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

Saturday • 08.23.2014 • $1.50

Vol. 136, No. 235 ©2014POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

1 MWeatherA16

tODaY

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Man of the hour Friday night footballhigh school season gets underway.

SPOrtS • B8-9

Birth control mandate tweaked • A6

Ukraine decries Russian ‘invasion’ • A15

MU defends handling of assault case • B1

Phillies slip past Cardinals 5-4 • B1

ferguson police, chief no-shows • officers suspenDeD

RIDING OUT The sTORmCommander learned by first living there, knowing the people

96°/78°PARTLY CLOUDY

98°/78°MOSTLY SUNNY

RobeRt Cohen • rcohen@post-dispatch.co Lohgan Booker stopped to visit a mural tribute to Michael Brown painted by Joseph Albanese on the side of Signature Screenprinting at Union Boulevard and Cote Brilliante Avenue on Friday. “I just want to let this man rest,” Booker said. The screenprinting business’s co-owner Natasha Harris said she was looking for a statement with a positive effect.

By Paul HamPelphampel@post-dispatch.com314-340-8104

FerGuSON • When the stress of commanding cops and con-trolling crowds on the streets of Ferguson has threatened to crack the calm demeanor Mis-souri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson has projected to the world, he has retreated to an unusual refuge.

It is a restroom in a vacant

storefront at the police com-mand center at Buzz Westfall Plaza. That’s about a mile south of the nightly protests since Aug. 9, when Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown, 18.

“I know it sounds strange, but that restroom has become my refuge, my place to cry,” Johnson, 51, said Friday. “I like to cry alone, wipe my tears and

By Steve GieGericHsgiegerich@post-dispatch.com314-725-6758

FerGuSON • Artez Hurston was initially content to watch Ferguson seesaw between calm and violence from the comfort of his St. Louis living room.

On the fourth night, no lon-ger able to sit on the sidelines, he headed to north St. Louis County with two objectives: To support the outcry over

the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer and fill what he saw as a critical gap in a situation marred by escalating tension between police and demonstra-tors.

“I figured I better get out here so we could police ourselves and get the police to stop tear-gassing us,” Hurston, 34, a self-employed landscaper, said.

Capt. Ronald S. Johnson

proTesT scene grows QuieTer • Drop-in cenTer offers ViTAl AiD • BuDDhisT MonKs MADe sTir on sociAl MeDiA • A4-5

By rOBert Patrickrpatrick@post-dispatch.com > 314-621-5154

St. lOuiS • A federal judge tossed out late Friday the bulk of a lawsuit filed by a man who spent two months in jail here on some-

one else’s charges.Cedric Wright filed a series

of constitutional claims in 2012 against St. Louis police officials, officers, employees and the Board of Police Com-missioners, as well as officials and employees of the sheriff’s office and the city division of

corrections.Attorneys for the defendants asked U.S.

District Court Judge Audrey Fleissig to rule in their favor without a trial. She did that Friday, except for a single count against a sheriff’s deputy, Benjamin Goins Jr.

Reached Friday evening, Wright’s attorney, James Hacking, said he was “disappointed” but “respected” the ruling.

Maggie Crane, spokeswoman for Mayor Francis Slay, said: “We’re not perfect. But,

By JOel currierjcurrier@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8256

St. lOuiS • Michael Brown and Kajieme Powell were killed by police about 10 days and 2½ miles apart.

Both were within walking distance of their grandmothers’ homes, police say. Both alleg-edly shoplifted from convenience stores be-fore encountering officers on the street about noon. Both were shot multiple times.

In both cases, black men were killed by white officers.

But Brown’s death has drawn two weeks of protests, while tension over Powell’s seemed to ease quickly — presumably because he was carrying a weapon and the whole incident was recorded on video.

There is no dispute that Brown, 18, was unarmed in a confrontation with an officer on the street outside a Ferguson apartment complex at 2947 Canfield Drive on Aug 9. Po-lice said there was a struggle and a shoot-ing, but in the two weeks since have provided no detailed explanation. Some witnesses say Brown was killed while trying to surrender.

By HaNNaH allam aNd JONatHaN S. laNdayMcClatchy Washington Bureau

WaSHiNGtON • Despite two weeks of U.S. airstrikes in north-ern Iraq, the Islamic State retains its bloody grip on roughly half of the country and is rolling up new conquests in Syria, piling pres-sure on President Barack Obama to develop a comprehensive, cross-border strategy to crush the group.

The lack of such a response to the Islamic State’s use of Syria as a springboard for attacking Iraq is the most glaring omission of Obama’s approach to the current crisis.

Hitting the group in Syria car-ries huge risks, not the least be-ing aiding the Assad regime in its war with the Islamic State and other insurgents.

Yet not quickly eradicat-ing what senior U.S. officials

Judge tosses out much of suit over jail mistake

Wright

Man was held on other’s charges.

See miStake • Page a9

Two police shootings are alike, and notVideo raises questions but not ire.

See SHOOtiNGS • Page a3

Syria is newest front in battle with Islamic State

‘Can they (the Islamic State) be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no.’Army Gen. Martin DempseyChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff See OBama • Page a6

Johnson endures turmoil Peacekeepers promote calm

See cOalitiON • Page a4See JOHNSON • Page a4

08.23.2014 • Saturday • M 1 St. LOuIS POSt-dISPatCH • A3

From A1

St. Louis firefighter todd Hall (right) cools off in a multipurpose air conditioned department bus after battling a fire at an abandoned cement company at riverview drive and Scranton avenue on Friday in St. Louis.

Huy MacH • hmach@post-dispatch.com

Powell, 25, was pacing and muttering outside the Six Stars Market, 8701 Riverview Boulevard, in St. Louis on Tuesday, police say. Witnesses saw he had a knife and called for help. After two officers rolled up, Pow-ell held a steak knife and approached, urging them to shoot, according to police and a bystander’s video. Each officer fired six shots.

St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson, pledging trans-parency, released the video and 911 calls to reporters.

A witness to Powell’s shooting says police had no choice. But his grandmother says they were too quick to shoot.

Powell fell in front of a barbershop next to the mar-ket. Eddie Flowers, whose daughter, Alderman Dionne Flowers, runs the business, said he watched the whole thing through the front window.

“They made the right move,” Eddie Flowers said. “The man was agitated and animated. He said, ‘Kill me!’ They didn’t have any alternative.”

But the grandmother, Mildred Powell, 70, said Fri-day, “They murdered him, plain and simple.” She said, “They had Tasers. They could have used them.”

