St. Louis Post-Dispatch Ferguson coverage - Aug. 25

MONDAY • 08.25.2014 • $1.50

Vol. 136, No. 237 ©2014POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

1 M

79°/98°MOSTLY SUNNY

78°/96°PARTLY CLOUDY

WEATHERA16

TODAY

TOMORROW

Second down Earthquake rocks northern California3 critically injured in strongest quake in Bay area, wine country since 1989.

INSIDE • A15

Man in photo wasn’t angry

Inside • A9

Black legislators meet with Nixon, air frustration

Inside • A7

Concert raises money for Brown’s family

Inside • A9

Inner-ring suburbs are ticking time bombsGuest commentary • A12

‘A DAY OF SILENCE’BROWN’S FATHER PLEADS FOR LULL WHILE SON IS LAID TO REST

BRADFORD OUT FOR SEASON

MRI reveals Rams quarterback tore ACL in his left knee during

preseason game.

SPORTS • B1

J.B. FORBES • [email protected]“We need your help, Lord,” Dorothy Gant, 64, of Jennings cries at the Family of Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Ferguson on Sunday morning at a prayer vigil for peace in Ferguson. The church is behind the Ferguson Market and Liquor store, where much of the protesting took place.

BY STEVE [email protected]

ST. LOUIS • On the eve of his son’s funeral, an emotional Mi-chael Brown Sr. asked Sunday night for a day of calm to honor the memory of the 18-year-old who has become an inter-national icon in the two weeks since he was fatally wounded by a Ferguson police o� cer.

“Tomorrow, all I want is peace while my son is being laid to rest. Please, please take a day of silence so we can lay our son to rest. Please. That’s all I ask. And thank you,” Brown told an audience of about 600 gathered on the sweltering Central Fields of Forest Park for PeaceFest 2014.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, ac-companying Brown on the PeaceFest stage, seconded the plea to set aside a day to re-member the life of the 2014 No r m a n dy H i g h Sc h o o l

PeaceFest is forum for

Ferguson causeBY ELISA [email protected]

As his family has grieved, the Rev. Charles Ewing has spent this past week writing the eulogy he plans to deliver today for his nephew, Michael Brown, whose shooting death by a police o� cer began nearly two weeks of unrest in Ferguson.

Ewing said he was writing “what God is giving me. To heal the hurt. Not only in the city of Ferguson, but the whole nation.

The whole world is hurting.”He will deliver his message to-

day to a crowd expected to over-fl ow Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis, one of a handful of area churches ca-pable of accommodating the ex-pected large turnout.

Attending the service will be civil rights leaders such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was asked to speak, and black elected lead-ers such as U.S. Rep. Maxine Wa-ters, D-Calif., and Rep. William

Hoping to unite, not divide

BY SARAH EL DEEBAssociated Press

CAIRO • The top Islamic author-ity in Egypt, revered by many Muslims worldwide, launched an Internet-based campaign Sun-day challenging an extremist group in Syria and Iraq by say-ing it should not be called an “Is-

lamic State.”The campaign by the Dar el-

Ifta, an educational and legal research institute that advises Muslims on spiritual and life is-sues, adds to the war of words by Muslim leaders across the world targeting the Islamic State group, which controls wide swaths of Iraq and Syria. Its violent at-

tacks, which have included mass shootings, destruction of Shiite shrines, atrocities against mi-norities and hostages including American journalist James Foley, have shocked Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The Grand Mufti of Egypt,

Top Islamic authority rebukes militants

Group controlling parts of Syria and Iraq should not be called an ‘Islamic State.’

ROBERT COHEN • [email protected] Anthony Shahid (left), Michael Brown Sr. and the Rev. Al Sharpton wait to speak at PeaceFest 2014 in Forest Park on Sunday . See EULOGY • Page A8

See ISLAMIC STATE • Page A4

See PEACE • Page A7

NEW 2014 CADILLACATS

PER MONTH36 MONTH LEASE

2.5 L

PER MONTH36 MONTH LEA

$299**

www.bommaritocadillac.com

314-266-4001I-70 Cave Springs Exit, 4190 N. Service Rd., St. Peters

Bommarito

636-928-23001-888-590-0854Toll Free*Artwork for Illustration Only.

*0% apr for 60 months = $16.67 per $1,000 financed. **36 month lease, 10K milesper year, tax, title, license, additional, $2,439 down cash or trade due at signingwith approved credit through Ally Financing. Example down payment, $0 securitydeposit. Total cost of lease $13,203. For qualified buyers. See dealer for details.0% 60APR FOR MOS*

AVAILABLE ON 2014 ATS,SRX, XTS, CTS & ESCALADE

08.25.2014 • Monday • M 1 ST. LoUIS PoST-dISPaTCH • A7

graduate.“Mum is the word until Mi-

chael Brown is laid to rest,” Sharpton told the crowd. “Then, justice.”

The parents of Trayvon Mar-tin, the Florida teen killed in a 2012 encounter with a commu-nity watch volunteer, also ap-peared at PeaceFest — an annual event planned far in advance of the event in Ferguson that has shook the region and the nation.

“You all stood for the family of Trayvon Martin, and we’re going to stand for you,” promised Tracy Martin, his father.

Martin was among a number of speakers who during the day urged PeaceFest attendees to channel the outrage into positive outcomes for justice at the bal-lot box. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., a St. Louis native and Sumner High School graduate, earlier sounded a similar refrain.

Brown’s mother, Leslie Mc-Spadden, also attended the event. The appearance of the families of Brown and Martin highlighted a day of music and oppressive heat that kept atten-dance to a minimum until late af-ternoon.

The afternoon sun beating down on Central Fields con-tributed to attendees’ being far outnumbered by the vendors of cellphones, jewelry, food, insur-ance, clothing and other items. Sweltering vendors blamed the weather for slow sales. In defer-ence to the heat, one vendor dis-counted Michael Brown memo-rial T-shirts from $13 to $10.

Event organizers saw to it that for one day, anyway, the ubiq-uitous rallying cry of Ferguson demonstrators — “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” — was matched with frequently met requests to “throw out the peace sign!”

