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twotap
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Sat Aug 16, 2014 9:00 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Riverfront Times St. Louis www/riverfronttimes.com
New Black Panther Party Maintains Peace in Ferguson, Directs Traffic During Protest
By Danny Wicentowski Fri., Aug. 15 2014 at 10:30 AM
In the absence of police, members of the New Black Panther Party directed traffic and kept the peace during last night's Ferguson protest.
For the first time this week, St. Louisans didn't wake up to pictures depicting riot police aiming sniper rifles at nonviolent protesters, arresting journalists or blockading residential streets in Ferguson.
Instead, today's photos showed thousands parading down West Florissant Avenue under the watchful gaze of the black-clad members of the New Black Panther Party. And not a cop in sight.
Local media reports earlier this week warned that the New Black Panthers were coming to town and could incite violence against police officers. Last night, Daily RFT observed something very different.
Read all Riverfront Times coverage of the unrest in Ferguson and the aftermath of Michael Brown's shooting
With the occasional help from Anonymous members in Guy Fawkes masks, roughly half a dozen Black Panthers directed cars through the traffic-choked street in front of the burned out QuikTrip -- the same street where officers commanded by the St. Louis County Police Department dispersed protesters with flash-bang grenades and tear gas just the night before.
"We want to show Ferguson and the world that we can govern ourselves," said Chawn Kweli, the national chief of staff for the Atlanta-based New Black Panther Party. Kweli had just been windmilling his arms to spur on the sluggish line of cars moving past the QuikTrip. Passengers leaned out of windows and even climbed on top of moving cars. On any other day, in any other town, police would have ticketed -- and likely arrested -- many drivers.
But Missouri State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson chose to pull nearly all of his officers from the immediate area of the protest, leaving the mile strip of West Florissant to the people of Ferguson and their supporters.
Daily RFT did see one potentially serious injury -- a woman appeared to hit the ground hard after attempting to leap onto the back of a moving vehicle. When police cruisers inched their way across West Florissant to retrieve the woman, it was the New Back Panthers who cleared a path for the officers and urged the crowd to resist attacking the police.
"We're taking charge of the streets, making sure that the traffic is flowing, making sure that there's peace here," Kweli said. He was dressed in a simple black button-down shirt with gold stars on the collar, a sign of his rank in the party. Other members sported military-style tactical vests and masks.
Before the Thursday night's protest-turned-parade, the presence of the New Black Panther Party in St. Louis caused worried reactiond from local media, as well as a warning from the FBI. On Wednesday, KTVI (Channel 2) reported that the FBI had issued an alert that Kweli and other members of the New Black Panther Party had arrived in St. Louis and were advocating violence against police officers. (The report starts at 2:46 in the video below.)
Then, early Thursday afternoon -- prior to Governor Jay Nixon's announcement that the Missouri State Highway Patrol would take control from the St. Louis County Police Department in Ferguson -- KTVI reported the New Black Panthers joined with other protesters in crashing a press conference delivered by Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson.
Indeed, the New Black Panther Party has been linked with voter intimidation in Philadelphia during the 2008 election, and more recently offered a $10,000 bounty for the citizen's arrest of Trayvon Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman.
It also worth nothing that the New Black Panther Party isn't affiliated with the Civil Rights-era Black Panther Party. The Huey Newton Foundation -- which counts many original Black Panthers as members -- condemned the New Black Panthers for advocating hatred and violence against whites.
However, we didn't spot any New Black Panther members targeting or harassing white protesters or police officers.
For all the optimism generated from Wednesday's cop-less gathering in Ferguson, it hasn't lessened the unrest surrounding the shooting death of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown on Saturday. Many residents and protesters reject the police's narrative -- that an unarmed Brown attacked a Ferguson Police Department officer, who then shot the teen multiple times in the street. The vast majority of residents interviewed by Daily RFT expressed hope the officer will be charged and tried for murder.
When asked about the possibility of violence returning to the streets of Ferguson, Kweli answered, "It's all in the hand of the people. Until justice is served, until black people and people of color get justice, this type of stuff is not going to stop."
This morning's official announcement of the name of the officer who shot Brown -- a six-year veteran of the Ferguson police force named Darren Wilson -- threatens to derail the progress made last night. Police say Brown robbed a convenience store before Wilson shot him dead. For more on that story, check out our continuing coverage.
Follow Danny Wicentowski on Twitter at @D_Towski. E-mail the author at Danny.Wicentowski@RiverfrontTimes.com |
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Sun Aug 17, 2014 6:32 am |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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| Guess you missed the how do we want him, DEAD or did you even watch the video? |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Sun Aug 17, 2014 7:36 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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While you don't like Al Sharpton, he made an excellent point when he noted this morning that the whole world is watching us and the actions here are will work to define us to the world.
Al Zazeera reports around the world and the Ferguson police attacked them.