Though there are only about 240 Tasers available to the 1,300 officers, the two involved in this incident both had them, officials said.

Dotson said this week that Tasers, which fire probes intended to deliver a debilitating electrical shock, were not an option because they aren’t always accurate and may not penetrate clothing.

He cited a policy that officers may use deadly force if an attacker with a knife is within 21 feet. He ini-tially said Powell was two to three feet away when of-ficers fired. After release of a video that clearly shows a greater distance, Dotson said through a spokeswoman that the estimate came from witness accounts and an investigation would determine the actual distance.

A police use-of-force consultant, Mel Tucker, is critical of the shooting. He said this week that he saw the video and thinks one officer should have tried to subdue Powell with a Taser while the other stood guard with a handgun.

“The distance here is very, very important,” said Tucker, of Raleigh, N.C., who formerly was police chief of Tallahassee, Fla. He said it appeared that Pow-ell “was not an immediate threat to the officers when he was shot. It looked to me like he was 20 feet away and then he stumbles forward and falls over a retaining wall.”

Lt. Matt O’Neill, director of the St. Louis County Police Academy, said recruits there received 238 hours of classroom and practical exercises on use of force. Even with that, he said, it is difficult to prepare for the stress of a real life-or-death encounter.

“The movies make it look really easy,” he said. Neighbors said Powell was quiet, courteous and reg-

ularly walked to a nearby library branch to read.Calvin Frazier, 54, who lives two doors from Powell’s

grandmother, in the 1300 block of Hornsby Avenue, said, “He was real smart. He read books on architec-ture, and you have to be smart to study that.”

Another neighbor, Rolene Walker, 69, said Powell moved in with his grandmother in January. Walker said she didn’t know him but saw him frequently in the neighborhood.

In light of the Ferguson protests, and after seeing the online video of Powell’s death, Walker said, “The police could have done it differently.”

One of the officers who fired on Powell is 25 and has been on the job a little more than three years; the other, 31, has been on the force about 2½ years. Their names were withheld pending an assessment of whether dis-closure would put them in danger. Police had not re-leased the names as of Friday.

ShootingS • from A1

Witnesses differ on whether police were justified in killing man armed with knife

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Ferguson police shooting

By NANcy cAmBriAnancy.cambria@post-dispatch.com314-340-8238

They came as early as 5:30 a.m. Friday to the Dellwood Recre-ation Center in need of food, supplies and comfort.

By 6 a.m. the group swelled to fill the building’s front courtyard. The doors to the United Way Community Resource Drop-In Center did not officially open un-til 10. And yet they waited.

Some walked to the center in clothes soaking in sweat. Oth-ers caught rides from friends but weren’t sure how they were going to get home. And many of them came to the Dellwood Recreation Center with tales about life along West Florissant Avenue in Fergu-son that could have come out of a war zone.

One resident of the nearby Northwinds Apartments recalled returning home with her daugh-ter, 2, and her son, 7, from his football practice and driving into a cloud of tear gas.

“We all started choking, then our eyes burned and it was hard to see,” said the mother, Jasmine Williams.

Another told counselors she rolled bath towels and hastily put them at the base of her front door and windows to block the gas. She has asthma.

Two teens recalled getting caught inside the QuikTrip as looters rushed in.

Others said their children couldn’t sleep — long after the helicopters, gunfire and chanting had died down for the night.

Situated about two miles north of the QuikTrip that burned after being looted, the Dellwood Rec-reation Center on West Florissant Avenue is a point of pride for the prominently African American community adjacent to Ferguson. The aging cinderblock building has an indoor soccer arena with artificial turf and an outdoor pool.

But this past week, the pool tables inside the main recreation room were pushed aside. The picnic tables were laden with forms, and the soccer arena was partially ringed by a table with basic supplies: diapers, toilet pa-per, baby formula, canned goods. Outside, cardboard boxes the size of pickup truck beds were filled fruit and vegetables. In one, residents dipped their hands into a sea of fresh green beans, crisp

and free for the taking in the sweltering heat.

Organized by the United Way of Greater St. Louis, the drop-in center has been a refuge for those who have endured nearly two weeks of turmoil in the wake of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.

It is scheduled to be open again on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Two dozen charitable agen-cies, including the American Red Cross and the St. Louis Area Foodbank, are working together there offering food, rides, nurses and child care. Organizers said about 1,000 people had already gone through the center. About 480 hot meals and 1,200 snacks have been served.

It is a place for reflection and displaced community, where residents can talk freely about the trauma they’ve encountered.

“It’s all about stabilizing basic needs,” said drop-in center orga-nizer Regina Greer of the United

Way. One room of the commu-nity center has been staffed with a team of therapists, mostly tasked to just listen.

Christina Woehlke, a case therapist with Presbyterian Chil-dren’s Homes and Services said that in a time of crisis, the first thing afflicted people need is someone to give them compas-sion. “We’ve had a person say, ‘I’m just looking for some hope.’ ”

The therapists said they were hearing stories not only about nights filled with violence and fear, but of more general con-cerns associated with poverty in north St. Louis County. Now these chronic problems have been amplified.

Those lacking cars and de-pendent on nearby markets have found themselves without food as their local shops have closed because of looting, or seem un-safe. People with health prob-lems are afraid to leave their homes to get medicine or thera-

pies. And school — that great return to normalcy — has twice been put on hold.

“There’s a collective sense of being overwhelmed,” said Woehlke, one of four counselors on hand Friday to help.

And because of the new in-stability in their neighborhoods, residents who’ve previously suf-fered violence or loss are reliving that trauma as well. They strug-gle to cope with old wounds.

“They can’t just go outside and take a walk to calm down,” said Gerald Dennis of Preferred Fam-ily Healthcare.

There were also grave wor-ries about their future. Many residents fear the locally owned businesses will not survive. They worry that people will move away and that they will live in a shell of a neighborhood.

“There’s a sense of loss,” Den-nis said. “These people are fear-ing they are going to lose their community.”

This pressed heavily on Lisa Williams, a resident of Jennings who lives close to Canfield Green apartments where the shooting took place.

On Friday, she was sitting out-side the recreation center in the soppy heat with her niece, hug-ging a watermelon and a bag par-tially filled with green beans. She was unsure how they were both going to get home until a United Way employee connected them with a free door-to-door shuttle.

Williams said she had moved to the area from St. Louis about five years ago. She liked the sta-bility of her new neighborhood.

“I just wanted a change from city scenery,” she said.

