Category: reason

Last night, a few minutes before 9:30 p.m. Eastern, a prosecutor
in Ferguson, Missouri, announced that police officer Darren Wilson
would
not be indicted for the killing of teenager Michael Brown.

For an hour, Lafeyette Park and the street in front of the White
House remained quiet. It seemed as if the nation’s capital might
not see the types of demonstrations already unfolding in places
like Ferguson and Seattle—as if residents had resigned themselves
to the inevitable and, despite disappointment at the grand jury’s
decision, might not have the energy to make an appearance at one of
the world’s most famous protesting grounds.

Then, right at 10:30, about 15 Howard University students
arrived, chanting, “Black lives matter!” and “No justice, no
peace!” Dozens more would follow, then hundreds. Soon, a young
woman with a bullhorn shouted something at the White House that
seemed perfectly to capture the feelings of the growing crowd:
“Obama, where are you? We voted for you! Obama, come out!”

The president had already made some
televised remarks. But these protesters were looking for more.
They wanted him to be personally involved in what they were
doing.

They would not get what they were asking for. Promptly at
midnight, the White House went dark. The protesters moved on,
toward U Street and the African American Civil War Memorial, they
said, to continue the demonstration somewhere people might be
listening.

Photos from the protest are below the fold, while my tweets from
the White House are available here.

• In
  Darren Wilson’s exceedingly terrible grand jury testimony, now
  released in full, the 6’4″, 213-pound police officer described
  18-year-old Michael Brown as strong as Hulk Hogan, with the
  “intense aggressive face” of an angry “demon”. Read Wilson’s full testimony here.
• Sixty-one people were arrested in conjunction with
  protests around Ferguson, Missouri, last night after the jury
  failed to indict Officer Wilson. 
• Athletes
  react to the Ferguson decision. Members of
  Congress react to the Ferguson decision. Celebrities react to the Ferguson
  decision. (At least check out that last one for the Charlie
  Sheen tweet. #Losing) 
• Why it’s impossible to indict a cop.
• Why eyewitness testimony is so often wrong.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finalized rules requiring calorie information be listed
  on chain-restaurant menus and menu boards and in vending
  machines. 
• Here’s a breakdown of what the Pentagon plans to spend fighting
  ISIS. 

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter,
and don’t forget to sign
up for Reason’s daily updates for more
content.

One-third of Americans have nothing saved for
retirement, according to a study published in August by the
financial data aggregator Bankrate. That grim factoid joined a
growing chorus of reports highlighting Americans’ dismal savings
habits. In 2013, the National Institute of Retirement Security
(NIRS) determined that 84 percent of Americans are falling short of
“reasonable” retirement savings targets. Data from the Center for
Retirement Research at Boston College reflect a similar trend, and
a recent PBS poll found that 92 percent of Americans believe we
face a retirement crisis and that government should act now. The
reality is not quite as grim as these reports suggest, writes
Veronique de Rugy in the December issue of Reason.

View this article.

Shortly after 8 pm local time last night, St. Louis County
Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced that there would be no
indictment of Darren Wilson in the August shooting death of Michael
Brown. He did so in what might go down as one of the more bizarre
press conferences in history, taking time to
blame social media and cable news for the unrest in Ferguson
before announcing the decision at the end of a painstaking
fifteen-minute statement.

The announcement touched off demonstrations throughout Saint
Louis, including some that lead to violence. Saint Louis County
police reported
twenty-nine arrests, and tear gas was deployed
in multiple locations. At least a dozen structural fires were also

reported, and I watched two police cars burn just down the road
from the Ferguson Police Station.

Nonetheless, the vast majority of protestors I encountered were
peaceful. While there is clearly a subset of the protesters that
have no faith in the system and embody a “burn it down” mentality,
most protesters I talked to saw a fight for reform, not violence,
as the best manifestation of the anger they are feeling.

In south-central St. Louis City, across town from Ferguson, a
large group of protesters formed shortly after the decision was
announced, marching through town and shutting down local roads and
highways. When a group of protesters began breaking windows, others
intervened in an attempt to stop the violence, and eventually
split
off to start a separate, peaceful march.

Protesters committed to nonviolence emphasized that they share
the anger of those protesting in other ways, but condemn acts of
violence. I spoke with Jenniqual Johnson, a U.S. army veteran who
has been stationed in El Paso, Atlanta, Seattle, and elsewhere. She
worked to redirect folks’ anger toward peaceful protests following
initial acts of vandalism in south-central Saint Louis city.
Jenniqual emphasized that Saint Louis has a uniquely severe racial
divide, one that is not comparable with other parts of the county
she has lived in. Healing that divide, she says, is critical, 
“It’s time to bridge the trust between our community and our
elected leaders and the police.”

Ferguson Grand Jury Decision Sparks White House
Protest is the latest video from Reason TV. Watch above or
click on the link below for video, full text, supporting links,
downloadable versions, and more Reason TV clips.

View this article.

The San Diego Police Department
fired officers Bryce and Jennifer Charpentier after they pleaded
guilty to
conspiring to commit burglary, possession and sale of a
controlled substance, and possession of a firearm by an addict,
among other charges. The couple, who are married, would text each
other to set up burglaries to steal drugs from people they met on
duty.