The event was sponsored by Better Family Life. The nonprof-it’s director, Malik Ahmed, said that Brown’s death should serve as a starting point to address the lack of jobs, affordable housing,

quality education and other ob-stacles facing the African-Amer-ican community in St. Louis and beyond.

Stephen and Desiree Hutton of Berkeley staked out a location beneath a sprawling maple when they arrived midafternoon. The Huttons attended PeaceFest in 2013 but said the situation in Fer-guson instilled additional mean-ing to the event this year. Ste-phen Hutton said the overarch-ing PeaceFest message “takes a little of the tension away.

“But we still basically have to wait to see what happens. To-morrow is the funeral. But there are a lot of steps after that.”

Terry Crate traveled the five miles to Forest Park from his home in Pagedale after watching

an account of the event on the news. Crate, who has avoided the demonstrations along West Flo-rissant Avenue in Ferguson in the two weeks since Brown was shot, said the draw Sunday was music along with an opportunity to be part of a larger cause.

“I didn’t want to get in with that crowd,” he said of the Fergu-son protesters. “But I don’t mind this crowd, they’re peaceful.”

Another attendee asked that he not be identified by name be-cause he just moved to the area from the Bronx, N.Y.

“I said St. Louis was below the radar before I moved here,” he said.

That, the newly arrived resi-dent added sadly, is certainly no longer the case.

‘STAGE OF HEALING’After sunset on Sunday, traffic rolled on West Florissant Avenue as if riots never happened. About 15 people were scattered along the avenue, or in parking lots, some chatting in small groups. One man carried an American flag. Two peddled “I survived the Ferguson riot” T-shirts for $10.

Barbers Ikino Jones and Antion Drummond stood outside Clip Appeal, where they rent booths, and lamented the lack of busi-ness during the protests.

“I just think we’re at the stage of healing now,” said Drummond, 43, of south St. Louis, a father of two young boys who also works as a chemical operator.

Jones, 38, of Maryland Heights, has four children and is engaged

to be married. He worries about what the police will do once the media isn’t watching.

“They’re going to have the same free range, but they’re go-ing to come down harder,” he said.

MARCH IS CANCELEDThe New Spirit of St. Louis “Fer-guson Peace March” scheduled for today has been canceled be-cause of to heat warnings, orga-nizers said. A new date is being planned.

Lilly Fowler and Nicholas J.C. Pistor of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

ferguson police shooting

By JOEL [email protected]

ST. LOUIS COUNTY • Members of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus used a meeting Sunday with Gov. Jay Nixon to vent over the investigation into the Aug. 9 shooting death of an unarmed Ferguson teenager.

The meeting Sunday afternoon at the University of Missouri-St.

Louis was closed to the public and reporters, but some legisla-tors said they repeated calls for an indictment of Ferguson po-lice Officer Darren Wilson and for Nixon to remove St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert Mc-Culloch from the case.

“He’s pretending he cares,” said Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, who walked out of the meeting after about 10 minutes. “It’s a waste

of time. He’s doing this to look good.”

About a dozen legislators at-tended, including representa-tives from Kansas City. The cau-cus’ vice-chairman, Rep. Bran-don Ellington, D-Kansas City, called the meeting “productive” but declined further comment.

After the meeting, Nixon said in an interview that he would not replace McCulloch, saying the prosecutor “has a duty and

responsibility to do his job, and that’s what he should do.”

Nixon wouldn’t give specif-ics on what was discussed but said he thought the meeting was a “good, solid first step” toward developing “long-term solu-tions.”

Nixon also said he planned to attend Brown’s funeral set for 10 a.m. today at Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, 5515 Martin Luther King Drive.

State Rep. Karla May, D-St. Louis, said she was among mem-bers calling for an immediate in-dictment of Wilson, which she believes would mollify people frustrated with the shooting in-vestigation.

May said that her constituents “want an arrest and a charge. They feel like our plight is being ignored, as usual.”

Black legislators meet with Nixon, air frustrationSome cite more calls for indictment of Wilson, removal of McCulloch from case.

PEACE •

FROM A1

RobeRt Cohen • [email protected] Sanders (right) joins the crowd showing peace signs as she and Evelyn Beverly of Collinsville attend PeaceFest 2014 in Forest Park on Sunday.

J.b. FoRbes • [email protected] Martin poses in front of the memorial for Michael Brown at the Canfield Green apartment complex in Ferguson on Sunday, for passers-by who wanted his picture. Martin is the father of Trayvon Martin, who was killed in Florida by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Martin came to Ferguson to meet with Brown's parents.

PeaceFest in park eases tension

“Mum is the word until Michael Brown is laid to rest. Then, justice.”— The Rev. Al Sharpton

A8 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 2 • MONDAY • 08.25.2014

Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis.But also present will be a num-

ber of African-American fami-lies who know what it’s like to lose someone in a way that’s so violent, so sudden and so public. Their losses also have triggered protests drawing attention to the nation’s racial divisions and questionable use of force by law enforcement.

They include the parents of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was unarmed and fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer two years ago in San-ford, Fla. The cousin of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old who was tortured and murdered in 1955 by whites for reportedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The aunt and uncle of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old who was unarmed and fatally shot in 2009 by a white police o� cer inside a subway system in Oakland, Calif.

And there are more. Each time a new family is added, members of this network reach out. Many said they would be there today .

“As a unit we’re growing, un-fortunately,” said Erica Gordon-Taylor, Emmett Till’s cousin, in St. Louis for a second time in two weeks.

Days after Brown’s death, Gordon-Taylor drove to Fergu-son from her home in Chicago. She took pictures of the rose pet-als and memorials on Canfield

Drive, where Brown’s body fell. And then she met with Michael Brown Sr. about the grief he feels.

After Emmett Till died, her aunt came to believe Emmett was a sacrifi cial lamb on loan to her

for a short time. Gordon-Taylor said she’d told Brown this. At Emmett’s funeral, his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open casket. Pictures of her son’s tortured body alarmed the

world. It stirred an outrage that helped fuel the civil rights move-ment.

“What happened to Michael Brown has stirred up a move-ment,” Gordon-Taylor said. Re-gardless of what happens in the investigation and whether O� -cer Darren Wilson is charged, she believes the teenager’s death will have a lasting impact. “It does not negate the loss of your baby. Hopefully it gives you a di� erent perspective on what’s going on in the loss of your baby.”

