Free Republic

Michael Brown: typical teenager who died tragically, or dangerous thug who invited trouble?Did you know Michael Brown was a killer? Did you know he was a devoted gang member with an extensive juvenile record who routinely robbed convenience stores and committed acts of mayhem? And did you know that when Officer Darren Wilson shot Brown, he wasn’t using unjustified force, he was defending his life? The 6-foot-4, 300-pound 18-year-old fractured Wilson’s eye socket while reaching for his gun, and was killed while charging at Wilson to land another blow. If this sounds suspect—if it sounds almost unbelievable—then your head is...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)A suspected drug dealer alleges that the Ferguson, Mo., policeman who killed Michael Brown used excessive force against him last year in an arrest that earned him commendation from the police department, the man’s attorney told Yahoo News. Officer Darren Wilson arrested Christopher Brooks on Feb. 28, 2013, after catching him and another man allegedly packaging marijuana to sell while sitting in a car in Brooks’ grandmother’s driveway. Yahoo News obtained the full police report from Brooks’ lawyer, Nick Zotos, after the Ferguson department refused to release an un-redacted version. According to the report, the men exited the car but...

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill on Friday accused Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach of “putting his finger on the scales” by disallowing Democratic Senate nominee Chad Taylor to withdraw from the ballot. McCaskill, an out-of-state Democrat, has come under scrutiny for a conversation she had with Taylor that shortly preceded his decision to attempt to drop out of the Kansas Senate race. Several reports have suggested that McCaskill urged Taylor to withdraw from the ballot, allowing Democrats to rally around independent Greg Orman to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. Orman has a lead over Roberts in a head-to-head race,...

Congressman Billy Long says it’ll take more than just airstrikes to effectively combat the Islamic State militant group. The Republican representative for Missouri’s 7th District said he’s pleased in the decision for airstrikes against ISIS, but more is needed to take on a group that he says makes Al Qaida pale in comparison. “I was on a conference call yesterday with Mike Rogers, chairman of intel [House Intelligence Committee], and the things that we know about ISIS are bone chilling, and we need to address that again sooner rather than later.” Long called the president’s recent statement that there is...

Moves to uncover the youth records of the 18-year-old Black youth are misplaced and akin to efforts to blame the victim.In the days after Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri, there was a behind-the-scenes tug of war between the local police officials and the Justice Department over the integrity of releasing a video of the 18-year-old Black man shoplifting some cigars from a neighborhood convenience store. Justice Department officials contended that releasing the unflattering video of Brown served no practical purpose and that it was motivated by a desire to portray the young man in a negative light. That,...

Teenaged boys on bicycles rob two female drivers of horse-drawn carriages downtown. It happened Sunday around 9 p.m. at two separate locations – one near Broadway and Kiener Plaza, another at Broadway and Washington.

They are not insurgents. They are not enemy combatants. They are not hostile enemy forces. They are not terrorists. They are our Black sons. And I beg you America to stop killing them in their own backyards, in the streets outside of nightclubs, on the phone talking to their girlfriend, and a few blocks from convenience stores from which they may or may not have stolen cigars. They do not deserve to die for such trivial incidents. America, the young Black men you kill are our future and potential scientists and doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs; they are our future bus...

I wonder if major media executives are savvy enough to be embarrassed by the unpaid citizen journalists who have subverted their high price monopoly on the news. Does it trouble these executives, I wonder, that people who care about the truth go anywhere but CNN or ABC or the New York Times to find it? Do they know that on subjects that deal with race – as the major media proved again in Ferguson, Missouri – the best informed Americans consider their coverage to be not just inadequate but preposterous?

Activists say Holder dropped the ball on investigation of Sanford shooting. The NAACP delivered 1.7 million signatures to the U. S. Department of Justice a year ago, requesting a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Sanford. Despite the outrage and demands for justice after Zimmerman was acquitted of manslaughter, Attorney General Eric Holder has yet to announce a clear answer on his findings in the shooting of the unarmed 17-year-old who quickly became a household name across America. Ben Jealous, the NAACP President who collected and electronically delivered the signatures says...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is launching a broad investigation into the practices of the Ferguson, Missouri, police department. That's according to Attorney General Eric Holder. He announced the investigation following the shooting last month of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb.

