Michael Brown, Sr.
Confrontations between police and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, seem to have stopped, but the city is still in tension, as is the nation, while collectively we try to figure out
what happens next.
"I just think the institutions have to be looked at," Eugene O'Donnell, a former police officer and prosecutor who is now a lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at New York University, told TPM on Tuesday. "The titillating gotcha stuff, that's unfortunately what dominates the news. The real issues are profoundly more complicated."
As O'Donnell summarized it: "It's a scary system."
There's a lot to figure out. This time the response should not be "we do nothing," as has been the reaction to so many horrors in our society. But in the meantime, here's what happened overnight in and around Ferguson.
- With a beefed-up National Guard presence, the area was relatively calm last night.
Still, a few flare-ups occurred on the second night, including the shattering of the Ferguson City Hall’s windows and the flipping and wrecking of a police vehicle parked outside. The authorities said they had made 45 arrests overnight, including seven for felonies. They used tear gas once — to stop the ruckus in front of City Hall. Only a few gunshots were fired, the police said, and two fires were reported: one at a Walgreens and the other a car set ablaze near the memorial in Ferguson for Michael Brown, the teenager who was shot.
- In an incident that's "not directly related" to the Wilson non-indictment, two FBI agents were shot and wounded in a house in north St. Louis County as they were assisting local police in executing an arrest warrant. The FBI issued no clarification as to how the incident might be indirectly related. The agents' injuries are not life-threatening.
- Darren Wilson gave his first interview with ABC's George Stephanopolous. "He does not think he could have done anything differently," Stephanopoulos said. "He says he did what he was trained to do. He has a clean conscience over his actions that day." You can watch the interview here.
- Michael Brown's parents appeared on the Today Show, reacting to Wilson's interview:
Lesley McSpadden, the mother of slain Ferguson teenager Michael Brown, says the first public comments from police officer Darren Wilson added "insult after injury." […]
Wilson's account "sounds crazy," Michael Brown Sr. told TODAY's Savannah Guthrie. It's "disrespectful," McSpadden explained. […]
"For one, my son, he respected law enforcement,'' Brown Sr. said in reaction to Wilson's comments. "Two, who in their right mind would rush or charge at a police officer that has his gun drawn? It sounds crazy."
- More grand jury information is coming out as people sift through it, and it's, well, illuminating. For example, check out Witness #40, a person whose diary—entered into the evidence—details how he or she just happened to decide on the morning of the Michael Brown killing that he or she needed to have a better understanding of African-American culture and just happened to end up being an eyewitness to the shooting. To say this one stretches credibility is being generous.
- And in that vein, a forensic pathologist testified to the grand jury that it's possible that the marijuana in Brown's system made him violent. Really.