On Friday afternoon, Cephus and Beatrice Johnson — relatives of Oscar Grant — arrived from California.

The Johnsons had already spent several days in Fergu-son immediately after Brown’s death. They had canceled plans to go to New York, where they had planned to visit a family of an unarmed African-American man who died in a police chokehold during an attempted arrest.

“This seemed so much more volatile,” Cephus Johnson said, standing among a group of peaceful protesters on West Flo-rissant Avenue last week.

During their visits, the fami-lies contact Brown’s family to let them know they’re in town. Sometimes they meet. Some-times they don’t. There’s no ur-gency, they say. It’s a relationship they see as long-term. It will de-velop in time.

“It’s whatever they need,” said Ron Davis, whose son Jordan, 17, died in 2012 after being fa-tally shot inside a car by a white

software developer at a Florida gas station. The man had asked Jordan and his friends to turn their music down. He fi red sev-eral shots into the car. He later said Jordan had threatened him. The man was convicted of three counts of attempted second-de-gree murder, but the case ended in a mistrial.

Ron Davis, who arrived for the funeral on Friday, said he hoped to meet with Brown’s family be-fore the funeral to o� er support.

“Whether it’s hugs or whether it’s conversation,” Davis said. “There’s no blueprint, there are no bullet points. There’s just love.”

The support from these fami-lies and thousands of others is appreciated, Ewing said. His fo-cus, however, has been the fu-neral. The eulogy.

Ewing said he wanted it to unite people, not divide them. He also hopes his message will shed light on aspects of his nephew that have been overshadowed by a video taping showing him shoving a store clerk and steal-ing from a nearby store moments before the shooting.

Ewing said he would tell the story of Brown’s receiving Jesus Christ as his savior weeks before he died. Ewing is the pastor at Jennings Mason Temple Church. But it was Brown’s stepmother who had been ministering to him.

“We’re getting through this,” Ewing said. “We want the world to see and know we are God-fearing and God-loving people.”

EULOGY •

FROM A1

1 MILE Post-Dispatch

70

NormandieGolf ClubNormandieGolf Club

Olive

Page

Delmar

Kien

len

Skin

kerPe

nnsy

lvan

iaPe

nnsy

lvan

ia

Midland

S. H

anle

y

Vand

even

ter

New

stea

d

W. Florissant

W. Florissant

364BellefontaineCemeteryGlen Echo

Country ClubGlen Echo

Country Club

Natural Bridge

Natural Bridge

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King

N. K

ings

high

way

N. K

ings

high

way

Forest ParkForest Park

FriendlyTemple

MissionaryBaptistChurch

FriendlyTemple


St. Peter’sCemetery


170

They include the parents of

believes the teenager’s death will


70


Olive

Page

Delmar

Kien

len

Skin

kerPe

nnsy

lvan

iaPe

nnsy

lvan

ia

Midland

S. H

anle

y

Vand

even

ter

New

stea

d

W. Florissant

W. Florissant



Country Club

Natural Bridge

Natural Bridge

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King

N. K

ings

high

way

N. K

ings

high

way


FriendlyTemple


FriendlyTemple




170

MICHAEL BROWN FUNERAL

Details of today’s services for Michael Brown.

• Funeral at Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, 5515 Martin Luther King Drive, 10 a.m. The Rev. Charles Ewing, Brown’s uncle, will deliver the eulogy. Activist the Rev. Al Sharpton also was invited to speak.

• Funeral procession will leave Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church en route to St. Peter’s Cemetery, 2101 Lucas and Hunt Road, for interment.

• A repast is scheduled after interment at the Omega Center, 3900 Goodfellow Boulevard.

Other victims’ families share their experiences

FERGUSON POLICE SHOOTING

J.B. FORBES • [email protected] young men who live in the Canfi eld Green apartment complex in Ferguson and who knew Michael Brown watch all the activity around the shooting scene memorial on Sunday. They are (front row, from left) Kareem Ivery, 20; and J.R. Jackson, 22; (back row, from left) Hakem Ivery, 18; Brandon Haywood, 17; and Dashawn Dabney, 16. “He was a real person,” Kareem Ivery said. “He had no problems with nobody. That's how cool he was. That could have been any one of us out there in the street.”J.B. FORBES • [email protected]

“I could see you were struggling," Hazel Wright (left), 54, said as she o� ered a hug to Kelly Gri� th, 46, from Ballwin, at the Canfi eld Green apartment complex in Ferguson on Sunday. Gri� th was overcome with emotion as she observed the memorial for Michael Brown in the middle of the street where he died. Gri� th had been volunteering with Destiny Church, o� ering free lunches along West Florissant Avenue.

DAVID CARSON • [email protected] Conner, a science teacher at Wydown Middle School in Clayton, pushes pinwheels into the ground outside Ferguson Middle School on Sunday. More than 600 pinwheels were made by the students of Wydown Middle School to help welcome the students of Ferguson Middle School back on their fi rst day of classes today . The pinwheels, mounted on pencils, contain messages of peace and hope.

SCENES FROM SUNDAYPeople seek paths to healing two weeks after slaying.


70


Olive

Page

Delmar

Kien

len

Skin

kerPe

nnsy

lvan

iaPe

nnsy

lvan

ia

Midland

S. H

anle

y

Vand

even

ter

New

stea

d

W. Florissant

W. Florissant



Country Club

Natural Bridge

Natural Bridge

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King

N. K

ings

high

way

N. K

ings

high

way


FriendlyTemple


FriendlyTemple




170

364


70


Olive

Page

Delmar

Kien

len

Skin

kerPe

nnsy

lvan

iaPe

nnsy

lvan

ia

Midland

S. H

anle

y

Vand

even

ter

New

stea

d

W. Florissant

W. Florissant



Country Club

Natural Bridge

Natural Bridge

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King

N. K

ings

high

way

N. K

ings

high

way


FriendlyTemple


FriendlyTemple




170


By Kevin C. [email protected]

The crowd was on the light side, but posi-tive sentiments overflowed at the Michael Brown Benefit Show on Sunday at Plush in midtown St. Louis.