She was asked if she thought the neighborhood would sur-vive once the turmoil stopped. She did not respond. She turned her head from side to side and grimaced. She asked a United Way employee when the shuttle would arrive.

Cristina Fletes-Boutte • cfletes-boutte@post-dispatch.comTom Tessereau (far left) helps Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India lift their recently finished sand mandala on Friday.

An oasis, respite from anxieties

laurie skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.comClivana Belford, 17, and her brother Tremayne, 12, of Ferguson enjoy activities at the Ferguson Community Play Day last Saturday at the Dellwood Recreation Center. Urban Sprouts Child Development Center hosted the day for families affected by the unrest in Ferguson.

United Way CommUnity ResoURCe dRop-in CenteR

Protest sceNe Gets quieterFERGUSON • On a night of sultry heat, about 150 protesters gathered enough steam for one brief but lively march down West Florissant Avenue late Friday. They turned back when police cars blocked the road.

No arrests were reported. Until that only march of the night after 10 p.m., protesting had been sporadic, with crowds small all evening.

Friday’s gathering, nearly two weeks after Fer-guson police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown, 18, was peaceful. Through the night, the numbers of marchers, police and news reporters was down significantly from the as-semblies of the previous nights.

The marchers gathered at West Florissant and Canfield Drive and, chanting “I am Mike Brown,” marched south. But they reversed course when the police cars blocked the intersection at Sol-way Avenue, near the police command post at the Westfall shopping center. A small Missouri National Guard unit remained there. The number of TV satellite trucks parked nearby was down significantly.

The loudest place on the protest strip was the Clergy United tent at West Florissant and Fergu-son Avenue, which pumped out gospel music.

Weather may have played a part. After a high Friday of 96 degrees, the temperature lingered in the mid 80s at 11 p.m., with shirt-soaking hu-midity of 80 percent.

Chris Hardy, who lives near the Canfield Green apartments, said difficult issues remain, but called the protest atmosphere much less tense.

“Now the people you see, that’s Ferguson,” said Hardy, who is in his 50s. “I just hope the elders in the community keep stepping up and hold-ing things in check. (U.S. Attorney General) Eric Holder put a calm to it, and the police have done a good job of stripping the agitators off.”

Holder visited Ferguson on Wednesday.

— Joe Holleman

LAtest rePort Adds 8 Arrests

Eight people were arrested in the protests Thurs-day night, bringing the total since Aug. 9 to about 210. The St. Louis County Police Department, which has been releasing daily lists of arrests, said five people were held Thursday for failure to dis-perse, the most common charge lodged. A man who had driven away from police on West Floris-sant Avenue was stopped and later charged with careless and imprudent driving.

One of the eight is from Ferguson. Three were from St. Louis, one from Olivette and one from an unincoportated area of St. Louis County. A man from Detroit and a woman from a suburb of Minneapolis also were arrested. About 25 of the arrests over the nearly two weeks of protests have been from places far from the St. Louis area, in-

cluding San Francisco and New York.

— From staff reports

doNAtioNs for officer redirected to NoNProfit

A GoFundMe crowdsourcing site that raised nearly $235,000 to support Ferguson Officer Dar-ren Wilson has been shut down, and people are asked to donate to him via Shield of Hope, a char-itable foundation run by the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police.

A message on the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police website asks people to make checks out to Shield of Hope, FOP Lodge 15, 9620 Lack-land, Overland, MO, 63114. Or people can do-nate through Shield of Hope’s GoFundMe site at https://www.gofundme.com/OfficerWilson-Fundraiser

An explanation on the old GoFundMe site said that the administrators of the page began the site after a Facebook page “Support Darren Wilson” grew and they wanted to create a way for people to donate. But when they found Shield of Hope, which had been “designated as the authorized charity for donations” for Wilson, they worked together to set up the new page. They had to end collecting on the old page, they explained. Shield of Hope is a certified nonprofit, and donations may be tax-deductible.

By 11:30 p.m. Friday, the new page had col-lected more than $40,000.

— Valerie Schremp Hahn

cLAytoN tryiNG to heLP ferGusoN

The city of Clayton and its school district are partnering with Operation Food Search to help needy families in Ferguson and nearby. According to Operation Food Search, the economic impact of recent events in Ferguson will trickle down to dinner tables for months to come. Clayton and its schools are hosting a food drive from Monday through Sept. 9.

Nonperishable food items and toiletries can be dropped off at two Clayton sites: City Hall at 10 North Bemiston Avenue and The Center of Clay-ton at 50 Gay Avenue. Each school within the school district will have a collection area inside the building for students, parents and staff mem-bers to drop off their donations.

Operation Food Search requests no glass items, and specifically asks for canned chicken, canned tuna, Cheerios (store brands welcome), deodor-ant (especially men’s) and laundry detergent.

Community members also can donate by visit-ing www.operationfoodsearch.org/healing-fer-guson-one-meal-time/ and clicking the “Donate Now” button.

— Valerie Schremp Hahn

By LeAh thorseNlthorsen@post-dispatch.com636-937-6249

Tibetan monks standing with protesters in Ferguson caused quite a stir on social media, but the Michael Brown shooting didn’t bring them to this part of the world — their visit to St. Louis was part of a long-planned stop on a national tour.

Photos of the Buddhist monks in Ferguson, some showing them joining protesters in the fre-quently seen “hands up” gesture outside the fire-gutted QuikTrip, made their way around Twitter and Instagram.

“We prayed for peace and non-violence,” Geshe Tsewang Thin-ley said of the reason they went to Ferguson.

The six monks are exiled from their native Tibet by Chinese rule and live in India at the Drepung Gomang Monastery. They are touring the United States on the Sacred Tibetan Arts Tour.

On Friday, they sat on the floor at the Healing Arts Center in Warson Woods finishing a sand mandala, an intricate design made using funnels to pains-takingly place colored sand on a wooden board.

The bright hues of the mandala showed the world at the center of

the circular pattern, with a dove representing peace. It also depicted symbols of world religions, as well as fire, water and mountains.

The monks spent roughly 25 hours over three days working on the mandala, hunched over as they carefully plotted the sand, their mouths and noses covered by masks.

But the beauty of their work won’t last — mandalas are made to be destroyed as a symbol of the Buddhist belief of the transitory nature of material life.

The monks are slated to be at the Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park this weekend, where they’ll lead a parade, teach sculp-ture to children using Play Doh and perform on the main stage.

They’ll also be at the Royale bar and restaurant at 3132 South King-shighway in St. Louis for a meet-and-greet from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Monday, after which they’ll lead a chant and stay for dinner.

