Abstract
The two weeks of rioting that occurred in the small, southern US city of Ferguson, Missouri, constitute the final and most recent of our case studies. As usual, it revolves around a major ‘flashpoint’ incident, which is widely held to have been the trigger for the ensuing conflict that occurred. In this case, the incident in question took place on the morning of Saturday, 9 August 2014 when a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old African American, Michael Brown, after Wilson and a second police officer had apprehended Brown and a friend as they were walking down the middle of the road in the direction of Brown’s grandmother’s house. Wilson had pulled up in front of Brown and the other young man, Dorian Johnson, and directed them to move onto the kerb. As the officer attempted to leave his car, he found his exit blocked by Brown. A brief struggle then took place before Brown ran off with the officer in pursuit. Seconds later, Brown stopped in his tracks and turned to face the patrolman. Some eyewitness accounts assert that Brown held up his hands in surrender at this point, whereas others maintain that he charged towards the officer. Either way, he was shot multiple times by Wilson and lay dead on the ground for a further four hours while forensic investigations took place in front of a gathering crowd.
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Notes
- 1.
Jean Beaman, ‘From Ferguson to France’, Contexts (2015), Vol. 14, No. 1, p. 65.
- 2.
Ibid.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Pinard, M. (2015) ‘Poor, black and “wanted”: Criminal Justice in Ferguson and Baltimore’, Howard Law Journal (2015), Vol. 58, No. 3. First published online: July 2015, p. 3.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 4.
- 6.
Rigel C. Oliveri, ‘Setting the stage for Ferguson: housing discrimination and segregation in St Louis’, Missouri Law Review (2015). First published online: July 2015, p. 11.
- 7.
See Richard Rothstein, ‘The Making of Ferguson: Public Policy at the Root of its Troubles’, Washington, Economic Policy Institute, Washington, DC, 15 October 2014.
- 8.
Oliveri, ‘Setting the stage for Ferguson’, p. 12.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
Pinard, ‘Poor, black and “wanted”’, p. 4.
- 11.
Jay Mandle, ‘Ferguson, Missouri’, Huff Post Politics, 25 August 2014; and Victoria Bekiempis, ‘Driving While Black in Ferguson’, Newsweek, 14 August 2014.
- 12.
John Mollenkopf and Todd Swanstrom, ‘The Ferguson Moment: Race and Place’, New York: Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, New York University, 19 January 2015.
- 13.
Oliveri, ‘Setting the stage for Ferguson’, p. 13.
- 14.
Mandle, ‘Ferguson, Missouri’; and Jeff Smith, ‘In Ferguson, Black Town, White Power’, New York Times, 17 August 2014.
- 15.
Mollenkopf and Swanstrom, ‘The Ferguson Moment: Race and Place’.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Department of Justice, ‘Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department’, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 4 March 2015, p. 2.
- 18.
Ibid., p. 11.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 62.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Ibid., p. 5.
- 22.
Ibid., p. 4
- 23.
Ibid., p. 33.
- 24.
Oliveri, ‘Setting the stage for Ferguson’, p. 13.
- 25.
Department of Justice, ‘Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department’, pp. 3–4.
- 26.
Ibid., p. 18.
- 27.
Ibid., p. 82.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 87.
- 29.
Bekiempis, ‘Driving While Black in Ferguson’.
- 30.
Department of Justice, ‘Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department’, p. 79.
- 31.
Ibid., p. 80.
- 32.
Quoted in Tim Suereth, Ferguson: America’s Breaking Point, (Marston Gate: Andrew Miller, 2015), p. 160.
- 33.
Ibid., p. 161.
- 34.
Ibid., p. 162.
- 35.
Department of Justice, ‘Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department’, p. 18.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
Department of Justice, ‘Department of Justice Report Regarding the Criminal Investigation into the Shooting Death of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson’, Washington, DC, 4 March 2015.
- 38.
Ibid., p. 6.
- 39.
Ibid.
- 40.
Ibid., p. 7.
- 41.
Ibid., p. 8.
- 42.
‘Unarmed black Mo. teen shot after altercation, police say’, CBS News, 10 August 2014.
- 43.