Many artists representing St. Louis’ hip-hop community, acts such as Tef Poe, Doorway, Indiana Rome, Ruka Puff and sole R&B act Coco Soul, performed at the benefit show in the name of Brown, the Ferguson teenager killed over two weeks ago by police Officer Darren Wilson.

Proceeds from the event are going to Brown’s family. Donations were collected on stage throughout the night.

The performers’ tactics and mes-sages varied but were obviously linked by Brown’s death and its wide-reaching af-termath.

Lamar “Finsta” Williams, who hosted the Slum F.E.S.T. presentation along with Robert “Rob Boo” Ford, said many of the artists performing had been on the front line of the protests in Ferguson, and they might not hold back their emotions.

That was true of Tef Poe, considered one of St. Louis’ artists on the forefront of ac-tivism in the wake of Brown. Tef Poe, who performed his “Coming Out of Missouri,” said Brown didn’t die in vain. His hyped-up performance, the evening’s strongest amongst a strong evening, included slams of St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, and referenced troops be-ing sent to kill in Ferguson.

World music/reggae artist Mario Charles and his band performed songs of freedom and motivation with lyrics that asked “What is going on? Where did we go wrong?”

Coco Soul said the issue was deeper than Brown, that it was about the cause, the virus affecting them, before perform-ing Rachelle Ferrell’s “Peace on Earth” and Erykah Badu’s “A.D. 2000.”

Gospel rapper Thi’sl said he has been in the streets since Brown’s death and will stay in the streets long after Brown before performing “Fallen Angel.” Rapper T-Dubb O said it was time to take back the streets.

Rapper Ruka Puff said his first instinct after Brown’s death was to strike out, but he felt God would see him better served doing something else. He performed an untitled song that spoke of “killing a homie” who didn’t do a thing, and fighting because that’s his right.

Rapper-singer Black Spade crooned, and cursed the ice bucket challenge for ALS that has taken over Facebook. Some

believe it is a distraction devised to take attention away from events in Ferguson.

Indiana Rome told the crowd not to let anyone tell them their efforts relating to Ferguson aren’t worth it.

The Domino Effect’s set was briefly de-layed by technical issues that included a loud sound that resembled a gun shot. One of the rappers said he almost started running. The group performed new song “Ground Zero,” which included the lyric “He put his hands up/that should have been a sign/but instead they killed him execution style.”

Rapper BoDean asked for a moment of silence. He talked up State of Emergency, a new organization devoted to promot-ing justice for Brown. Signatures in sup-port of State of Emergency were collected. BoDean told the crowd to not feel bad if they weren’t able to make it out to pro-tests, that jobs and other obligations can prevent such. But he pointed out there are

other ways for them to play their parts.Rapper RT-FaQ of Doorway brought

his two young sons on stage, Heir Jordin, 5, who rapped a song that name-checked Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Dou-glass, while Teddy, 2, played drums. RT-FaQ and Whiteout of Doorway said the performance was a release from all the drama going on.

Rapper Haiku admitted he didn’t quite know what to say. He just wanted to get on stage and escape reality for a minute.

Rapper Ackurate engaged the crowd in the event’s first “hands up, don’t shoot” chant. He reminded the crowd to not for-get about Trayvon Martin, and in a lyric equated being a black child to being a “black carcass.”

Montague Simmons, an activist with Organization of Black Struggle, said the eyes of the nation are on St. Louis and this is truly a moment in history. He said Brown’s death triggered something other

similar deaths did not, and that this was transforming.

Simmons asked for the protesters to stand down on Monday in respect to Brown’s funeral, but to plug back in on Tuesday.

Rennell Parker encouraged the crowd to speak up and speak out, and had the crowd form a motivation circle with men on the outside and women on the inside. He had them chant “I love me.”

Among the others to perform were Nato Caliph and Allen Gates.

Rapper Thelonius Kryptonite talked to the crowd about the Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition, whose de-mands include the firing and arrest of Offi-cer Wilson, the removal of St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch and the re-moval of Ferguson Mayor James Knowles and Police Chief Thomas Jackson.

DJs Smitty and Tech Supreme spun throughout the evening.

Hip-hop artists deliver emotional messages

ferguson police shooting

By DAviD [email protected]

This is Edward Crawford.He’s 25, went to University City High

School and works at a bistro on the Delmar Loop. He’s a waiter, a roller skater and a father of three.

And, just after midnight on Aug. 13, he grabbed a sparking, smoking tear gas cyl-inder, fired by police at Ferguson protest-ers, and threw it back.

The photo, taken by Post-Dispatch photographer Robert Cohen, has become an iconic image of the now two-week pro-test along West Florissant Avenue.

For many, the act bottles up all the an-ger directed at police after the shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown. It represents defiance against police aggres-sion. And the shirt Crawford is wearing, with the American flag down the middle, identifies the irony of the moment.

But Crawford says he wasn’t an-gry when he threw it. He was angry be-forehand. Afterward — as he was being dragged out of a car, cuffed and jailed — he was mostly just scared.

And throwing it wasn’t an act of rebel-lion, he said. It was instinct.

Crawford lives in University City, as he has since he was a child. His brother lives a few streets from the apartments on Can-field Drive in Ferguson, where Brown was shot three Saturdays ago. His brother told him about the shooting.

On the Tuesday night after the shoot-ing, Crawford got off work at Ginger Bistro and went home to change. He grabbed one of his favorite T-shirts, with three-quarter sleeves and an American flag down the front. He loves the baseball-style tees, and owns two, but the black-and-white one was dirty. He borrowed his mother’s Car-dinals socks, and tied up his blue Nikes.

Then he and a friend drove to a park to visit her father, who was fishing for catfish and sturgeon, before heading to Ferguson to get a sense of the gathering there.

Crawford does not consider himself un-usually brave. Yes, he has a rap sheet, but it is brief: After his stepfather was murdered a few years ago, he carried an illegal gun and got caught.

He quit the U. City High football team after a particularly hard hit on the second day of practice. He lives with his mother.

And he takes his children roller skating ev-ery Sunday.

This would be his first protest. And what he found in Ferguson that night wasn’t vi-olent, he said. It was electric. Alive.

