Free Republic

ST. LOUIS • Former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley was found not guilty Friday of murdering a man while on duty. St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson's highly anticipated verdict found a white former St. Louis police officer not guilty of first-degree murder and amed criminal action in the December 2011 shooting death of a black drug suspect after a high-speed pursuit and crash. Activists, with support from some of the city's black clergy, had pledged disruptive protests ahead of St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson's verdict.

There seems to be an insatiable appetite among the punditry class for the “antifascists are as bad as fascists” argument, a subset of that orthodoxy of the moderate which argues for peace in the face of violence and love in the face of hate. In the last week alone, The Guardian published “Step Aside, Antifa. You Undermine the Trump Resistance,” Truthdig published Chris Hedges’ “How Antifa Mirrors the Alt-Right,” and Trevor Noah devoted an entire segment of his show to the issue of the “Punch Drunk Left” in which he referred to Antifa as “vegan ISIS.” The Department of Homeland...

The media is working overtime to convince us that the removal of bronze and stone statues from the landscape, where some have stood for over 100 years, is about erasing racism and bigotry The turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri back in 2014 was the antecedent of the recent riot in Charlottesville, Virginia. Both are examples of the street theater of “a new civil rights movement.” In November-December 2014, the website American Thinker posted a series of nine articles that tracked the persons, groups, and political forces at play in the town of about 20,000 north of St. Louis, Missouri.

On Tuesday night, more than two dozen people gathered near the spot where Michael Brown Jr. was gunned down three years ago on Aug. 9, 2014, to mourn and remember the 18-year-old whose life was taken from him and to reconstruct a makeshift memorial in the spot where he died. “We can never forget this,” activist Meldon Moffitt told a group residents and other community activists as they stood on the site. “This is ground zero.” Mike’s death sparked months of protests and served as the catalyst to the Black Lives Matter movement. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that those...

(snip) The DOJ report, though, needs to be discussed right here. Attorney General Eric Holder of the Department of Justice first arrived in Ferguson eleven days after the shooting. He spoke with Michael Brown’s mother. He talked of his own experiences with prejudice. He stated publicly that his pledge included, as opposed to simple justice, “robust action,” and he stated that “long after the events of August 9 have receded from the headlines, the Justice Department will continue to stand with this community.” The things he said and did added up to a tacit confirmation of the public fear that...

First, Michael Brown robbed a store. Then he viciously assaulted a policeman, fighting for the officer’s gun. The officer was left badly bruised and worried he might lose consciousness. Only when Brown charged once again did the officer fatally shoot him. As I show below, there is no debating the facts about the August 2014 shooting. Yet, what has Ferguson, Missouri done? On Saturday it was revealed that they “secretly” awarded the criminal’s family a “wrongful death claim” of $1.5 million. But if that doesn’t get you angry, look who is getting the money. After a grand jury declined to...

Warner Bros. is developing a movie about Michael Brown's death, according to a Hollywood trade publication. The studio has acquired the rights to the memoir written by Lezley McSpadden, Brown’s mother, according to Tracking Board. The memoir is titled “Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil.”

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday approved a settlement in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the parents of Michael Brown, an unarmed, black 18-year-old, whose fatal shooting by a white police officer nearly three years ago in Ferguson, Missouri, set off months of protests. Financial terms of the settlement approved by U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber were not disclosed. Anthony Gray, the attorney for Brown's parents, declined comment, as did Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III.

Edward Crawford, an activist known for throwing a tear gas canister back at police officers in a viral photo during the 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri was found dead on Thursday, May 4, from what police officers are describing as a self-inflicted gun wound. Crawford had participated in the protests that followed the death of Michael Brown at the hand of Officer Darren Wilson. According to the St. Louis Police Department, the 27-year-old shot himself in the head after talking with two women about "personal matters." Crawford's father disputes the claims, telling the St. Louis Post Dispatch that his son...

Edward Crawford, Jr., the man whose image became the defining moment in the Ferguson protests, is dead. Crawford was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and police are trying to determine if it was accidental or suicide. Crawford's dad told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "I don't believe it was a suicide," adding cops are being "hush-hush" about the investigation. The photo symbolized the tensions between police and protester in the wake of Michael Brown's death. Cops hurled a tear gas canister at protesters ... Crawford picked it up and hurled it back. Crawford was 27 and the father of 4...