As sporadic violence and looting continues overnight in
Ferguson, MO, the FAA has
issued flight restrictions over the St. Louis
area, offering only “to provide a safe environment for law
enforcement activities” as a reason for the flight ban.

If that sounds familiar, it should. The same reason was given
for locking down the skies last summer, when clashes between police
and protesters became a nightly occurence for weeks, following
unconfirmed reports of shots fired at a police helicopter.

But as noted by
Reason‘s Peter
Suderman,
the Associated Press uncovered audio recordings which confirmed
“local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose
was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests.”
The AP added:

“They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,”
said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series
of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated
Press. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything
else that could be going on.

At another point, a manager at the FAA’s Kansas City center said
police “did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR
(temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn’t want media
in there.”

Unlike the earlier unsubstantiated rumors of shooting, there is

no doubt that shots have been fired by protesters in Ferguson
tonight. The FAA and local law enforcement may genuinely fear for
the safety of their own aircraft.

Still, judging by their heavy-handed
response to far more peaceful protests last August, it’s
hardly out of the realm of possibility that the Ferguson police
would prefer to limit the amount of press coverage of their efforts
to pacify the unrest.

This is the top story at The New Republic tonight:

That really is the headline. The article doesn’t even call for
new legislation (like, say, Rep. Hank Johnson’s
Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act). It just urges Obama “to
use the bully pulpit to steer the national agenda in a positive
direction,” as though we’re sitting around helplessly seeking
presidential guidance.

Is there a term for this passion for speeches—this pundit-class
faith that it is inspiring words from a paternal figure that drive
the engine of history? How did anyone get such an idea? Did they
learn history from a highlights reel? Have they seen too many
message-movies that end with soaring monologues? Or do they
just dream of someday writing such orations themselves? (I
suppose we should be glad at least that TNR didn’t run one
of those “Dear Mr. President: I took the liberty of writing a
speech for you” columns.)

I watched an Obama speech tonight. The cable channels aired it
in a split screen with footage from Ferguson, so as the
president urged calm I could see a live feed of the country
ignoring him. His comments were predictable and bland, but even if
he’d given us the most stirring rhetoric of his career I can’t
imagine that it would have made much difference. This is the news,
not The West Wing. Words are cheap.

If
Darren Wilson had been indicted, he probably would have been
acquitted, since crucial questions about his deadly encounter with
Michael Brown—questions on which the police officer’s self-defense
claim hinges—remain
unresolved. The physical evidence is ambiguous, and
eyewitnesses contradict each other on important details such as who
initiated the violence, whether Wilson fired at Brown as he fled,
and whether Brown was trying to surrender or trying to attack
Wilson. That does not necessarily mean the grand jury was right to
reject criminal charges against Wilson, since the standard for an
indictment, probable cause, is much lower than the standard for
conviction, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But if a state
homicide charge would have been difficult to prove, convicting
Wilson in federal court would be nearly impossible.

After the grand jury’s decision was announced, Attorney General
Eric Holder
said the Justice Department is still investigating the
shooting. But he noted that “federal civil rights law imposes a
high legal bar in these types of cases.” The relevant
statute is Title 18, Section 242, which makes it a federal
crime to “willfully” deprive someone of his constitutional rights
“under color of any law.” If death results, this crime can be
punished by a life sentence or even by execution. But it requires a
specific intent to violate someone’s rights, and there is little
evidence that Wilson had such an intent.

Assuming that Wilson’s shooting of Brown was not legally
justified, the most likely scenario is that he acted out of anger,
unreasonable fear, or both in the heat of the moment during a brief
encounter when there was no time to form the sort of intent
required by the civil rights statute. (There would have been a
similar problem in convicting Wilson of first-degree murder, which
requires premeditation.) Last month The Washington
Post reported
that “Justice Department investigators have all but concluded they
do not have a strong enough case to bring civil rights charges
against Darren Wilson.” 

The St. Louis County grand jury who came out with a “No True
Bill” on all five potential indictments against Ferguson PD Officer
Darren Wilson did an incredibly rare thing. How rare?
FiveThirtyEight reports:

Former New York state Chief Judge Sol Wachtler famously remarked
that a prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to “indict a ham
sandwich.” The data suggests he was barely exaggerating: According
to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys
prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for
which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment
in 11 of them.

I’ll do the math for you: that’s 0.0000679 percent of the time.
Yes, these numbers are federal and not state cases, so
they exclude the jurisdiction of St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob
McCulloch. But also note, viaFiveThirtyEight:

“If the prosecutor wants an indictment and doesn’t get
one, something has gone horribly wrong,” said Andrew D. Leipold, a University of Illinois law
professor who has written critically about grand juries.
“It just doesn’t happen.”

McCulloch’s
bizarre, rambling, at times overtly hostile press conference
announcing that there would be no indictment of Officer Wilson in
the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown gave some the
impression that he was not an objective party in this
investigation. McCulloch’s ties to law enforcement could hardly be
more intimate. As reported by
CBS News:

The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into
the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael
Brown has deep family roots among police: his father,
mother, brother, uncle and cousin all worked for St. Louis’ police
department, and his father was killed while responding to a call
involving a black suspect.

Grand juries rarely indict law enforcement officials. It’s hard
to imagine they’d ever indict one if the prosecutor’s allegiances
are as evident as McCulloch’s appear to be.

(Hat tip: Andrew
Fishman.)