Tonight, I joined with hundreds of my fellow Washington, DC activists, in attending the National Moment of Silence (for Michael Brown). I made my way through the crowd annoying everyone with my “excuse me” and “pardon” as I photographed every sign and as many determined activists as I could.
Toward the end, I walked by a family and overheard a tiny voice ask “Mommy am I going to get shot by the police?”
Everyone this is Hollis (who I photographed with Mom’s permission). Hollis is in the first grade. When he grows up he wants to be a policeman, but he doesn’t want to fight in the war because his grandpa fought in the war. And he doesn’t want to be a fireman because he doesn’t want to get burned.
How Hollis’s mom didn’t cry at his innocent question I’ll never know, because, truthfully, I almost did.
I have tried to stay level headed during the last several days and come to these rallies with an objective perspective only seeing the scene to capture and report it. But these moments bring down my wall of emotionless detachment. Sometimes there are no words, just sweet, innocent, smiling faces, and moms who live in fear. In that moment I saw both, and my heart wept.
There’s something to be said for transparency and with the hacktavist group Anonymous that is exactly what we get. After the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, people took the streets in protest and the local police responded with violence and threats. Activist hacker group Anonymous appeared right beside them threatening to make a whole lot of information public if the police didn’t back down, and they are making good on their threat.
Released now are the police dispatch tapes discussing Michael Brown’s shooting, there’s no audio for the first minute, discussion of the shooting begins after 11 minutes. The tech site Mashable has confirmed with the St. Louis Police:
“Reached over email, St. Louis Police spokesperson Brian Schellman tells Mashable, “We are aware of this and are currently investigating it.”
Details for the recording present MANY questions:
9:35: “Ferguson has a… uh… is asking for assistance with cloud… crowd control [intelligible] officer involved, can I send one? … They just told me they needed assistance with crowd control in Canfield Green”
10:53: “1190…. He said there’s just a large group.. the original call was a [intelligible] just occurred and now they have a large group gathering there and she doesn’t have anything further…”
(writer’s note: Why is the crowd control called in before the shooting was?)
11:16: “Hey we just got another call stating it was uhhh… and officer-involved in a shooting there at Canfield Green in [intelligible] I don’t know who called it was called into my desk…”
11:27: “Ok… 2190… be advised, this uh… information came from the news.. so… I don’t know…[mumble]”
“Absolutely can I have another car go to Canfield…”
11:54: “We’re just getting information from the news and we just called Ferguson back again and they don’t know anything about it… so…”
(um… seriously?)
Around the 19 minute mark there seems to be a lot of clarification about information coming out of Canfield “down there in Ferguson.”
21:53: “2190 – I’m getting a request here in from my desk that they are requesting more cars. Do you want me to send more of YOUR cars?”
22:18: “2190 can you advice uh.. you know um.. they are asking the other radios now… so…”
23:42: “I don’t know if they need you, stand by and let me double check Jennings supervisor is the one requesting more cars and they’re getting cars coming at the other precincts now.”
“2190 if you’re with the Jenning’s supervisor now can you advise him they’re sending tag cars now.. do you want to disregard any other cars on our precinct?”
“2190 that’s clear. And don’t start adding the tag cars [intelligible]”
25:00: “Ok 2190 in reference to the K-9 now, we’re getting information now that Ferguson is supposed to have their K-9 and he’s supposed to be on scene do you still want to request one of ours?”
26:19: “2190 be advised that TAG is not responding YES they will call back and advise if and when they are responding.”
(Writer Note: I’m continuing to listen and find these but I have to change location folks are leaving the office but MoJo’s piece quotes this part in between where I stopped and when they switched over to the riot channel (but their time stamps are off):
43:55: “Attention all cars, be advised that in reference to the call 2947 Canfield Drive, we are switching over to the riot channel at this time . . .”
Tonight, I joined with hundreds of my fellow Washington, DC activists, in attending the National Moment of Silence (for Michael Brown). I made my way through the crowd annoying everyone with my “excuse me” and “pardon” as I photographed every sign and as many determined activists as I could.