CNN has an article up today titled “‘Black Lives Matter’ cases: When controversial killings lead to change” which looks at how individual shootings highlighted by BLM have resulted in some changes to the law. Let’s stipulate up front that there’s nothing wrong with the subject matter here. A roundup of legal changes that have resulted from these high profile cases seems worthwhile. What’s not worthwhile is the way CNN frames a couple of the best-known cases, even failing to note there is no evidence for the story behind “hands up, don’t shoot.” Here’s CNN’s description of the Michael Brown shooting:

In August 2014, billions of people suddenly came to know the name of this suburban town of 21,000 souls near the St. Louis international airport. The dominant media influenced much of the world to accept a description of Ferguson not as it really is, but instead as an ideological “narrative.” Ferguson became a synonym for alleged social evils in retrograde regions of an America that the ideologues believe cannot and should not be made great again. For a community of its size and condition, Ferguson surely is the world’s best known but least understood.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a statement Friday raising concerns over a consent decree to impose federal monitoring of the Baltimore Police Department.(snip)The DOJ, now under Trump-appointee Sessions, had sought to delay or modify the 227-page decree, which sets out extensive regulations of police conduct and calls for a “Community Oversight Taskforce” to monitor officers throughout Baltimore. U.S. District Judge James Bredar, however, refused to deviate from the agreement that Sessions described, in his statement, as “negotiated during a rushed process by the previous administration and signed only days before they left office.”Sessions pointed to the so-called “Ferguson effect”...

Ferguson, Missouri’s top elected official in the tumultuous 32 months since the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown won another three-year term Tuesday. James Knowles III, the mayor who was the public face of Ferguson after Brown’s death in August 2014, held off a challenge from city Councilwoman Ella Jones, who was seeking to become the St. Louis suburb’s first-ever black mayor. Knowles won with 56 percent of the vote to Jones’ 44 percent. It will be Knowles’ final term in office, due to term limits. Ferguson voters also approved a ballot measure adding strict police body camera requirements to...

He's the new Al Sharpton on steroids -- and he's coming to a TV near you. Benjamin Crump, camera-lovin' lawyer for the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, rocketed to fame perpetuating the "Hands up, don't shoot" lie. Never mind that even the left-wing Obama Justice Department concluded that the 22 witnesses who manufactured the Black Lives Matter-promoted narrative were unreliable, inconsistent, self-contradictory, unsupported by a shred of forensic evidence, or outright lying. In Crump World, anti-police ideology trumps facts. Social justice trumps actual justice. And lying about crime pays. Big time. Crump is going Hollywood. Next week, the...

Movie-maker Jason Pollock was not happy to be questioned on Fox News Channel. The director of “Strange Fruit,” which claims Michael Brown — the 18-year-old man who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 — did not rob a convenience store prior to the fight with police which led to his death. “You know how the system works. These cops get off every single time,” Pollock declared. Pollock started the segment by rolling his eyes as Fox host Martha MacCallum introduced a news package about the “new footage.” The situation devolved from there. “I am simply...

A newly disclosed surveillance video from the hours before the killing of a black man in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 has triggered fresh protests. A filmmaker has released the footage which he says shows Michael Brown did not rob a shop, as police claimed, but instead exchanged marijuana for cigars. He says it contradicts video released by police showing Brown threatening the shopkeeper as he walks out with cigars. The 18-year-old was shot dead by a police officer moments later. However, the convenience store maintains it was a robbery. Policeman Darren Wilson was cleared of wrongdoing by investigators but the...

About 100 protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, were dispersed by police on Sunday night (March 12) after they gathered outside the market where Mike Brown allegedly stole some items on the day he was fatally killed by a police officer in 2014. The group was reacting to previously unseen footage in a new documentary, Stranger Fruit, which debuted at the SXSW Film Festival over the weekend which appeared to offer a new twist to the details of the case.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it possesses a “limited amount” of 9mm bullets for agents in the field as well as for training purposes, and it is rationing its ammunition based on internal requests until it can award a new contract. [ ] The apparent role poor planning, or another agenda, played in the issue came to light when ICE said it would have run out of 9mm ammo by June 2017 in the absence of a modified contract with its supplier, Vista Outdoor Inc. So, the agency last month approved a $363,307 ceiling increase to contract No. HSCEMS-11-D-00002....

BREAKING: Gunfire erupts during protest at #FergusonMarket after CNN broadcasts new, heavily edited CCTV footage of #MichaelBrown. pic.twitter.com/tuPuhvyWVU— Tennessee (@TEN_GOP) March 13, 2017 Shots were fired outside the Ferguson Market on Sunday after new footage was aired on CNN of Michael Brown on the day he was shot. Police officers were asked to come the Ferguson Market around 10:45 p.m. to help control the crowd, the department said. Police believe people gathered at the market because of the release of the documentary “Stranger Fruit.” Brown was shot and killed after he was stopped by police officer Darren Wilson and...