I believe your concerns about this militant leader in the new Black Panther movement are misplaced. After Florida and other incidents involving them they were ridiculed. Their numbers are said to be small and even the original Black Panther party. The original Black Panther group has denounced them and their use of the name.
The real threat to your beliefs is Malik Zulu Shabazz, the Howard University and Harvard law School educated leader of Black Lawyers for Justice, Using his intelligence and leadership skills, he is presenting to the world a new tactic in the battle for righting injustice. |
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Sun Aug 17, 2014 10:44 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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He disrupted the Governors press conference and proclaimed that he had support of youth and members of other groups like Nation of Islam, nan and more. He also claimed the calm on Thursday night was through their efforts and then said they helped prevent looting when Ferguson Police would not.
Then the leader of the New Black Panther Party is given credit n the local paper for keeping peace in one section of town. Marquez Claxton, a retired noted NYPD detective and author, noted on MSNBC that there will always be agent provcateurs and law breakers. To the world the African American leaders present a rational and logical group that is confronting a very public display of racial tensions and mistrust |
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Sun Aug 17, 2014 11:05 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Claxton was on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show (MSNBC). While Harris-Perry was too caught up in a black agenda to present a reasoned approach, Claxton made some good points. He discussed the ineptitude of the Ferguson and St. Louis Missouri Police Departments. Claxton indicated the police were ignoring logic and normal police procedures because they were of a specific mind set regarding race issues. Their actions are compromising the integrity of the case, said Claxton.
The police ignored the DOJ by releasing the tape of brown and they got the results the DOJ feared. They have not followed Missouri law and released the police officer's incident report. The police have ignited a firestorm o protest over the heavy handed militarized approach to enforcement of an unannounced Sundown curfew.
By comparison the black leaders seem the voce of reason. |
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Sun Aug 17, 2014 11:19 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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KKK Raising Money for Police Officer Who Shot African--
KKK Raising Money for Police Officer Who Shot African-American Teen
www.splcenter.org › Home › Anti-Black
Aug 13, 2014 · The Hatewatch blog is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, ... charged and besieged city of Ferguson… |
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Sun Aug 17, 2014 11:20 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The hatred is on both sides!
The South Carolina-based New Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan says its Missouri chapter is raising money for the still unidentified white police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, who was scheduled to begin college classes this week.
“We are setting up a reward/fund for the police officer who shot this thug,” the Klan group said in an email. “He is a hero! We need more white cops who are anti-Zog and willing to put Jewish controlled black thugs in their place. Most cops are cowards and do nothing while 90% of interracial crime is black (and non-white) on white |
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Sun Aug 17, 2014 11:24 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Washington Post
National
Ferguson protesters: The peaceful, the elders, the looters, and the ‘militants’
The Missouri National Guard rolls into Ferguson, Mo., but stay back as protesters again tangle with police, who respond with tear gas. (Lee Powell/The Washington Post)
By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and DeNeen L. Brown August 18 at 11:17 PM
FERGUSON, Mo. — On one corner of a battered stretch of West Florissant Avenue, the epicenter of ongoing protests, young men pull dark scarves up over their mouths and lob molotov cocktails at police from behind makeshift barricades built of bricks and wood planks. They call the gasoline-filled bottles “poor man’s bombs.”
The young men yell expletives and, with a rebel’s bravado, speak about securing justice for Michael Brown, the black teen fatally shot Aug. 9 by a white police officer, “by any means necessary.”
They are known here as “the militants” — a faction inhabiting the hard-core end of a spectrum that includes online organizers and opportunistic looters — and their numbers have been growing with the severity of their tactics since the shooting.
Each evening, hundreds gather along West Florissant in what has become the most visible and perilous ritual of this St. Louis suburb’s days of frustration following Brown’s death. Dozens have been arrested, many injured by tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets fired by a police force dressed in riot gear and armed with assault rifles.
But the demonstrators are as diverse as their grievances — and in their methods of addressing them.
Some of the men are from the area — Ferguson or surrounding towns also defined in part by the gulf separating the mostly white law enforcement agencies from a mistrusting African American public. Many others — it is hard to quantify the percentage — have arrived by bus and by car from Chicago, Detroit, Brooklyn and elsewhere.
They will not give their names. But their leaders say they are ready to fight, some with guns in their hands. “This is not the time for no peace,” said one man, a 27-year-old who made the trip here from Chicago.
He spoke after a small group of fellow militants held a meeting behind a looted store, sketching out ambitions for the days ahead.
“We are jobless men, and this is our job now — getting justice,” he said. “If that means violence, that’s okay by me. They’ve been doing this to us for years.”
Police on the streets Monday night said some of those wearing red bandannas are members of the Bloods gang.
The militants are one faction of many that have filled Ferguson’s streets each evening since Brown, walking unarmed between a convenience store and his grandmother’s apartment at midday on a Saturday, was shot at least six times and died.
