer-guson debated as part of the St. Louis County executive’s election. Ferguson could be, and should be, an object les-son in discussions about end-ing city-county fragmentation between now and 2016.
Would metro-wide govern-ment and policing have made a difference in how Ferguson was policed, before and after Michael Brown’s death? There’s no doubt about it.
This editorial page has proposed a gubernatorial Ferguson Commission to look at the events of last week and those that led up to it. We’ve proposed that St. Louis’s great universities study and make recommendations about a path forward. We believe greater educational opportu-nity is critical.
A generational event demands a generational response, a fundamental shift in the old way of doing things. You only get one shot at it. And you need to get it right.
‘This is a generational
event’Our view
A complacent city gets one shot at repairing its reputation.
Change failed past policies to fi x problems in Ferguson
I believe the tragedy that has unfolded in Ferguson is an embarrassment to the whole St. Louis com-munity. It makes us look like South Africa where a small white minority ruled over a large black popu-lation. There is an almost all-white police force, a white mayor and a white Board of Education in a community that is 67 percent black. There is strong distrust between the community and the police.
How can we fi x this?First, there needs to be a concerted e� ort to di-
versify the police force and the political representa-tives of Ferguson so that it more closely refl ects the demographics of the community. This would help bridge this gap in trust.
Second, we need to spend more money on edu-cation; more on a� ordable housing; more on job creation; have stronger gun control laws to reduce gun violence; and decriminalize marijuana because a lot of young African-American males are ar-rested and imprisoned for low-level o� enses like marijuana possession, which hurts them in the long run because it interrupts their education and hurts future job prospects, which hurts their families who miss them during their absence.
We need to move forward on this issue so that we can stop the suffering in this community. We can-not be trapped by failed past policies that have led to this preventable tragedy.Michael Nolan • Crestwood
Lots of rhetoric, no problem-solving from Sharpton and other leadersSo Al Sharpton came to town. Didn’t see him when the grandmother was killed in the crossfire. Or when little Antonio Johnson died while doing homework. Or on any weekend when violence seems to be an ordinary occurrence. Why? Well you don’t need a Harvard degree to figure it out.
He calls himself a “shining light” but the truth is, he and many leaders are dim bulbs in a dysfunc-tional society. There’s lots of rhetoric, gesturing and catchy phrases but no positive, productive problem-solving. No looking inward.
Does anybody really think those involved with looting, vandalism, civil disobedience care what these leaders say? They understand a totally di� er-ent kind of language.
My thoughts are with the good people of Fergu-son. May your community start to heal and become unified.Beverly Ervin • St. Louis County
Taser doesn’t cut it in really bad areas of St. LouisAnthony Wippold asks (Aug. 13), “Why? In 2014 and the age of the Taser, why should any police officer on routine patrol need to carry a deadly weapon?” Obviously Mr. Wippold you need to get out of Clayton more often.
Maybe a Taser will cut it in Clayton where the worst thing the average cop has to worry about is someone becoming irate over a parking violation.
But there are areas of St. Louis where there are low-life criminals roaming the streets that are better armed than the soldiers of some Third World coun-tries. A Taser will not cut it against the well-armed low-life scum who will shoot anyone, including an 11-year-old or a grandmother.
Talk to any cop that has worked in these areas and they will be the first to tell you that there is no such thing as a routine patrol in the really bad areas. Even a traffic stop can turn into a shootout at a moment’s notice. Furthermore, the low-life scum don’t always limit their activity to the worst neighborhoods. Sometimes they like to open up new territory and hit a business or a residence elsewhere. Therefore, would you like to be out there with nothing but a Taser?Bill Heger • Rock Hill
Justice will be served in Brown’s killing
I’m a black man, born and raised in the city of St. Louis. I went to public schools, graduated from Beaumont High. I served my country in the Navy. This behavior in Ferguson makes no sense.
We need to look in the mirror. This killing of Mi-chael Brown is a tragedy. Justice will be served, but not like this. All of this is taking away from what happened to this young man. He was trying to bet-ter himself; we should be remembering all of his wonderful qualities. The person that did this will be brought to justice. When given time, the justice system will work.
In closing, why is it that nobody sees or knows anything when it is a black killing a black? We kill each other everyday, and nobody in the neighbor-hood sees anything. Why is that?Warren Wilson Jr. • St. Ann
Legislature, not PSC, should make any decisions on utility subsidiesI write to take issue with one of the conclusions you reach in you editorial “Splitting the utility baby” (Aug. 6).
The editorial addresses whether the Public Ser-vice Commission should order Ameren to charge Noranda less for its electricity. Noranda has fi led a motion before the PSC requesting that it be charged less because it is the single largest consumer of Ameren power, because without a lower rate it will be forced to leave Missouri. Essentially Noranda seeks an order from a unit of government providing it a special benefi t based upon social and economic factors. The editorial advocates for such a subsidy, albeit not so large as Noranda desires, hence the “split the baby” reference.
It is here that my disagreement arises. The role of the Public Service Commission is to regulate monopoly utilities, to make determinations regard-ing the reasonable cost of generating and delivering public power and about what profi t is fair for regu-lated utilities to make. It is not its role to determine whether some utility customers should subsidize others for social or economic reasons. Those kinds of decisions are rightly the province of the Legis-lature.
For all of its faults, and nobody knows those faults better than do I or is more critical of them, the Legislature is in the business of splitting babies. The Legislature also must ultimately make its de-cision in public where people can readily see who voted for what. That is very di� erent from a baby-splitting decision made by an executive agency that will never be transparent to the vast majority of the ratepayers.
It is in the Legislature that these kinds of social and economic policy decisions are correctly made, not with the myriad limited jurisdiction entities that inhabit the executive branch. If executive agencies can expand their responsibility on the basis that a real need exists, then we are likely to find many more babies split in ways the citizens never intended. I hope that, upon reflection, the Post-Dispatch can see the merit in the mainte-nance of clear lines of decision making.State Rep. Chris Kelly • D-Columbia
YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS
J.B. FORBES • [email protected] rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton speaks during a news conference outside the Old Courthouse on Tuesday in St. Louis.