At some point, he saw a guy with a bag of chips. Crawford asked for some. The guy gave him a whole bag of the spicy local favorites, Red Hot Riplets.

“It was cool,” Crawford said of the scene.At least at first.Then he remembers the police lining up

in riot gear. He remembers batons beat-ing on shields, officers pushing protesters back.

“It looked like something you’d see in a movie,” he said.

He doesn’t understand why police started firing rubber bullets (or wooden pellets, it’s unclear which) and all of the smoking canisters. He insists he saw no guns among protesters, no homemade bombs, no projectiles of any kind.

And, at that moment, he was angry. “Why,” he thought, “are you all shooting people?”

Then came a boom, like a cannon go-ing off. And an impact, just feet away. “It landed so close,” he said. “I didn’t know

what it was. It was on fire. It was spinning.”Crawford, a slight man with long, neat

dreadlocks, a wisp of a mustache and fuzzy chin beard, jumped over the sparks, waited for it to stop spinning, and grabbed it. It was cool to the touch, he said.

Crawford told the Post-Dispatch that he didn’t intentionally throw it at cops. He just threw it.

Ten minutes later, he went to get his friend’s car. But before he could pick her up, police surrounded him. One beat in a window. Another jerked open a door. “I’ve never in my life witnessed anything like that,” he said.

Police logs note Crawford was charged with officer interference — though his at-torney hasn’t seen the charges.

He was released from the St. Louis County jail that morning, and, he said, walked home to University City.

But now that the image of Crawford’s mighty heave is on T-shirts, posters, walls and all over Twitter, Crawford has new ideas. He’d like to get more involved in the community, he said. Talk to youth. Orga-nize the movement.

And maybe, he said, help change St. Louis.

Subject of iconic photo speaks outHe says he wasn’t angry when he picked up a tear gas container and hurled it.

edward crawford

RobeRt Cohen • [email protected] Crawford throws back a tear gas container after tactical officers worked to break up a group of bystanders in Ferguson on Aug. 13.

RobeRt Cohen • PdEdward Crawford has found fame after coming forward as the man pictured in a Post-Dispatch photograph symbolic of Ferguson unrest after the police shooting of Michael Brown.

RobeRto RodRiguez • [email protected] Calhoon and Allen Gates, both of St. Louis, perform Sunday during a benefit concert for Michael Brown’s family at Plush, 3224 Locust Street. Tickets were $5 and donations were collected.

michael brown benefit concert


What’s up • From events.stltoday.com

08.25

08.27

08.27

heads up

Water flushing program in Metro East • Illinois American Water is conducting its annual “free chlorine” and main-hydrant flushing programs in the metro east over the next two months. The company will switch to a form of chlorine known as “free chlorine,” which does not contain ammonia.

During the temporary treatment change, customers may experience a more noticeable chlorine taste or odor in their water. There is no reason for concern. When crews are working, customers may experience a temporary drop in water pressure or draw some discolored water for a short period of time. If this occurs, customers should simply let the water run briefly and the situation should clear up on its own. The maintenance program may temporarily affect customers in all direct service communities in the Belleville, East St. Louis and Granite City areas and also sale-for-resale (wholesale) communities.

For more information, customers can visit www.illinoisamwater.com or contact Illinois American Water’s customer service center at 1-800-422-2782.

To submit items, email them to [email protected] or fax them to 314-340-3050.

Stl MondayInside this sectionA11 • Heads UpA12 • OpinionA14 • Funeral noticesA16 • WeatherA17 • People

Free vaccination clinic • The Jefferson County Health Department is offering free vaccinations for any student age 11-26, regardless of insurance status. Tdap, Gardasil (one dose) and meningitis vaccinations will be offered. Vaccination clinics will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at the Hillsboro location at 405 Main Street, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Arnold location and at 1818 Lonedell Road. Client vaccination record is required, no appointment is necessary, and doses will be offered while supplies last. For more information, call 636-789-3372 and ask for Edie or Chris.

Chess tournament begins • The Second Annual Sinquefield Cup begins Wednesday at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis. The event, which lasts until Sept. 7, features six of the world’s top 10 players, making it the highest-rated tournament in history. The players will be competing for a total $315,000 prize fund, with $100,000 going to the winner. The chess club is at 4657 Maryland Avenue. Tickets to watch one round are $10; $65 for five rounds; and $100 for all 10 rounds. saintlouischessclub.org

Documentary on cyclist • The movie “Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist” will be screened at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Des Peres 14, 12701 Manchester Road. The documentary explores one man’s descent from being among the finest athletes on earth to his tragic end in a sport riven by intrigue. In 1998, Marco Pantani, a flamboyant and popular cyclist, won both the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia — a feat no rider has repeated since. He was a hero to millions, but less than six years later, at age 34, he died alone in a cheap Italian hotel room. Tickets are normal box office price and available now at the theater, or the website www.wehrenberg.com. This movie is unrated.

To list a community event or meeting, submit it online at events.stltoday.com

COLUMNIST SCHEDULE Sunday • Bill McClellanMonday • Bill McClellanWednesday • Bill McClellanFriday • Bill McClellanSaturday • Joe Holleman’s “Joe’s St. Louis”

On a Saturday in April 2001, an unarmed 19-year-old black man was shot and killed by a white police officer in Cincinnati. Protests turned into riots and stores were looted. The city’s reputation was trashed.

Peter Bronson wrote a book about it. Last week, he wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal about lessons learned. The No. 1 lesson was this: “Tell the pub-lic everything immediately.” Not provid-ing information immediately gave people the perception that the police were hiding something, Bronson wrote.

Too bad he couldn’t have been advising authorities in Ferguson.

Our situation had an element that Cin-cinnati lacked — social media. Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson told me that when he got to the scene of the shooting, a large crowd had already gathered and most of the crowd was either filming the scene or taking pictures. Those images were then broadcast on Twitter. Face-book pages were filled with images. Emails zipped around.

Those first images were horrific. Brown’s body was on the street for some-thing like four hours.

Jackson said he realized at the scene that this case was going to “light up” because of social media, and yet he and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar tried to put a lid on information. What a colossal mistake. People wanted answers, explana-tions, and got almost nothing.

