With Mike Brown, Jr.’s last breath, the decision to not indict the cop who killed him was inevitable

Family Dollar Store
Photo by Craig Riggins

It has been eight days since St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch in a prime time press conference that was broadcast globally read the St. Louis County Grand Jury’s decision as to whether to charge now former Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson with a crime for shooting and killing unarmed 18 year old Mike Brown on August 9, 2014.  The decision was not to charge Darren Wilson.  The Grand Jury’s decision to not charge Darren Wilson was widely expected for many reasons.  There had been leaks throughout the proceedings that dropped hints as to which direction the Grand Jury was leaning.  Those who wanted to see Darren Wilson indicted caught on to the not so subliminal message the leaks of the proceedings were intended to send.  The main reason the decision was no surprise to many was the prosecutor in the case.  Once the decision was read, I immediately started writing the draft for this piece.  However, I could not finish the draft for this piece.  I was not at all surprised by the decision but I did leave some room for a surprise indictment.  That did not happen.  I didn’t have it in me emotionally.  The Riggins Report was dark for a week.  Besides, the night the decision was made public, Ferguson burned.  The streets were not safe.  Neighborhoods in and near Ferguson were not necessarily safe, either.  I live approximately half a football field from the Ferguson city line.  A gas

Photo by Craig Riggins

station/convenience store just steps from where I live was looted.  Looters were parking cars in the middle of the street I live on and running to the convenience store, grabbing what they could and then took off at break neck speed down the street I live on.  Some looters took the liberty of running across the front yard, between the house and behind the house I reside in.  I even heard a couple of looters outside the front door of the house I reside in.  I even saw a car pull into the next door neighbor’s drive way and four guys jumped out, went into the trunk and all grabbed guns from the trunk.  It was utter CHAOS on my street.  I was up until 5 am Tuesday morning fully prepared to protect myself and my family from any unwelcomed visitors.  It was a long night.  After about three hours of sleep, I went out to survey the damages in the daylight.  Within a two block radius of where I live, there had been significant destruction.  A Family Dollar store had been burned to the ground and in the strip mall near my house there had been significant destruction as a result of looting.  Ferguson had been BURNED Monday night/Tuesday morning.  It has taken until now to regain the energy to write for this space.  The decision and the reaction to the decision was inevitable.  With Mike Brown’s last breath, the decision to not indict the cop who killed him was inevitable. 

It was inevitable.  It was inevitable the instant the last round discharged from Darren Wilson’s service weapon and struck Mike Brown, Jr. in the crown of his head, killing him instantly.  It was inevitable when Mike Brown, Jr.’s dead body was left in the street uncovered in the spot where he fell dead in the sweltering August heat for four and a half hours.  It was inevitable when Mike Brown’s body was taken away in an unmarked SUV instead of a St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s vehicle.  It was inevitable when the Ferguson Police Department released a video that alleges that Mike Brown, Jr. was stealing a box of Swisher cigars.  It was inevitable when the character of the first witnesses to go public was immediately attacked and dissected ad nausea by supporters of Darren Wilson and some media outlets.  It was inevitable when the focus of the shooting death of Mike Brown, Jr. was on the looting and the torching of a gas station/convenience store that took place the day after his death.  It

Armored vehicle and police sniper in Ferguson

was inevitable the moment the world saw the militarized police state complete with armored vehicles and snipers on West Florissant Avenue.  It was inevitable when St. Louis County Police were emboldened enough to fire tear gas on members of the Al-Jazeera America’s news crew and disassembled the broadcasting crew’s equipment and moments later, arrest members of the media who were in McDonald’s charging their devices for no reason other than being members of the media.  It was inevitable when the world saw an out of control St. Ann, Missouri police officer aim an assault rifle at a crowd of peaceful demonstrators and threatening to kill them.  It was inevitable when St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCullough decided not to recuse himself from this case and when Missouri Governor Jay Nixon refused to remove McCullough from the trial and assign a special prosecutor.  It was inevitable when the aforementioned prosecutor convened a Grand Jury that operates in strict secrecy to hear the case instead of presenting evidence of probable cause in a preliminary hearing.  A cynic would say it was inevitable when Mike Brown, Jr. was born black and was raised in the SIXTH most segregated city in America. 

