Alan "Al" Eickhoff
In Ferguson, Missouri, the much-maligned police department is under new management ... kind of. The interim chief is Al Eickhoff, a seasoned veteran of St. Louis area law enforcement. Brought in to replace the former chief, Tom Jackson, after
a scathing DOJ report detailed rampant racism and discrimination within the department, the new chief, in so many disturbing ways, is more of the same old crap.
Giving his first in-depth interview with Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times, Eickhoff almost immediately slipped off into his own peculiar world of half-truths, strangeness, and outright lies. Either the new chief actually believes the mess he said in this interview, which is disturbing, or he is lying and knows it, which is also disturbing. Below, line by line, we'll address the quotes and thoughts that stand out the most.
Lie #1. "We got a lot of negative notoriety and it all stemmed from Michael Brown's body having to [lie] on the parking lot for 4.5 hours. The reason he was there for so long was because of hostile fire against our officers. We could not get to Michael Brown's body."
Truth: Every single video from August 9 shows that police had full and complete access to Brown's body from the moment he fell on the ground until the moment he was taken away. Zero evidence whatsoever exists of any "hostile fire" against officers. It appears the chief means gunshots against the officers that day and that is a complete fabrication. No matter what, police and other law enforcement officials moved freely in and out of that crime scene non stop. Here are several images which show just how much space the police truly had.
Lie #2: "I don't think other people have paid protesters flying to their city."
Truth: This is a multi-layered lie. First and foremost, 99 percent of protestors in Ferguson and in every city in America are local. Secondly, the chief is clearly watching Glenn Beck, who suggested that people, including myself and DeRay McKesson, are being paid by George Soros. We aren't. It's a fake conservative conspiracy theory and it's sad to see the chief promoting it.
Lie #3: "Right now when you talk to people outside of our area, a lot of people believe Ferguson is a racist police department. Unfortunately, I can't go into the [Department of Justice] report. I would have a field day with the DOJ report."
Truth: The Department of Justice uncovered indisputable evidence of several tiers of racism, ranging from the ugliest racist emails imaginable to actual police practices of racism. The most egregious emails, seen here, did not come from some new random new recruits, but from the seasoned veteran captain and sergeant, as well as the clerk of courts. They are indisputably racist.
Lie #4: "But what I do tell them is do not believe everything in the DOJ report because the people doing the investigations are not policemen."
Truth: First off, the overwhelming majority of the information in the Ferguson report comes directly from the Ferguson Police Department itself. It wasn't a novel, but a collection of reports and data and interviews of actual employees. Secondly, dozens of seasoned law enforcement officers and Department of Justice employees gathered the intelligence and compiled it in the report. They are imminently respectable. The notion that it can't be believed because they didn't author it is just strange.
Finally—and this was just ugly—Hennessy-Fiske asked the chief, "Of the department's 47 officers, four are African American, one is Latino, one Asian and three women. Do you plan to hire more minorities?"
In response, he said, "We are looking to hire more minorities. But one thing I'm adamant about is that they meet certain standards and pass certain tests, background checks."
Excuse me? Why even go there? Of course everybody has to pass tests and background checks. This much is obvious. But the chief implies something incredibly outrageous, which is that either African Americans can't pass the tests or people expect him to give black or other minority candidates a pass of some kind. Nonsense.
[UPDATE: In a previous version of this article, one of the lies that was listed is when Chief Eickhoff stated that "hands up, don't shoot" never happened. It is my belief and the belief of many witnesses that some version of that did happen. What's ironic is that the chief of police quoted the DOJ Ferguson report for stating that it could not be proven it happened— yet the chief then blasted the report for the things he disagreed with.]