Somebody quickly leaked the fact that Brown had been involved in a strong-arm robbery a few minutes before the shoot-ing. But police would not confirm that un-til days later, when Jackson surprised state authorities by releasing a video recording of the robbery. To some people, it seemed an effort to “thug-up” Brown.

Jackson defended the decision to release the videotape on the grounds that the me-dia had requested it.

Fine. But why do things piecemeal? If information had been released promptly, nobody could question the timing of the release. In fact, if it were not for the pri-vate autopsy performed at the behest of Brown’s family, we still would not know how many times Brown was shot.

This is not an isolated incident.Authorities tell the public less and less.

Information has become tightly con-trolled. Not so many years ago, a reporter could walk into a police station and talk to the desk sergeant about something. De-

tectives were allowed to talk to the press. Police matter were considered public.

Same way at the circuit attorney’s of-fice. I remember walking in, saying hello to the receptionist and strolling back to talk to an assistant circuit attorney about a case. Public information. America.

These days, it’s more like Eastern Eu-rope in the fifties. Sergeants can’t talk. De-tectives can’t talk. Prosecutors can’t talk.

It’s probably worse the higher up you go. Who knows the secrets the federal government is keeping? Ask Edward Snowden. Global surveillance programs and data mining. Much of it done with the cooperation of telecommunications com-panies.

Needless to say, there are always won-derful reasons for keeping us in the dark. At the highest levels, it’s national security. Don’t worry about surveillance programs. If you’re not doing anything wrong, why should you care?

Excellent reasons at the local level, too. We don’t want to prejudice potential ju-rors. Or potential witnesses.

That sounds reasonable, except that we didn’t used to have such problems when things were more open. Now and then a case had to get moved because of pre-trial publicity, but that seems like a small price to pay for transparency. By the way, au-thorities didn’t even start talking about transparency until they opposed it. As for influencing witnesses and eliciting false confessions, police were always careful to keep a couple of facts out of the press.

The more powerless you feel, the more you distrust government. Some of the people who’ve been marching in Fergu-son are in the Ferguson-Florissant school district. That’s a majority black school district. Last year, a school board with no black members pushed out a popular black superintendent. Why? The board couldn’t say. It was a personnel matter. Innuendos would have to suffice.

Now we’ve got the shooting death in Ferguson. Very little hard information, but plenty of rumors and all of them in sup-port of the officer. Witnesses support the police officer. The officer suffered seri-ous injuries. Are these things true? Who knows?

The grand jury proceedings will, as al-ways, be secret. The people who feel pow-erless just need a little faith.

Things have only gotten worse since Cincinnati burned.

Bill McClellan • [email protected] > 314-340-8143

Secrecy lets rumors fly, mistrust grow

TRUE uses good components on their machines but the key of a TRUE is their inarguably magnificent belt and deckcombination, which is simply the best in the treadmill market. We gained a new perspective by visiting the factory over the last

3 years. They believe in taking care of customers which goes a long way in today's world.

THE TRUE ADVANTAGEYour Hometown BasedCompany True Rates #1

#1 Stability#1 Heart Rate Control#1 Quietness

THE FITNESS SHOWCASEADVANTAGE

• In our 29th Year!• Trained Fitness Consultants!• Experienced Delivery Available!• Factory Trained, Service Techs, Available!• Full Line Dealer For True!

BEAT THE HEATWITH ASUMMER SHAPE UP SALE!New, Floor Models, Demos & Last Year Models All On Sale!

SAVE

XES900Elliptical

"Best Buy"XES900 Elliptical

• Patented Core Drive System• Unique Cardio 360 Total-Body

Workout Programming• Adj. Stride From 16"-27"• 10 Year Parts Warranty!

"Best Buy"PS100 Treadmill

• Large Running Surface 60"L X 22"W• One Touch HRC Cruise Control Allowing You

To "Lock In" A Specific Heart Rate• Patented Soft System Offers

The Most Biomechanically CorrectRunning Surface

• 5 Year Parts Warranty!

"Best Buy"M30 Elliptical

• Small Footprint-Space Efficient• Put Variety Into Your Workout By Using True's

mix3™ Program-Like APersonal Trainer Built Into The Machine

• Innovative Side-Steps Allow For the Industry'sFirst Upper-Body Only Workout

• 5 Year Parts Warranty!

SAVE$960! SAVE

$460!

SAVE$580!

SAVE$800!

Store Hours• Mon-Fri 10am-7pm

• Sat 10am-5pm• Sun Noon-5pm

314-909-008812008 Manchester Rd. Des Peres, MO

(1/2 mile east of I-270)[email protected]

636-536-399660 THF Blvd. Chesterfield, MO

Chesterfield Commons East Target [email protected]

www.fitness-showcase.com

29th

TREADMILLS • ELLIPTICALS • HOME GYMS • BIKES • FREE WEIGHTS • TREADMILLS

TREADMILLS • ELLIPTICALS • HOME GYMS • BIKES • FREE WEIGHTS • TREADMILLS

TREA

DMILLS

•EL

LIPT

ICAL

S•

HOME

GYMS

•BI

KES

•FR

EEWEI

GHTS

•TR

EADM

ILLS

•EL

LIPT

ICAL

S TREADMILLS

•ELLIPTICALS

•HOM

EGYM

S•

BIKES•

FREEWEIGHTS

•TREADM

ILLS•

ELLIPTICALS

SALE!Sale!

WEIGHTS • TREADMILLS

Sale!Sale Ends

August 31, 2014

"Best Buy Runner Up"PS800 Treadmill

• One Touch HRC Cruise Control Allowing You To"Lock In" A Specific Heart Rate

• Patented Soft System Offers The MostBiomechanically Correct Running Service

• Orthopedic Belt Plus Adjustable Soft Select• 10 Year Parts Warranty!

#1 Smoothness#1 Warranties

BRING IN THIS COUPON FOR

$100.00OFFAlready Reduced Prices!

COUPON

WE WELCOME YOUR LETTERS AND E-MAILLetters should be 250 words or fewer. Please include your name, address and phone number. All letters are subject to editing. Writers usually will not be published more than once every 60 days. Additional letters are posted online at STLtoday.com/letters.