As I have documented in this space more than once, I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri.  I have lived here for 36 of my 54 years on Earth.  In my lifetime I have never, EVER seen the black community be as galvanized about an issue as I have in the case of the shooting death of Mike Brown, Jr.  Protests have not only taken place in Ferguson, but in areas of the St. Louis Metro where black people visit with great reticence, let alone protests.  Protestors shut down The Galleria in Richmond Heights; disrupted shoppers at West County Center in Des Peres and attempted to deny motorists access to I-270, a vital thoroughfare adjacent to West County Center.  All done on Black Friday, no less.  On Wednesday of last week, Darren Wilson granted George Stephanopoulos of ABC News an exclusive interview.  In a carefully crafted and rehearsed fashion, Wilson explained that he HAD to shoot and kill Mike Brown because he “looked as if he were bulking up” after he had been shot four times and that when he grabbed at Mike Brown at the beginning it seemed like “a 5 year old grabbing Hulk Hogan”.  Right – he once again DEHUMANIZED Mike Brown.  Which many feel is exactly what he did when he shot and killed Mike Brown.  That, of course, plays into a familiar narrative when it comes to black men.  (MSNBC: African Americans and 'superhumanization bias') Wilson did have the wherewithal to ask himself if he could “legally shoot this guy” – which would seem to indicate there was aforethought in his decision to kill Mike Brown - while in the midst of being in fear of his life.  Wilson took the time during the interview to share an element of the story that NO witness – whether they were deemed credible or not – had mentioned in public or testified to in front of the Grand Jury.  Wilson said that Mike Brown had reached into his waistband AFTER being hit at least three times.  This, of course, added to the element of him being afraid of being killed by this big, black menacing 18 year old.  These theories were carefully scripted because Wilson and his attorneys had the luxury of hearing the public statements witnesses to the shooting and were able to craft his testimony to the Grand Jury that fit his narrative and went to discredit the witnesses.  This made him escaping criminal charges inevitable.  The fact that one of the assistant prosecutors passed out a Missouri statute that was had been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court that had previously allowed law enforcement officers in Missouri shoot fleeing suspects just because they were fleeing.  (Vox: Report: Prosecutors may have misled the Ferguson grand jury about the law for two months)  Yet another reason of the inevitable decision.  The fact that at least six witnesses who had gone public saying Mike Brown had his hands up when he was killed were discredited contributed to the inevitability.  Bob McCulloch, Wilson’s de facto defense attorney during the announcement, explained away the credibility of those witnesses.  In short, he accused all of the eye witnesses with accounts that varied from Darren Wilson’s of lying.  He said their accounts of the shooting were “inconsistent”.  Apparently, those witnesses were expected to give the same testimony verbatim to the accounts they had gone public with.  The CORE reason Darren Wilson was not indicted was because the prosecutor did not WANT to indict him.  That should be clear to ALL by now. 

Ferguson burning was inevitable, too.  Civic leaders – the mayor of the city of St. Louis, the St. Louis County Executive – and law enforcement officials had met with protest leaders in advance of the decision and reportedly had set “ground rules” for the anticipated demonstrations.  The agreement was that protestors would be allowed to peacefully protest as long as there were no acts of violence.  It was more than NAÏVE to think there would be no violence.  The criminal element, lying in the wings and anticipating a no indictment decision, immediately took advantage of a highly charged and emotional situation.  They did what criminals DO: commit CRIMES.   The governor of Missouri, who basically has seen his political career end due to his sheer

Missouri governor Jay Nixon

incompetence and ineptitude throughout this case, had declared a state of emergency in and around St. Louis prior to the decision and had ordered the Missouri National Guard to be on standby.  Seven hundred National Guardsmen were called to duty and on the night the decision was made public, they were nowhere NEAR Ferguson, which of course, was the eye of the hurricane.  It is not clear WHERE they WERE last Monday, but it is CRYSTAL CLEAR where they were NOT.   Looting and destruction was inevitable. 


Fear within neighborhoods in and around Ferguson was inevitable.  Law enforcement could not be everywhere.  Quiet, tree lined subdivisions became bases of operations and escape routes from law enforcement by looters.  People were in fear in the comfort of their homes throughout the night.  Gunfire was rampant in those subdivisions – mine included – and maintaining safety was a minute by minute proposition.  Of all the planning and strategizing in advance of the unrest to prevent mayhem, that failed miserably, there was no mention of providing safety within the neighborhoods.  Citizens were on their own.  It was incompetent planning.  It was HORRIFYING.  It was inevitable. 

It was a long week for Ferguson, the St. Louis metro, law enforcement and myself personally.  Unrest was bound to happen, it did happen and, for the foreseeable future, will continue to happen.  Those of us in and around Ferguson wound up in a very predictable place.  A very DANGEROUS place, let me add.  For so many reasons, it was predictable and inevitable.  So was the reason that has ignited this massive and ongoing civil unrest. 

With Mike Brown’s last breath, the decision to not indict the cop who killed him was inevitable. 

Peace, peace. 

 

Craig Riggins

Email: therigginsreport517@gmail.com

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