Julie Delegal
The police-shooting death of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, continues to bring citizens out of their homes and onto the streets. On August 9, 28-year-old Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black. The shooting itself was tragic enough. Police actions after the shooting, though, have made Ferguson a national tragedy.
The St. Louis suburb has experienced demonstrations, rioting, and looting for more than a week. In a noble, but short-lived attempt to cultivate peace, Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson joined the protesters when the troopers assumed police power in the city. Rioting resumed, however, and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced a curfew on August 17. At this writing, Nixon has declared a state of emergency and told The New York Times that he will deploy the state’s National Guard to “protect lives and property.” Also at this writing, President Obama has dispatched U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to Ferguson to ensure the “fair administration of the law.”
Ferguson is becoming a painful lesson not only about renewed racial strife in America, and not only about alleged police misconduct, but also about what happens when the people’s right to know is abridged.
Transparency is part of the American covenant. The public trust rests on the forthrightness and honesty of public officials, and in the absence of that trust, unrest abounds. Knowing this does not excuse the behavior of “looters,” also known as “criminals.” Individuals who commit crimes can’t blame others for their acts. As the president said, looters don’t advance the cause of justice — they impede it.
But police officers shouldn’t be let off the hook, either, for what amounts to cowardice in the line of duty. Being a cop means being brave enough to trust the American justice system.
Trusting the process would have meant getting Officer Wilson to safety, thoroughly investigating his actions, and being forthright with the people and their go-between, the news media. The police might have also pursued charges against the ultimate cowards: the tweeters who delighted in flaccid, anonymous death threats against Officer Wilson.
Instead, the mostly whitepolice force in Ferguson succumbed to racially based fears. They’ve publicized few details, and theywaited several days to release the name of the officer who pulled the trigger. Journalists have reported that some eyewitness accounts of the shooting are at odds with the official police narrative — what little there is of one.
“Tell the truth,” my dad, the cop, taught me. “The truth we can work with. We can’t do a thing with a lie.”
The Ferguson police might have benefitted from that piece of advice. Searching high and low for justification for an act that, at this point, seems unjustifiable, the cops in Ferguson reached for subterfuge. The teenager who was shot, they said, was suspected of stealing cigars from a convenience store. They called it “robbery.”
They later released a video of someone who looked an awful lot like Michael Brown assaulting a store clerk. So the officer was justified in apprehending a dangerous criminal, right? The shooting that killed Brown occurred during the officer’s lawful pursuit, right?
Wrong. Press reports indicate that the police reversed their statement when another fact emerged: The officer who shot Brown had not been apprised of any nearby convenience store crime when he stopped the teen. He simply wanted him to get out of the street, to walk on the sidewalk. The altercation that escalated into a fatal shooting wasn’t about stolen cigars. It was about jaywalking.
At least they came clean about that one.
But the list of mistakes gets worse. Ferguson police swooped down like the Gestapo on a local McDonald’s restaurant, where journalists had set up camp. There, six officers, some dressed in riot gear, rounded up two reporters and hauled them off to a holding cell at the police station. Once Washington Post reporter Matt Lowery had refused to stop taking video of the scene, the police, by Lowery’s account, slammed him into a machine and handcuffed him. Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly was similarly arrested.
History has shown us that when the government goes after the free press, we’re in real trouble.
Our founders knew that the power of the state — or of any group — vastly outweighs the power of one individual. That’s why the United States is a constitutional republic. That’s why the U.S. Constitution has a Bill of Rights, comprising mostly individual rights.
It’s also why Freedom of the Press is a fundamental value in our society, and why we want our government agents to act with transparency: We want to ensure that no individual’s rights are compromised at the hands of those entrusted with the power of the state.
Transparency does not include withholding information from the public, releasing pretextual material regarding the deceased, or throwing two journalists in jail. These abuses of power only compound the tragic loss of life.
The police didn’t trust the system they are sworn to uphold and enforce. Their lack of courage hurts us all.
Julie Delegal is a contributor for Folio Weekly, Jacksonville’s alternative weekly, and writes for the family business, Delegal Law Offices. She lives in Jacksonville. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