The monks will be at St. Louis University’s Center for Global Citizenship on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday making an-other mandala. Then, they’ll head to Kansas City.

Buddhist monks here on tour made stir on social media

stLtodAy.comSee some of the Twitter posts about the Tibetan monks.

notes fRom feRgUson

A4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 1 • SATUrDAy • 08.23.2014

come back out and be the best leader I can be.”

Johnson has served as site commander since Aug. 14, when Gov. Jay Nixon appointed the Missouri Highway Patrol to re-place St. Louis County Police to head security in Ferguson.

On Friday, Johnson reflected on his performance. On what has gone right and what has failed. On the challenge of bringing co-hesion to the disparate police agencies under his command. And on trying, but not always succeeding, to maintain friendly relationships with other police brass.

Returning to Ferguson has been something of a homecom-ing, he said, and has brought with it good memories and bad.

He grew up close enough to Ferguson to ride his bike through the town. He and his wife, son and daughter still live in north St. Louis County.

As a young driver, he said, white police officers sometimes pulled him over for no apparent reason.

“I’ve experienced some of the same issues that protest-ers have brought up,” Johnson said. “I know what it feels like to get stopped when I did nothing wrong.

“But not every experience I had with law enforcement was negative. I try to judge every sit-uation case by case.”

Johnson was born in north St. Louis. His father was a St. Louis University police officer. His mother worked as receiving clerk at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuti-cals. He graduated from River-view Gardens High School and then attended St. Louis Commu-nity College at Florissant Valley.

He rose through the ranks of the Highway Patrol, performing that agency’s usual duties — is-suing traffic tickets, changing tires, helping stranded drivers get gasoline, responding to serious accidents.

Those tasks might not seem

conducive to policing in an ur-ban setting. But Johnson said they taught him a fundamental lesson.

“We deal with people in their times of need. We are that car-ing hand and we’re that last comforting voice when people are going, sometimes, through death,” he said. “When I was ap-pointed to this position, I wanted to bring that strategy of caring for people to Ferguson.”

MENDING FENCESFirst, he had fences to mend. Nixon’s summary dismissal of St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar did not sit well with the county chief.

“Chief Belmar’s words to me were, ‘This is a hard pill to swal-low,’ ” Johnson said. “But I tell you, we had a professional re-lationship before this happened and he knew how much respect I

had for him. And early on, he said to me, ‘I am in your corner,’ and he has been ever since.”

Johnson also praised St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson: “He’s offered me great support.”

But that warmth has not marked his dealings with Fergu-son Police Chief Tom Jackson.

“Let’s just say that my rela-tionship with Chief Jackson has not been like my dealings with the other chiefs,” Johnson said.

Since Johnson took command, Ferguson police have not been involved in the protest zone.

Asked why, he said, “You’ll have to ask Chief Jackson that.”

Jackson could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Implicit in Johnson’s appoint-ment was that police under his supervision would look like aver-age cops on the beat, rather than the heavily armed and armored officers who stood up to protest-

ers under Belmar and who were blasted by Nixon and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., for their “militarized” appearance.

In his first night as com-mander, Johnson pulled officers back and trusted protesters to behave. The strategy resulted in a boisterous but mostly trouble-free gathering.

“That night felt good because it shined a light on what Fergu-son really is, what the people re-ally are,” he said.

‘A HARD MOMENT’The next day, a Friday, began with Jackson, the Ferguson chief, releasing Wilson’s name, along with surveillance tape that ap-peared to show Brown commit-ting a strong-armed robbery of cigars at the Ferguson Market and Liquor store shortly before he died. Johnson publicly criti-cized the timing of the video’s

release.“I knew that the release of that

tape would bring tension on Fri-day,” he said.

That night ended with mass lootings, shots fired from the crowd and drivers performing dangerous, high-speed dough-nuts in the middle of West Flo-rissant Avenue.

Johnson watched the mayhem unfold from police lines. “I was disappointed. I was hurt. There was great pain,” he said.

“I felt like the focus had been lost, turned away from a young man who lost his life and a set of parents who lost their son. It began to be focused on personal agendas.”

Throughout the night’s tur-moil, which lasted almost un-til dawn last Saturday, police watched without interfering, as Johnson had commanded them.

But they did not stand quietly.“I heard the grumbling among

the officers on the line,” Johnson said. “They were saying, ‘Are we just going to stand here and do nothing while they loot those businesses?’ That was a hard moment.”

Johnson responded that the lives of officers and looters were not worth the items that had been stolen.

But it was clear that the hands-off approach had failed.

The next three nights were marked by militarized police forces using tear gas and mak-ing scores of arrests in the face of Molotov cocktails and bullets fired from the crowd.

Johnson said Friday that he believed that some in the crowd were performing for the media.

Since Monday, Johnson has seen a marked difference in the interactions of police and pro-testers.

“There was a time when I saw more stress on officers’ faces. And there were times when I felt fear in my own heart,” he said. “Now, there’s a different feel. I see people approaching officers to chat, and cops posing for pic-tures with protesters.

“I hope — I pray — that we have turned a corner.”

Ferguson police shooting

By JACOB BARkERAND LEAH THORSENPost-Dispatch

Two St. Louis-area police of-ficers have been suspended by their departments in incidents related to the unrest in Ferguson.

A St. Louis County officer who had been assigned to the streets of Ferguson was suspended after a YouTube video of him making incendiary comments surfaced. A Glendale officer was sus-pended after posting on Face-book that he thought the Fer-guson protesters should be “put down like rabid dogs.”

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said officer Dan Page,

a 35-year veteran of the de-partment, had been suspended pending a review by the internal affairs unit.

The video was brought to Bel-mar’s attention by CNN reporter Don Lemon, who had previously complained to the department that Page had shoved him.

The video of Page was appar-ently made in 2012 before a group called the Oath Keepers of St. Louis and St. Charles. It is un-clear where it was shot.

Belmar told the Post-Dispatch that Page’s comments defam-ing President Barack Obama, the U.S. Supreme Court, Muslims and various sexual orientations would probably have triggered

disciplinary review for being “beyond the scope of acceptable police conduct.”

But it was Page’s comments in the video describing himself, in Belmar’s words, as “an indis-criminate killer, that it didn’t matter what your race or back-ground was” that most con-cerned the police chief.

“With the comments on kill-ing, that was obviously some-thing that deeply disturbed me immediately,” Belmar said.

An internal review will start Monday, and Page will not be do-ing any police work until internal affairs makes an official decision on whether the officer should be suspended, Belmar said.