MAILLetters to the editorSt. Louis Post-Dispatch,900 N. Tucker Blvd.St. Louis, MO 63101

[email protected]

FAX314-340-3139

TONY [email protected] Editorial Page Editor • 314-340-8382

KEVIN [email protected] Deputy Editorial Page Editor • 314-340-8135

FRANK [email protected] Editor • 314-340-8356

DEBORAH [email protected] writer • 314-340-8276

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

MONDAY • 08.25.2014 • 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

THE PLATFORM TM

RAY FARRIS PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER GILBERT BAILON EDITOR TONY MESSENGER EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

STLtoday.com/ThePlatform Find us at facebook/PDPlatform Follow us on twitter @PDEditorial

The current turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., follows the trajectory of urban riots in Newark, Detroit, Cincin-nati, Miami, Oakland, Los Angeles and elsewhere. They typically begin with an incident of racially tinged police abuse. Outraged members of the black community organize protests, the police overreact, and the protests become more violent and threatening.

But there’s a key difference this time — Ferguson is a suburb.

More specifically, it’s a suburban ghetto. Today, about 40 percent of the nation’s 46 million poor live in suburbs, up from 20 percent in 1970. These communities (often inner-ring suburbs) are beset with problems once associated with big cities: unemployment (especially among young men), crime, homelessness and inadequate schools and public services. Their populations are dis-proportionately black and Latino.

Ferguson is a microcosm of these problems and how they can erupt. But without major reforms, the cur-rent upheaval may be the first in a wave of suburban riots.

One major problem is politi-cal representation. Two-thirds of Ferguson’s residents are black, but blacks are severely underrepresented in Ferguson’s city government and school board. The mayor is white, as are five of six City Council members. Six of seven school board members are white.

The main reason for this dis-crepancy is simple: Blacks vote at a remarkably low rate in local elections. In 2012, the year President Barack Obama ran for re-election, blacks in Ferguson voted at almost the same rate as whites (54 percent versus 55 percent), but in the 2013 municipal election, they voted at less than half the rate of whites (7 percent vs. 17 percent).

Blacks’ weak representation in local politics has real consequences. The Ferguson police department, for example, has a long history of abus-ing its black citizens. Only three out of 53 police officers in Ferguson are black. If blacks had a real voice in Fer-guson city government, they could have made hiring more black police officers a high priority.

But the harsh reality is that control over Ferguson city government and schools is largely a “hollow prize.” Diversifying the police department wouldn’t change the fact that police officers in Ferguson and many other small suburbs are underpaid, lack professional training and spend too much of their time handing out traffic tickets in order to boost city revenues. (Nearly one-fourth of Ferguson’s revenues come from court fees.)

Like many other poor suburbs, Ferguson is simply too small and too poor to address the underlying racial and economic disparities that are fueling the current protests. It lacks good public transportation to areas with good jobs, isolating it from economic opportunity. In 2012, more than one in four residents of Ferguson were below the poverty level, more than twice St. Louis County’s pov-erty rate. In some Ferguson census tracts the poverty rate is as high as 33 percent.

Unlike most big cities, it has few social agencies and private founda-tions devoted to job training, afford-able housing and other programs. It has few hospitals and health clinics. Banks, supermarkets, pharmacies and other retailers either bypass these communities or exploit them with predatory loans, high prices and lousy service. Almost half of Fergu-son’s homeowners are “underwater” — they are drowning in debt because their homes are worth less than their mortgages. In 2011, per capita assessed valuation in Ferguson was only $8,910 — about one-third of the

St. Louis County average.These suburbs are not poor by

accident. Greater St. Louis is one of the most racially and economically segregated areas in the country, a result of long-standing discrimina-tory practices by banks, home build-ers and landlords, as well as local governments.

With 387 local governments — each competing with each other for private investment and other resources — the St. Louis region ranks third in governmental frag-mentation among urban areas. Zon-ing laws that prohibit apartments and require expensive homes on large lots prevent low-income families, who are disproportionately black, from moving to job-rich parts of the region. As a result, subsidized low-income housing is concentrated in areas that already have high poverty rates, such as the apartment com-plexes on the eastern edge of Fergu-son where the shooting of Michael Brown occurred.

Sporadic protests can draw atten-tion to these problems, but only ongoing grassroots community organizing can give Ferguson’s black citizens the voice they require to have a seat at the political table. A strong community organizing movement, based in local churches and neigh-borhood groups, helped by experi-enced organizers, could mobilize a voter registration and turnout effort, and increase civic engagement, to shift the balance of political power in Ferguson.

Ferguson’s black residents need to organize to strengthen their political voice, but the city’s white residents, who are mainly working-class, are also trapped in a system that primar-ily benefits the wealthy who live in affluent suburbs or upscale enclaves in cities.

What’s needed now is an inter-racial coalition of St. Louis and its troubled suburbs. Together, they could take important steps to bring the region’s low-income and work-ing-class families into the economic and educational mainstream. We need local, state and federal policy reforms, including greater and more equal school funding, shifting funds from highways to public transit, regional land use planning to open up suburbs to workforce housing, raising federal and state minimum wages to help lift workers out of poverty, fix-it-first infrastructure policies that invest in older parts of the region before building new infrastructure in the outlying exurbs, job training and hiring policies that provide poor and minority residents with more jobs in the region’s infrastructure projects, as well as increasing minority repre-sentation among cops, firefighters, school teachers and other municipal jobs. Ultimately, fragmented subur-ban governments and school districts need to merge.

None of this will happen until religious, community, civic, labor and enlightened business leaders join forces in a regional network that includes community organizing and political mobilization. Existing groups such as Metropolitan Congre-gations United, Jobs with Justice, and Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment are already doing good work but need more resources to build a powerful movement for local and regional justice.

We all have a stake in linking cities and suburbs to address the racial, economic and political inequities that are the root cause of so much alienation and unrest in poor com-munities throughout the country.

Peter Dreier is a professor of politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. He and Swanstrom are co-authors of “Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century. Todd Swanstrom is a professor of community collaboration and public policy administration at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Inner-ring suburbs like Ferguson are

ticking time bombsGuest commentary • A strong

community organizing movement could help shift the balance of

political power in Ferguson.