Jamelle Bouie, ‘How Ferguson Changed America’, Slate Magazine, 2 August 2015.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
See Suereth, Ferguson: America’s Breaking Point.
- 46.
Ibid., p. 180.
- 47.
Ibid, pp. 180–181.
- 48.
Ibid., p. 182.
- 49.
Ibid.
- 50.
Ibid., p. 184.
- 51.
Ibid.
- 52.
Ibid., p. 187.
- 53.
‘Ferguson police antagonized Michael Brown protesters, DoJ report finds’, The Guardian, 30 June 2015.
- 54.
Ibid.
- 55.
Tim Newburn, ‘Civil unrest in Ferguson was fuelled by the Black community’s already poor relationship with a highly militarized police force’ LSE Comment, 29 August 2014, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/?s=civil+unrest.
- 56.
Alana Horowitz, ‘Ferguson, Missouri Protest of Michael Brown Death Swarmed by SWAT Team’, Huffington Post, 13 August 2014.
- 57.
‘Missouri Cops in Violent Clash With Protesters’, Sky News, 14 August 2014.
- 58.
The White House, ‘Statement by the President. Edgartown, Massachusetts’, Office of the Press Secretary, 14 August 2014.
- 59.
Suereth, Ferguson: America’s Breaking Point, p. 212.
- 60.
Ibid., p. 214.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
‘“Beyond Outraged”: Michael Brown’s Family Accuses Ferguson Police of Smear’, NBC News, 15 August 2014.
- 63.
Quoted in Suereth, Ferguson: America’s Breaking Point, p. 244.
- 64.
Pinard, ‘Poor, black and “wanted”’, p. 5.
- 65.
Cadman R. Kiker III, ‘From Mayberry to Ferguson: the militarization of American policing equipment, culture and mission’, Washington and Lee Law Review Online (2015), Vol. 71, No. 4, pp. 285–286.
- 66.
Taylor Wofford, ‘How America’s Police Became an Army: The 1033 Program’, Newsweek, 13 August 2014.
- 67.
Mark Berman and Wesley Lowery, ‘Justice Dept. report criticizes police response to Ferguson protests’, The Washington Post, 30 June 2015.
- 68.
Ibid.
- 69.
Matt Apuzzo, ‘Justice Dept. Report Says Police Escalated Tensions in Ferguson’, The New York Times, 30 June 2015.
- 70.
Berman and Lowery, ‘Justice Dept. report criticizes police response to Ferguson protests’.
- 71.
Quoted in Apuzzo, ‘Justice Dept. Report Says Police Escalated Tensions in Ferguson’.
- 72.
‘Ferguson police antagonized Michael Brown protesters, DoJ report finds’, The Guardian, 30 June 2015.
- 73.
Quoted in Apuzzo, ‘Justice Dept. Report Says Police Escalated Tensions in Ferguson’.
- 74.
See Amnesty International, ‘On the Streets of America: Human Rights Abuses in Ferguson’, New York: Amnesty International, 2014.
- 75.
Ibid., p. 14.
- 76.
Frederick Harris, ‘Will Ferguson be a moment or a movement’, The Washington Post, 22 August 2014.
- 77.
Ibid.
- 78.
Bouie, ‘How Ferguson Changed America’.
- 79.
Harris, ‘Will Ferguson be a moment or a movement’.
- 80.
Ibid.
- 81.
See Suereth, Ferguson: America’s Breaking Point.
- 82.
Ibid.
- 83.
Ibid.
- 84.
Harris, ‘Will Ferguson be a moment or a movement’.
- 85.
Rob Crilly, ‘Michael Brown: What the Ferguson riots tell us about race in America today’, The Telegraph, 24 August 2014.
- 86.
Salima Koroma, ‘Dick Gregory Compares Ferguson to the Civil Rights Movement’, Time, 20 August 2014.
- 87.
Valerie Strauss, ‘From Ferguson to Baltimore: The consequences of government-sponsored segregation’, The Washington Post, 3 May 2015.
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Moran, M., Waddington, D. (2016). Back to the Future: Race and Riots in Ferguson, Missouri. In: Riots. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57131-1_7
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