Glendale officer Matthew Pap-per was suspended after post-ing on Facebook that the Fergu-son protesters were “a burden on society and a blight on the community,” according to posts preserved by news and opinion website “The Daily Caller.” An-other post that appears to come from Pappert says the “protes-tors should have been put down like rabid dogs the first night.”

Jeffrey Beaton, chief of police in the small St. Louis County suburb of roughly 6,000 people, said the comments of Pappert were brought to his attention Fri-day morning and “an internal in-vestigation was immediately ini-tiated.” Pappert was immediately

suspended until the investigation is complete, Beaton said.

“These type of allegations could result in disciplinary action up to and including termination,” he said.

On Wednesday, a St. Ann po-lice lieutenant was suspended after pointing a semi-automatic assault rifle at a protester in Fer-guson the night before, police said. Lt. Ray Albers pointed the gun at a peaceful protester after a “verbal exchange.” A county sergeant witnessed the incident, forced the officer to lower his gun and escorted him away.

Two area police officers are suspended

In doing so, Hurston enlisted in a small, unheralded and unofficial coalition of area peacemakers — all African-American — who voluntarily and often at great risk to themselves have acted as intermediaries between protesters and police.

Paris Caldwell, 33, of Florissant has been a constant presence in Ferguson since the night Brown was killed.

She has come to see herself a translator in a massive communications breakdown.

“The preachers and the police are older,” Caldwell said. “They’re the doctors. I’m the nurse explaining to the kids what the doctor just said.”

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Bel-mar gives the peacekeeping cadre credit for preventing a bad situation from be-coming worse.

“Without them we wouldn’t have the calm that we have,” Belmar said Friday.

Arriving separately shortly before nightfall, Caldwell and Hurston gently and sometimes not-so-gently urge pro-testers to heed police orders to remain on the sidewalk, stay in constant motion and avoid congregating in groups.

“They tell me it’s illegal for them to make us stop walking,” Caldwell said. “I completely know where they’re coming from, but I tell them, ‘That’s not our fight right now, so keep going.’ ”

Hurston has additionally encouraged young men to remove bandanas and other makeshift coverings on their faces.

“Kids,” he said with a shrug after one protester brushed aside an argument that covering their faces antagonized police. “They never listen.”

Caldwell often finds herself straddling a fine line between fierce allegiance to the cause that spawned two weeks of dem-onstrations and a role some construe as being sympathetic to the police.

The disconnect surfaced the night she wore a T-shirt identifying her as a “PEACEKEEPER” when a protester de-rided Caldwell as a “house (expletive).”

The name-calling barely registers af-ter situations that have repeatedly called upon Hurston and Caldwell to throw themselves into the midst of chaos.

On several occasions Hurston has stood, arms spread, to single-handedly guide

taunting demonstrators back from police with night sticks at the ready.

And it was Hurston on Monday night who placed himself between a surge of demonstrators and officers with auto-matic weapons pointed directly at the crowd rushing toward a SWAT squad forc-ibly removing a motorist from a vehicle leaving a parking lot. (Authorities said two handguns were confiscated from the car.)

Two nights later, Hurston and Caldwell formed a “human shield” to protect a couple who showed up to support Dar-ren Wilson, the Ferguson officer who shot Brown.

Caldwell says she tries not to dwell on the danger she’s faced.

Hurston is no stranger to the anger that fueled Ferguson in the aftermath of the Brown shooting.

Growing up in north St. Louis County, Hurston resided primarily in Berkeley but also, briefly, in the Canfield apartment complex where Brown was shot.

Police, he recalls, never hesitated to stop him, first as a teenage pedestrian and later as a motorist.

African-American “teens feel like the police declared war on them when they came out of the womb,” Hurston says.

Given his own experiences, Hurston ac-knowledges being an unlikely candidate to broker relations between demonstrators and police.

In adulthood, Hurston’s brushes with the law have been limited to probation for failing to pay support for his five children.

He feared the probation might haunt him Monday night after he ordered tear-gassed demonstrators into the bed of his pickup truck to escape an area torn by gunfire. Police officers who stopped Hur-ston shortly afterward discovered two weapons and Molotov cocktails in the truck bed. He was taken into custody and released a few hours later without charges.

The incident left Hurston shaken.“When you help people, you don’t stop

to ask if they have guns and bottle bombs,” he says.

Whatever differences he may have had with police in the past, Hurston and his fellow intermediaries are now part of an unlikely police-and-protester fraternity forged by long and tense hours on West Florissant Avenue.

“I consider them my friends,” Belmar said.

COALITION•FROM A1

JOHNSON •

FROM A1

What’s worth a life, he asks

Laurie Skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.comMissouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson (third from left) joins a group of demonstrators marching on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson on Aug. 15 after Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson named Darren Wilson as the shooter of Michael Brown.

ChriStian Gooden • cgooden@post-dispatch.comParis Caldwell talks with friends as St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar greet people during light, peaceful protesting on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson on Friday.

A10 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 1 • SATUrDAy • 08.23.2014

TODAY

Fishing event • The United Methodist Church at Wentzville will hold its annual Fish For Fun Day from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. This event is open for all age groups and held at the church pond. 725 Wall Street in Wentzville. 636-327-6377, livelovegrow.org.

Women’s event • Women’s Ministry Center presents the Women United in Christ Luncheon 10 a.m. at Julia’s Banquet Center, 101 Eastgate Plaza, East Alton. $20. 618-803-9078,

womensministrycenter.org.

Beauty pageant • State of Mind Beauty Pageant is a Christian production. 6 p.m. at Resurrection Life Christian Church, 1651 Redman Road.

Trivia night • First Christian Church Of Florissant, 2890 Patterson Road, hosts a night of Disney Trivia at 6:30 p.m. $10 per person. All proceeds will go to support Robert & Kellee Gentry’s Adoption Adventure.

Youth on Fire Conference • 6:30 p.m. at Jennings Mason Temple Church, 2120 McLaren Avenue in Jennings.

SUNDAY

Singles Ministry Annual Day • 8 a.m. at Southern Mission Baptist Church, 8171 Wesley Avenue. 314-521-3951, SMBCSTL.org.

Catholic Mass • Join us for an inclusive and welcoming Catholic Mass. 11 a.m. at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church,

2613 Potomac. 314-329-8207, SaintCatherineSTL.org.

GriefShare • This video seminar and support group is for those who have lost a loved one. 3 p.m. at King of Kings Lutheran Church, 13765 Olive Boulevard. 314-469-2224. www.GriefShare.org.

