No surprise, Ferguson Grand Jury extended

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CLAYTON • The grand jury considering whether Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson should be criminally charged in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown now has until Jan. 7 to decide…


A St. Louis County grand jury usually sits for four months, a period that for the current panel expired last week. State law provides for a term of up to six months, which moves the date to November. On Wednesday, Circuit Judge Carolyn Whittington issued an order adding 60 days more.

“She extended it to the full amount allowed by law,” Court Administrator Paul Fox said Monday. But he added that the grand jury will keep meeting until Jan. 7 only if it needs to.

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

I’m not surprised at all.  Given the nature of the shooting, I would prefer that a thorough, honest, and complete investigation compliment a likewise presentation to the Grand Jury.  I think this would go a ways towards easing some of the mistrust that some in the Black community have with law enforcement and the media as well.

While I hold out hope for a fair investigation and Grand Jury presentation, the cynic in me doesn’t think such a thing exists.  There have been far too many “eyewitness” leaks and reports that appear to have been missed or ignored by the police investigating the shooting.  You also have the hearsay “eyewitness” testimony of the officer’s friends who are relaying what they say is the officer’s story.  Add the multiple false flag reports on Brown including the fake criminal record, the juvenile murder charge, the shattered orbital bone, and the fake officer photo, and I don’t see how a fair and impartial trial can happen anywhere.

I fault the media for this as some have gone out of their way to display the worst behaviors in Ferguson while completely ignoring the stories of those who are trying to bring the community back together.  That opinion is shared by the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as well as he explained in an interview with Media Matters.

“I think the national media has done a good job of capturing the story,” Bailon said. But he later said of Fox News: “I do think sometimes … it looks like the whole community was in flames, and it was really a few block area. Significant, but it wasn’t like St. Louis was on fire or out of control and there was mass chaos everywhere … it wasn’t like an all-consuming entire metropolitan area was hit by that, yet it commanded a huge presence of what was there.”

He added, “I think Fox took a different angle, their view was more of the view of the chaos, was really focusing on the looting and less of what was going on in the community pre-dating the looting. The looting was very dramatic…but there was the deeper story there. Some stayed on in town longer, I think there was a different viewpoint on them and less on the undercurrent. [Fox] didn’t look at it as deeply and as long as others, CNN did make an investment, MSNBC was there a lot.”

He also cited a Washington Postreport that Brown had marijuana in his system and another from the New York Post that the officer who shot Brown suffered a fractured eye socket as facts his paper has yet to report because they cannot be verified.

Source: Media Matters For America

Recent polling has also shown that Blacks, along with Hispanics, have a healthy distrust of the media in reporting the events of their communities.  We will find out whether or not this mistrust is unfounded on or before January 7th.

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9 thoughts on “No surprise, Ferguson Grand Jury extended”

  1. Bro, off topic here, but today’s police shooting in Savannah has made me wonder about the number of handcuffed men in the back seats of police cars who somehow manage to be armed. Is it really that hard to search someone and find any guns they might be carrying? Or do police routinely leave guns in their cars where they might be in reach of a handcuffed person in the back seat? At least with this one in Savannah, they did find a gun under his body. That’s what makes me ask these questions.

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    • I fell asleep early last night, but I’m reading up on that now, and I’ll likely post in a few what I think about that. It’s not difficult to search someone, but you have to be very thorough when you do so. Failure to be completely thorough could be a matter of life or death. Literally.

      The police may have a rifle or shotgun in the car, but it shouldn’t be accessible from the rear, and it’s usually locked in a rack in the front. The rear of the car is usually an enclosed space only accessible through the doors. There’s a sliding glass window between the front and rear most times, but the rear is completely it’s own capsule to ensure safety during transport. There’s no reason for any weapon, or anything that could be used as a weapon, to be in the rear of a car. The officer is also supposed to check and clear the rear before putting someone in the car.

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  2. I can’t resist a little snark here: they probably had to extend the grand jury’s term to give the Ferguson PD time to come up with a police report for the incident.

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  3. I watched bits and pieces of this on several different channels and I honestly didn’t see much difference in the coverage on any of them. All of them were trying to win the race to be first, whether they had the facts or not. That’s pretty typical and all of them basically tried this case on the air, which is pretty much typical of everything now. I don’t know what happened out there but I don’t see how either side can really get a fair hearing.

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    • I don’t think there’s more than one person left who knows exactly what happened. Based on what’s been leaked, I don’t see a fair trial either. Sometimes, it’s good for the press to leave a story alone. This case was the perfect example for a judge to issue a gag order.

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