On March 20 in the St. Louis County town of Florissant, someone made an illegal U-turn in front of Nicole Bolden. The 32-year-old black single mother hit her brakes but couldn’t avoid a collision. Bolden wasn’t at fault for the accident and wanted to continue on her way. The other motorist insisted on calling the police, as per the law. When the officer showed up, Bolden filled with dread. “He was really nice and polite at first,” Bolden says. “But once he ran my name, he got real mean with me. He told me I was going to jail. I...

On March 20th in the St. Louis County town of Florissant, someone made an illegal U-turn in front of Nicole Bolden. The 32-year-old black single mother hit her brakes, but couldn’t avoid a collision... “He was really nice and polite at first,” Bolden says. “But once he ran my name, he got real mean with me. He told me I was going to jail. I had my 3-year-old and my one-and-a-half year old with me. I asked him about my kids. He said I had better find someone to come and get them, because he was taking me in.” The...

The Department of Justice will launch a civil rights investigation into the Ferguson (Mo.) Police Department after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen by one of its white officers. A government official briefed on the planned investigation told Fox News that the Justice Department's civil rights division would be in charge of the probe. The inquiry is referred to as a "pattern and practice" investigation and will focus on the department's policies, not possible individual wrongdoing.

The U.S. Department of Justice will conduct a civil-rights investigation of the Ferguson, Mo., police department, not looking further into the shooting of Michael Brown, who was killed by a Ferguson police officer earlier this summer, but at the department’s pattern of conduct over the years. Federal law-enforcement officers have already been in the area for weeks to conduct a civil-rights investigation of the Brown, which would determine whether the federal government will bring civil-rights charges. Former DOJ civil-rights attorney Robert Driscoll has explained on NRO why a civil-rights prosecution in the Brown case is unlikely — it’s quite possible...

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has lifted the state of emergency that he declared Aug. 16 in response to looting and violent protesting in Ferguson.

A hearing was held this morning at 10:30 AM in St. Louis County seeking the release of any juvenile records that might exist on the central figure in the Ferguson deadly shooting case. Lawyers state no records exist of second degree murder and #mikebrown #Ferguson — Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) September 3, 2014 According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch 18 year-old Michael Brown did not have any serious felony convictions on his record. The Post Dispatch reported: Michael Brown was never found delinquent of the juvenile equivalents of any Class A or B felony charges, and was not facing any...

Since the recent unrest in Ferguson, Mo., there have been a host of changes to the way the local police do business that are meant to prevent another incident like the shooting death of Michael Brown. Gov. Jay Nixon has appointed Dan Isom, an African-American, as the state's new public safety director. The city's police have begun wearing front-facing body cameras. But what exactly does it mean to "prevent the next Michael Brown"? Brown's name has become the latest in a long litany of names that in their totality represent an archetype: a black life snuffed out in an encounter...

The images of violent demonstrations in the wake of the killing of young Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., are subsiding, and now the nation awaits the results of local and federal investigations. Still, many of us continue to ponder the issue of the police’s response to those protests. Scenes of the militarized police force roaming the neighborhoods in tanks — armed with tear gas canisters, smoke bombs and rubber bullets used indiscriminately upon protesters and troublemakers alike — reminded many of war-torn areas abroad or the violence visited upon demonstrators during the civil rights and Vietnam eras. However, the killing...

Websites raising money for Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson temporarily stopped accepting donations Sunday while the sites' administrators await clarification on whether the money can be used to cover the officer's legal expenses, according to organizers.

FERGUSON • Police officers here began wearing body cameras on Saturday as marchers took to the streets in the most recent protest of a shooting three weeks earlier.