TUESDAY

Choir rehearsal • St. Charles Christian Church, 3337 Rue Royale Street, is forming a non-audition choir. First rehearsal

is at 6 p.m. 636-947-1821, stcharleschristianchurch.org.

THURSDAY

Detox Your Home • This free workshop will tell you what to avoid in everyday household and beauty products to reduce your toxic load. 7 p.m. at The Center for Spiritual Living, 12875 Fee Fee Road. 314-576-6772.

Submit information online at events.stltoday.com by registering on the site and following the step-by-step instructions. Only online submissions are accepted.

Healing will take time

Calm will come to Ferguson. Al-ready, the rioting has subsided. But there is a larger question that needs to be addressed. We should be asking how peace will emerge.

We cannot confuse the ab-sence of hostility with lasting peace, or the ending of violence with reconciliation. Tension may relax, but smoldering patches of resentment will con-tinue to fester. Children trau-matized by explosive violence will not heal overnight. A com-munity wrenched apart will not suddenly come together. Sure, it will happen. But healing will take time.

And I believe it will not hap-pen until we become more com-fortable speaking about racism.

That is the question which demands our attention now. It is heartening to see that some in the faith community have already taken up this challenge. It is a challenge more involved than — though in some ways just as startling as — dumping a bucket of ice water on your head.

Churches and faith commu-nities have the potential to be a significant resource in curating a conversation about race and reconciliation, provided that they begin by acknowledging their own contributions to the problem.

Sunday mornings continue to be one of the most segregated hours of the week in most com-munities. But it is more than learning how to worship to-gether. Churches from predom-inantly white communities need to take the initiative to form relationships with members of black congregations. We need to confess our hesitancy to speak about race. We need to listen to each other, sing with each other, and pray for each other.

Crossing boundaries is risky business

What many people from outside might not understand is that we live in a really complicated region. The St. Louis metro area is broken up along so many lines of demarcation that many of us live within very set boundaries without giving it much thought, or even necessarily knowing why. It took me a few years of living here to realize that there really are people who never cross over certain highways, who never go more than a few miles east or west or north of where they live. That sounds innocuous, if a little parochial, until you start to unravel the code about what these bound-aries means.

There are codes here about race and class and even reli-gion that can start with the simple, “Where’d you go to high school?” question and then get pretty dark and twisted after that. I’ve lived here for almost a decade and I still don’t know a lot of the unspoken rules. And yet I find myself mostly obey-ing those invisible boundaries, without really knowing why.

When people say, “This could have happened anywhere,” of course I have to agree — but that can’t be a conversation-stopper.

Acknowledging that racial divisions and class inequali-ties affect our whole country does not relieve us of the duty we have to scrutinize why this happened here. Not all the frus-tration and anger and despair we have seen this past fortnight stem from the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, al-though of course that is tragedy enough.

The background, the context, the long history leading up to this moment — those matter as well.

Crossing boundaries is risky business. Those of us who try will almost certainly make mis-takes. But I see no other way forward through this.

It is past time to erase those lines in the sand between “us” and “them.”

Yearning to see clearly

People of faith often search their Scriptures to make sense of what seems so senseless.

Today I find myself think-ing about a little story from the Gospel of Mark. The people bring a blind man to Jesus. Je-sus spits into his hands, lays the balm on the man’s eyes. He asks, “Can you see anything?” And then Mark shows his keen eye for the little details that the other gospels often don’t see. “I see people, but they look like trees walking,” the man says. So Jesus repeats the procedure: “Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was re-stored, and he saw everything clearly.” (Mark 8:25).

I’ve been thinking about this little story because all too of-ten we are too comfortable to remain in our blindness. And even when we’ve been given a glimpse of the humanity — and the inhumanity — around us, we are all too content to keep our vision blurry, to see trees walk-ing instead of seeing people and things as they really are.

The flood of images and re-ports from Ferguson has put our institutional blindnesses on full display. And I believe none of us are without them. But two strike me as particularly de-structive.

On the one hand, we are often blind to the ways our commu-nities are structured to open opportunities to some while denying them to others. The boundaries usually follow the lines of race, class, or gender in ways that we can’t always see on the surface of things.

On the other, we are often blind to the ways anger, when it is misdirected into acts of chaos and violence, can reinforce and perpetuate these same viciously systemic cycles of hopelessness.

Our blindness is deepened when we walk away from the possibility that our eyes may be opened... I want to look in-tently. I want my sight restored. I want to see everything clearly. I pray I am not alone.

EvEnts

Join thE convErsAtionA place for news and views on faithwww.stltoday.com/religion

Editor’s note: This week, several Faith Perspectives contributors on STLtoday.com shared thoughts about the unrest in Ferguson after the shooting of Michael Brown. Below are excerpts from three of those columns:

By LiLLy FowLErlfowler@post-dispatch.com314-340-8221

It was the first night the cur-few was tested in Ferguson.

Around the corner sat sin-gle-family homes, but here on West Florissant Avenue a car blasted “F- the po-lice” while members of the Moorish Science Temple of America directed traffic.

Nation of Islam mem-ber J.A. Salaam believed the pouring rain was God’s doing. Sharply dressed in a blue suit with a white striped shirt underneath, Salaam explained that members were encouraging demonstrators to obey the midnight curfew, even ask-ing that they go home early so as to stay out of harm’s way. The rain would help.

Ever since Michael Brown, a young, unarmed African-American, was shot by a po-lice officer on Aug. 9, vari-ous crews have played a part in achieving the tentative peace that has taken hold of the St. Louis suburb once rocked by protests.

Some wear black T-shirts with large white letters that spell out “Peacekeepers.” Others dress in bright or-ange shirts and call them-selves “Clergy United.” All acknowledge that the Na-tion of Islam has been a key player since the very begin-ning.

Last week, Capt. Ronald S. Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who took over the police security pa-trol in Ferguson, acknowl-edged on national television that the Nation of Islam and other groups — such as Black Lawyers for Justice — helped control the crowds on West Florissant. Oth-ers on social media pointed out that the Nation of Islam protected businesses from looters.

Yet, some find the Nation of Islam — a Muslim sect that dominated headlines during the civil rights era but has since diminished in prominence — problematic.

In many ways, Nation of Islam members are not un-like other Muslims. They worship Allah and pray five times a day. They also fast during Ramadan and require a pilgrimage to Mecca, or Hajj. But the Nation of Islam also calls for a separate na-tion for blacks, according to international representative Akbar Muhammad.