Release of shooting report should not depend on whims of police chiefMany thanks to Bill McClellan for shining a light on the murky decision-making process of Fer-guson Police Chief Thomas Jackson.

In Wednesday’s column, “Police chief takes on battle of words,” McClellan repeated Chief Jackson’s explanation that he had no choice but to release the surveillance video of Michael Brown allegedly stealing cigars from a conve-nience store. “The press was fi ling Freedom of Information requests,” Jackson explained. He told the media that he was worried about being sued.

If media requests and the threat of lawsuits provide su� cient reason to release the con-venience store video and incident report, why hadn’t he released the incident report on Mi-chael Brown’s shooting by a Ferguson police of-fi cer until late Thursday? And even then, it was heavily redacted.

Even before Chief Jackson released the con-venience store video, the ACLU of Missouri had requested the shooting incident report under Missouri’s Sunshine Law, and had fi led a lawsuit to compel the police to release it.

Chief Jackson’s release of the convenience store incident report while continuing to with-hold the full, unredacted incident report on Brown’s shooting was a cynical attempt to manipulate public opinion. Selective release of public information is not his right under the law.

The public clearly has a right to know the complete and unedited content of the shooting incident report — now. Public access to that information should not be based upon the arbi-trary whims of the police chief.Brad Pierce • St. LouisPresident, American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri

Cooperating with police will keep you safeRegarding R.L. Nave’s commentary, “I know Michael Brown’s world” (Aug. 21):

I read your article and the stories about being hassled by the cops. I’m truly sorry that you feel like you live in an environment where you could be killed at any time by a cop. I don’t know what that is like.

However, I do think I can tell you why you haven’t been, and won’t ever be, killed by a cop. You cooperated. You did what they asked you to. You may not have wanted to, but it kept that gun in their holster, and it kept you safe. Even if they may have been abusive, or even had they violated your civil rights — by cooperating you kept the encounter from escalating. And abuse and civil rights can be addressed after the fact at the station, or by a good civil rights lawyer. It’s a good strategy and good piece of advice for kids of all races. Cooperate. It will keep you safe.

If you really want to screw with them, actually be polite to the cops — even if you don’t think they deserve it. Who knows, they might return the favor. Call it extreme civil obedience. Sort of the opposite of what the Post-Dispatch seems to be advocating.Mike Micotto • Webster Groves

Tell us how the police feel, too

Regarding the commentary “I know Michael Brown’s world” (Aug. 21):

It would be so refreshing if your paper would publish an article written by a policeman titled “I know Darren Wilson’s World.” I will not hold my breath waiting.Dorothea Wolf • Rolla, Mo.

Publishing personal background of Wilson, parents was uncalled forPlease illuminate me how your reporters Jeremy Kohler, David Hunn and Robert Patrick believed the publication of the personal backgrounds of Officer Darren Wilson and his parents is relevant to this case (“Police Officer Wilson keeping low profile,” Aug. 21). Detailing their financial and marital woes does not bring any value to this situation.

It would be to the credit of these reporters if I could call them muckrackers, but they do not even rate that. I will let these wannabe Pulitzer Prize-winning so-called journalists research the

background of this term. This type of article is more appropriate for the National Enquirer.

And if once you refl ect on publishing this in-formation and decide it truly was uncalled for, do more than publish an apology. Do something meaningful: Donate to O� cer Wilson’s sup-port fund. And publish in the paper that you did indeed donate to demonstrate your request for forgiveness.

Step up and show you are better than your comrades at KSDK, who broadcast video of O� cer Wilson’s home in Crestwood. They as-sumed broadcasting a half-hearted apology rectifi ed everything. Unfortunately the damage was already done.

And in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, I expect to see the same information published on Michael Brown and his parents. I want to see if their background information shows they are pillars of the community.R. Skurat • St. Charles

Media, leaders rush to proclaim o� cer guiltyOfficer Darren Wilson is being proclaimed guilty of “assassination” and “murder” by local and national leaders, and protesters, before the grand jury has even had time to determine the facts of the case and figure out exactly what happened. This is part of the reason why we have had all of the mayhem in the streets — because of inflam-matory comments made by these people that are then proclaimed in the media as truth. We don’t know the whole truth yet of who did what, and we haven’t heard the officer’s side of the story.

I am so tired of the one-sided bias and ver-dicts of assumed guilt proclaimed on O� cer Wilson in comments made by Al Sharpton, Gov. Jay Nixon, Rep. William Lacy Clay, community activists and others. Additionally, the national TV media networks, and in particular CNN, have exhibited the same bias in their coverage of the situation. Why doesn’t the media get the other side of the story, or at least challenge these people when they make these comments, rather than assuming it to be the factual truth?

Can we all please wait a minute here and first let the grand jury interview people and get the facts of exactly what happened before we pro-claim Officer Wilson guilty?Jay Eichenlaub • Ballwin

Brown, Wilson both may have reacted to fear for their livesDarren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who killed Michael Brown, may or may not be con-victed of murder due to a defense that he feared for his life.

Now let’s look at fear for his life through the eyes of Michael Brown.

We have been told that Michael Brown and his friend were walking in the street in their neigh-borhood. Young people walk, ride their skate-boards and bikes, walk their dogs in the middle of the streets in my neighborhood and they im-pede tra� c but the police do not pull them over.

I’ve been pulled over by police for driving a wee bit fast, and it does raise the anxiety level, which would be a normal response for a young man in any situation.

Didn’t Michael Brown fear for his life when Darren Wilson displayed his gun? Was running away a natural response for an unarmed person? So both individuals may have reacted to fear for their lives.

Why can children walk in the streets in my neighborhood without fear of police questioning but children in black neighborhoods can not? This is the big question.J.M. Hardin • Des Peres

Brown paid a terrible price

In the letter “All of this could have been pre-vented” (Aug. 20), Mr. Faust says Michael Brown could have prevented his own death if he had shown more discipline and civil behavior.

Does he believe that a driver who runs through a red light should be shot rather than arrested for that crime? Michael Brown paid a terrible price for his disrespect of the law. Let’s not blame him for his death.Millie Johanningmeier • Overland

YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS

BY PETER DREIER AND TODD SWANSTROM • Special To The Washington Post

Documents

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Ferguson coverage - Aug. 25