More News From Ferguson

by Mallory Ortberg · November 26, 2014

“Do you want to hear something funny?” someone asked me. “This is a joke,” he told me, “with a punchline 100 days in the making.”

A member of the St. Louis police force has been charged with excessive force.

A 13-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police Department is charged with felony assault after striking a MetroLink passenger on the hand with his expandable baton following an argument.

The county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office on Friday charged 44-year-old Dawon Gore of Ferguson with second-degree assault. He was jailed on a $3,500, cash-only bond.

Gore is accused of using excessive force against an unnamed 24-year-old light-rail passenger in late April at the Hanley Road station in Clayton. He’s been assigned to the department’s MetroLink unit since May 2012.

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From Friend of the Toast Carvell Wallace, over at The Manifest Station:

I post on Facebook “How do you parent on a night like this?” People respond with advice about how to talk to kids about race. Well-meaning, but missing the point. I don’t mean what do you say. I mean how do you go on.

How do you go on.

How do you make lunch for tomorrow and sweep and handle bath time?

How do you parent with a permanently broken heart?

I text their mother. “Hi,” I say. She responds. But I stop. She is white. I don’t actually want to talk to any white people right now. I love her though. She is an exceedingly kind, strong and loving person. And I make a note to tell her then next time I see her.

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If you don’t subscribe to Today In Tabs — which is fine, life is a rich tapestry — you should be sure not to miss yesterday’s edition, which you can find here.

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“His argument that social media had somehow hampered efforts to find out the truth about Michael Brown’s death rang false to many, who felt that social media had in fact been a crucial tool for standing up to a justice system that seemed to be failing its citizens.”

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17 Comments

  1. redrobin5 +32

    Oh yes that’s a great joke, fucking nice one, wait 100 days and then charge a cop who is unrelated and oh, coincidentally black, with something relatively minor. Yes my sides are splitting.

  2. nicoledieker +12

    I don’t know what to do either. I’ve donated to the Ferguson library, shared Black voices and stories online, and… we live in a broken and unjust country, it was always there but this has made it un-ignorable, what are we supposed to do?

    1. bibliophibian +27

      I’m thinking that what we can do is remember. Remember this, long after the news cycle has moved on. Keep bringing it up–this legacy of disenfranchisement and violence–long after your family and friends and acquaintances and coworkers wish you would just go back to business as usual. Keep making the connections, and keep making them out loud.

      1. sansdromeda +8

        +eleventybillion. What “They” want is for people to return to a blasé state of contentment and complacency with the status quo. Don’t give them what they want. Remember.

    2. franceschances +5

      Go to rallies/protests and be a body. The numbers of people who show up matter. And once you’re there, you can connect with people who know what else is going on in your community – I learned last night at the DC protest that people are organizing around community control of the police, so that’s something I’m going to get involved with supporting.

    3. GoatseFanfic +15

      Lobby?. City and county governments are wretched things where votes actually do matter, this bullshit goes on in every city, and it can be impacted if you link up with like-minded folks and make clear to your mayor and councilmembers that you want always-on body cameras on all cops and a civilian police review board with firing power and when they feed you some dilatory bullshit, make a big stink about it and vote them the hell out.

      ‘This world is so corrupt’ is not a solvable problem, ‘the goof who got in on a 10,000 vote margin and is in the pocket of the police union in a city that’s >50% black and/or poor’ is an eminently solvable problem. Maybe less so if you’re in Whitesville, in which case you’ve probably got other battles to fight anyway.

  3. GoatseFanfic +23

    The public is speechless. After a minute, they collect themselves a bit, and choke out “Well… that was something. What do you call it?”

    And with a twirl and a flourish, the St. Louis county government cries “ACCOUNTABILITY!”

  4. kilks401 +4

    Joel Anderson at Buzzfeed’s been doing great work:

    “The World Should See This”

    Ferguson’s could-be Mike Browns take a furious pride in the chaos they’ve caused. Their pride arose from despair about a system that they believe has failed them over and over again.”

  5. Anna Cyan +3

    Hey guys, I have an actual idea. I don’t know whether something like this exists, if does, tell me. Basically, there should be an online tool that aggregates all incidents of race-based police crime. Because every case is treated as isolated, and they are not, it’s a wide and pervasive pattern. People should be able to post and document police harrasment incidents and most certainly use of excessive force such as shooting and killing unarmed people. With, if possible, badge numbers, and whether the incident was redressed. If there is enough documentation, class action suits could be brought against police departments.

    If anyone wants to help me with this, please email me.

    3. L_Bear +1

      I don’t have your email but I’m interested. I’m no good at IT but I can do tedious admin stuff if that would be useful to anyone. I’m from the UK, we definitely need this as well, esp. since so many police ‘services’ are commissioned by international corporations