On Sunday, Minister Louis Farrakhan, the na-tional representative of the Nation of Islam, addressed Brown’s death from the group’s base in Chicago.

“In every city and town where black people live, black men are being shot down by police,” Farrakhan said. “The killing of Michael Brown is one of many.” Far-rakhan also spoke of a gov-ernment conspiracy against black youth.

Yet, despite controversial teachings, experts say Na-tion of Islam members have never advocated violence and are first and foremost interested in the thriving of African-American commu-nities.

Despite its strong pres-ence in Ferguson, the Na-

tion of Islam, founded in 1930, is far from what it was at its peak in 1995, when Farrakhan managed to in-spire hundreds of thou-sands of African-Americans to gather in Washington in what is known as the Million Man March. Experts esti-mate that current Nation of Islam membership is in the tens of thousands, though many more may find the re-ligion’s teachings inspiring.

Part of the reason for the dwindling numbers could be attributed to a 1970s break in leadership, where one faction of the Nation of Is-lam moved toward Sunni Islam under the leadership of Warith Deen Muhammad, while others chose to follow Farrakhan.

On Saturday, Aug. 16, the night when the curfew was first tested in Ferguson, Malik Shabazz, founder of Black Lawyers for Justice, marched up and down West Florissant flanked by Nation of Islam members, many of whom dressed up their suits with bow ties. Like Farra-khan, Shabazz has been ac-cused of making anti-Se-mitic remarks in the past.

“Don’t worry about them,” Shabazz shouted into a megaphone, refer-ring to the police. “Don’t get distracted.” At one point he raised his arm and yelled “Black power!”

In an effort to try to per-suade demonstrators to obey authorities and go home, Shabazz cried, “We’re going to dominate the streets to-morrow.”

“C’mon, let’s roll out,” he continued. “We gotta win, not them.”

O n e d e m o n s t r a t o r shouted, “Yeah that’s what they want us to do. Run.”

Those on the street praised the groups’ efforts.

“They’ve been doing a good job for the most part,” said Ronnie Robinson of the St. Louis City Police Depart-ment. “I don’t see anybody from the Nation of Islam causing any problem.”

St. Louis Alderman Anto-nio French, who has been at the protest site nightly, said the Nation of Islam mem-bers had “a relationship with these young guys that few others do. Their pres-ence makes us feel better about being able to keep the peace.”

But the late-night pro-testers haven’t always heeded the pleading of Na-tion of Islam volunteers.

On Saturday, Shabazz and others failed, despite a long night of effort, to persuade the hangers-on to go home.

“Michael Brown can’t go home, why should we?” some demonstrators yelled. “Ain’t no curfew for justice.”

Dozens of protesters moved to the middle of West Florissant holding their hands up in the air as curfew drew near.

Then, as if on cue, when the clock struck midnight, a torrential downpour de-scended on those left in the street. Demonstrators waited for the police.

Nation of Islam member Salaam might have called the rain an act from God.

But he, like others, had al-ready abandoned the streets.

Nation of Islam members push to

Ferguson’s frontlines

Ferguson AFtermAth

rEv. christophEr KEAting

Pastor of the Woodlawn Chapel Presbyterian Church in Wildwood.

rEv. pAmELA DoLAn

Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Town and Country

rEv. trAvis schoLL

Managing editor of theological publications at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis

RobeRt Cohen • rcohen@post-dispatch.comRabbi Randy Fleisher (left) of Central Reform Congregation joins hands with member Maria DeShields and her son Steven Harris at a community forum at Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant on Aug. 12.

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PLATFORM • I know that my retirement will make no di� erence in its cardinal principles, that it will always fi ght

for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fi ght demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfi ed with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty • JOSEPH PULITZER • APRIL 10, 1907

SATURDAY • 08.23.2014 • A12

A L E E E N T E R P R I S E S N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D B Y J O S E P H P U L I T Z E R D E C . 1 2 , 1 8 7 8

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Usually we devote this space on Saturday to something short and off-beat. This hardly seems the week for that, but we did note one ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds over Ferguson: Sure, cops may have detained and threatened some out-of-town report-ers, but they didn’t hit them with supersized speeding fines when traveling Interstate 70 to Ferguson.

That irritating, and potentially expensive, eight-mile “Travel Safe Zone” between Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and the St. Louis city limits was eliminated this month, the Post-Dispatch’s Ken Leiser reports. The highway is narrow through there, and curvier than most interstate highways. With heavy truck traffic, it can be pretty hairy.

However, because speeding fines are doubled within TSZs, the I-70 stretch proved to be a boon for the eight Balkan municipalities that claim frontage on the highway.

Between court costs and doubled fines, you could easily get a $200 ticket for speeding to the airport to catch a plane. The Mis-souri Department of Transportation uses TSZs as a way to cut down on accidents. Most of them have now served that purpose, MoDOT says, and have been removed.

And a good thing, too. Think of the black eye that would give our image.

One ray of sunshineShort take • At least speeding to Ferguson costs less.

National media miss courageous e� orts in Ferguson

Judging from the articles and photos on the Post-Dispatch website, the national media has missed or ignored the courageous efforts of many Ferguson residents to demonstrate peace, charity and responsibility through their good works. The impressive Post-Dispatch photo essay is a study in contrasts and clearly supports the claims that many bad actors prompt the actions of the crowd and thus the response of authorities.

Some say it is di� cult to identify the bad actors. But suppose the innocent people of character and good will made the e� ort to do so? Surely many of them can vouch for each other. If true, then they have the means to identify those who exploit their numbers and their anguish to create chaos and ter-ror. Bad enough that police action has been ill-advised, even provocative. Worse that the pool of victims is expanded and made to su� er more because of the dark agendas of a few. Ultimately, the peace and safety of the Ferguson neighborhoods will be secured by the people who live there.

If peace is restored by oppression, then the seeds of the next uprising will be sewn. But if it comes through the action of those with the greatest stake in their own security, then the way toward justice and recon-ciliation is open. This will not only serve to restore calm and trust to Ferguson, but also to set an example for other communities, and for much of the media, which seem more drawn to blood than the provocateurs who have so skillfully manipulated them.John Scott Geare • Crozet, Va.

Disgusted with police handling of situationNew Zealanders may be thousands of miles away, however this may actually give us a clearer, more dispassionate view.

We join with most of the rest of the world in being disgusted with the way the situa-tion in Ferguson is being handled by the po-lice in your city. There are other ways!

An obvious start would be fi ring the police chief and working to quickly ensure a racial balance in the police force.