There is a group of “peaceful protesters” that congregates around the QuikTrip, which was looted and burned during the first night of protest. Another gathers near the Ferguson police station. A third, more scattered faction uses Twitter to organize demonstrators.
President Obama announced Monday that Attorney General Eric Holder will travel to Ferguson, Mo., to meet with law enforcement investigating the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a police officer. (AP)
“People have been tweeting, ‘We are ready to die tonight,’ ” said Mary Pat Hector, a national youth organizer with the Rev. Al Sharpton’s national action network. “It is a trending topic.”
Hector traveled from Atlanta, hoping her presence as a nonviolent protester would help counter what she described as “so much negative energy.”
Then there are the looters, leaderless men who under cover of nightly political protest target liquor stores, beauty-supply shops and other businesses with inventories easy to sell and in high demand.
Ferguson police officials would not quantify how many looters have been arrested since the Brown shooting but presented a Washington Post reporter with a stack of roughly 50 arrest reports. While some of those arrested for stealing are from Ferguson, a large number have addresses listed in Illinois or in Texas.
“It’s like looting tourism,” an officer commented as he showed the reports. He asked not to be named. “It’s like they are spending their gas money to come down here and steal.”
DeAndre Smith, fresh from looting the QuikTrip on a recent night, told reporters: “I’m proud of us. We deserve this, and this is what’s supposed to happen when there’s injustice in your community. St. Louis — not going to take this anymore.”
Many on the streets share that sentiment and feel, in terms of race relations, this city and its surrounding communities never emerged from the civil rights era. Two-thirds of Ferguson’s 21,000 residents are black, but only three of the police force’s 53 officers are.
“This was a chance to vent about the national treatment of black men across the country,” said Ronnie Natch, a music producer and leader of the “peaceful protesters.”
Natch is 30 years old and has a 10-month-old baby. His wife gives out water and fruit to protesters from their base at the burned-out QuikTrip. “We want to show up at the front door every day and say, through words, that this shooting is not going to be swept under the rug,” Natch said. “There have just been too many deaths.”
Missouri had the nation’s highest black homicide rate in 2010 and the second-highest in 2011, according to the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group based in Washington. The city’s school system is crumbling, and Brown’s high school is in one of the nation’s most troubled districts.
“After all the cameras are gone, we have to live here,” Natch said.
Every morning, his group dispatches people to pick up trash and sweep broken glass.
“We can get the same message out without the violence,” he said.
Among those who have arrived are self-described young activists, some of whom participated in the Occupy movement. Many of them are white and have been showing protesters how to assemble homemade gas masks — essentially surgical masks fortified with duct tape. But the peaceful protesters acknowledge they are probably in the minority as the crowd begins to swell on Ferguson’s streets after nightfall.
Dennis Brown, a community activist, described St. Louis and suburbs such as this one as a pot ready to boil over. He said social media has become, in ways similar to its use in recent popular uprisings in the Arab world, an essential organizing tool.
Brown said young people, including many of the “militants,” are organized on social media.
“These young people aren’t dumb,” said Brown, 46. “They are organized. They are smart. They are like computer kings.”
He said that not all are from outside communities. Some are from Ferguson and have been informed by media, cinema and real-life events that to many of them resemble their own lives.
“They are not gang leaders. They are normal people. They are people showing their anger,” Brown said. “They see Trayvon Martin. They saw ‘Fruitvale Station.’ And before that, there was Rodney King. And those cops walk.”
“There’s always a time in history when great things happen to strike at the core of people,” he continued. “These young people are saying enough is enough.”
There is also another group: the elders.
Malik Shabazz, national president of Black Lawyers for Justice, said he has been patrolling West Florissant Avenue each night, trying to keep the peace. On Friday night, he used a megaphone, telling young people to go home.
“The big mission was to make sure there was peace tonight, and we accomplished that,” Shabazz said as dawn approached. “Now it’s time to go home and get some rest. You do this with love and no fear.”
But Kareem Jackson, a St. Louis rapper known by the stage name Tef Poe, said controlling the militants and looters has not always been easy. He recently complained on Twitter about how the “mugs” go to hear Sharpton during the day but fail to show up at night to help keep the young demonstrators peaceful. “All these rappers that rap about changing the world and saving the ppl I didn’t see any of y’all shielding kids from tear gas,” he wrote on the social-media site, “come on fam.”
At least two appeared to hear his call. Rappers Nelly and Ali, both from the St. Louis area, led crowds Monday night in a chant of “Hey-hey, ho-ho, these killer cops have got to go.” But they also urged words over violence. “Songs are more powerful,” Ali said. “Keep it peaceful, St. Louis.”
Emily Wax-Thibodeaux is a National staff writer and award-winning former foreign correspondent who covered Africa and India for nearly a decade. She also covered immigration, crime and education for the Metro staff.
DeNeen L. Brown is an award-winning staff writer at The Washington Post who has covered night police, education, courts, politics and culture. |
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Tue Aug 19, 2014 2:55 pm |
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