“Peace-making” by people with little empathy for those being policed can seldom solve difficult situations. It’s more likely to be seen as military-type tactics, and only make matters worse.Pat Bolster • Wellington, New Zealand

Chief of police should be an elected o� ceAs someone who teaches public policy for a living, I read news from Ferguson and am shocked the following policy proposal has not been made. The chief of police for Ferguson should be made an elected office immediately, with a special election set for the earliest practicable date. Not only would this require current and future incumbents to pay attention to the sentiment of their employers (the people of Ferguson), and probably have other positive effects (like improving voter turnout and political involvement among youth and people of color), but it would make an important statement that shifts in organizational gov-ernance are important, and sometimes pre-requisite, to shifts in organizational culture. Best of all, there are elements of caution and restraint such a policy silently embraces, for instance that it’s awfully hard to win votes from people while lobbing tear gas at them.

Missouri voters already select judges, and the selection of law enforcement o� cers

already occurs by election elsewhere in the country. The sheri� whose jurisdiction includes the city of Chicago and who com-mands a force roughly 100 times larger than the Ferguson Police Department is elected by popular vote.

Neither the election of Missouri judges nor the election of senior law enforcement officers around the country leads to unqual-ified candidates reaching office. The only question, then, is: Why might a mostly-white police department in a municipality that is two-thirds African-American be afraid of holding an election? Why, indeed.Karl T. Muth • Evanston, Ill.

Policing in the U.S. is setting a bad exampleThe tragic shooting of an unarmed teen-ager by your police and the resulting street clashes are damaging the image of the U.S. across the world. Sadly these events in the U.S. are not exceptional in recent years. Too often, police have used unnecessary force and at times have appeared to exercise a “shoot to kill” policy.

There can now be little doubt that U.S. policing needs to be cleaned up. In other words, there is an urgent need for reform of policing. As a former member of the

Council of Europe Assembly in Strasbourg, I fear that policing in the U.S. is setting a bad example to other democracies and those countries that aspire to be democracies.Lord Kilclooney • LondonHouse of Lords

Impressed by Capt. Johnson, citizens of FergusonThe actions of one man, Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, have done more to improve the conditions in Ferguson than all the military equipment deployed by all the local police departments in that city. I find the actions and words of Capt. Johnson to be that of a true American hero. He would make the Founding Fathers proud.

In addition to Capt. Johnson, I have been impressed by the citizens of Ferguson. Al-though very few people of Ferguson have been interviewed by the national media, I have heard very intelligent, reasoned and sound questions by the people not being in-terviewed but surrounding the interviewer; questions I have yet to hear the media ask. In addition, the actions of the citizens by identifying the rabblerousers among the protesters and turning them in to the police are more than commendable. It sometimes seems they are doing more to protect their community than the police wearing military camoufl age.

In these time when politicians of all par-ties are letting us down and making state-ments to inflame their supporters, I have found reason to hope in America again by normal, average, everyday people such as Capt. Johnson and the citizens of Ferguson.Jay Nawrocki • Crystal Lake, Ill.

Why did police stop carrying billy clubs?When I was a young man, all police carried a billy club along with their weapon. What has happen to these clubs? When did the police stop carrying them?

Seems to me they were very e� ective at short range and were not lethal. All police I see now just carry their guns. Once hit on the head, stomach or shoulder by these clubs took all the fi ght out of the aggressor. To me, it makes more sense to temporarily cripple a man than to kill him.

Perhaps Bill McClellan could look into the billy club idea.Les Jablonski • Keller, Texas

World is watching Ferguson

The eyes of the world are now on Ferguson, Mo., and are watching to see how “small town America” reacts and handles a very difficult situation. I am sure that the world hopes that there is no rush to judgment and that when all the facts are in regarding the shooting death of Michael Brown, then and only then will all people be better served. People must remember that a person is not guilty just because some lawyers say they are. Due process should be allowed to takes its course in Ferguson.

No matter what the circumstance sur-rounding the police shooting of the young Michael Brown, that does not give society the right to loot, pillage and engage in vio-lent protests! All too often these types of things are used by certain segments of soci-ety as an excuse for lawless behavior, and the police should come down extremely hard on anyone involved in these activities.

The world is watching and praying for a peaceful resolution to the current tension in your town.Kevin Shea • Ottawa, Ontario

YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS

St. Louis is among the most seg-regated metro regions in America. Ferguson, once a destination for whites fleeing from St. Louis city, later became one of the few deliberately organized multiracial inner suburbs in the area. As we now know, the population is quite diverse, but the police force does not reflect this diversity and there is only one African-American on the city council.

I do believe that county prosecutor Robert McCulloch needs to step aside from the investigation of the Michael Brown killing, for transparency and clarity. But over the past days of crisis, it’s become clearer and clearer that this is not just about police but about a systemic unfairness that has no place in our region.

The racial inequities that exist in our region extend well beyond who is in the local government. They extend to health: In May, Washington University reported in “For the Sake of All” that residents of ZIP codes separated by only a few miles have up to an 18-year differ-ence in life expectancy.

They extend to jobs: Unemployment in St. Louis city stood at 26 percent for African-Americans and 6.2 percent for whites in 2012, according to the Census Department’s latest available stats on employment and race.

And they exist — perhaps most per-sistently, and in ways that most closely parallel the Michael Brown case — in education.

Late last year, more seeds for today’s conflict were sown in a public school battle that still continues. Ferguson welcomed hundreds of children to its schools last year after changes in Missouri’s education system enabling transfer of 2,000 largely African-American students in inner-ring suburban districts to mostly higher-achieving schools elsewhere. Then, in a surprise move, the largely white Fergu-son-Florissant School Board seemed to force their popular African-American superintendent, Art McCoy, to resign.

Why? We never did get a straight answer. Instead, what we saw was confusion, concern and unrest. Many were saddened by news coverage of the blatantly racist statements by white parents in many of the receiving school districts.

This should all sound sickeningly familiar in the light of events over the past two weeks. More than ever, we need clear answers. Of course we need to know what happened to Michael Brown two weeks ago, and of course we need to hold our officials accountable.

More than that, we need to talk about race and about how who you are and where you live has so much control over your opportunities in life. We need to create change for a fairer system that works for all of us. None of us can afford to wait another day.

Jim Sahaida • St. Louis

President, Metropolitan Congregations United

Systemic unfairness has no place in our region

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.comA prayer vigil was held in front of the Ferguson Police Department on Sunday.

POSTCARD FROM MOUND CITY • By Dan Martin

dmartin@post-dispatch.com