PCG's Joel Hilliker on the Situation in Fergusson

In the latest chapter of the aftermath of the tragic situation arising from the killing of Michael Brown on August 9, it was announced that a grand jury has decided not to lay charges against Darren Wilson over his shooting.

PCG's Joel Hilliker has produced an article about this situation, "No Indictment—and Toxic Racial Thinking in Ferguson".

It was announced Monday night that a grand jury determined not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown last August. The jury found that Wilson shot Brown in the line of duty under credible threat against his own life. Immediately, protests began in cities across the nation. 

Hilliker then describes the chaotic night after the announcement. He then considers why events like this have happened.

Consider why this mayhem is happening. Think about the incredibly toxic ideas that are turning this into such a volatile moment.

There are Americans who believe the reason this white policeman killed this young black man is pure racial animus. They are sure that at the time of the killing, the black man was raising his hands in surrender, posing no threat; the policeman shot him in cold blood out of murderous hatred for blacks.

Some of the eye witness reports of the killing said Michael Brown raised his hands just before he fell. So it is not some ill founded assertion. Eye witness testimony said that is happened. Now it has to be said some the testimony around the shooting is conflicting.

They further believe that there exists a pattern of such attacks—that blacks face regular if not continual harassment from authorities and citizens across the country—that young black men must fear, even for their lives, from whites (or even, in the case of George Zimmerman, “white Hispanics”) who are looking for any pretext to go after them.

How can Hilliker talk like this? It is true that African Americans often face discrimination. It is true that African Americans often face incarceration and imprisonment at a greater rate then the white population. These are well documented facts. How can Hilliker profess this to be just a delusion? African Americans are forced to endure many things that the majority do not have to endure.

They further believe that the grand jury’s acquittal is based on racial hostility alone. Their mistrust of and cynicism about the justice system is so deep that they are certain the jury did not rule based on facts and evidence, but in spite of facts and evidence. They know that the only reason Wilson was found innocent is the system’s inherently racist nature. 

It was a grand jury, not a jury. A grand jury is supposed to listen to the prosecutor make his case that there is probable cause to believe an offense may have happened. There is no defense in a grand jury. The defense makes its case in the actual trial afterwards. It is not the role of the grand jury to decide if one is innocent or not. The grand jury is to rule if there is probable cause for an investigation and since they only listen to the prosecutor it is usually a certainty that a grand jury will find probable cause. So it is strange for a grand jury to rule that there was no probable cause. They do not decide who is guilty or innocent. No wonder so many are disturbed by this.

Why is it that Hilliker seems to not notice this strange happening? A grand jury is not a jury.

Also there is actually a pattern of police officers shooting unarmed men and not getting convicted of it. Here is one news article written just a week after Michael Brown's shooting.

It remains to be seen whether Wilson will face criminal charges, but a limited review of similar killings by police suggests that the officers more often than not walk away without an indictment, and are very rarely convicted. Delores Jones-Brown, a law professor and director of the Center on Race, Crime, and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, looked at 21 publicized cases from 1994 through 2009 in which a police officer killed an unarmed black person. Of those, only seven cases resulted in an indictment—for criminally negligent homicide, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, or violation of civil rights—and only three officers were found guilty. (Jeaeh Lee and Katie Rose Quandt, "Here's What Happens to Police Officers Who Shoot Unarmed Black Men", Mother Jones, August 20, 2014.)

There was no defense and still they found no probable cause.

We continue with Hilliker's article.

Hilliker then proceeds to characterize the rioters as rebelling against all authority. However he is quite vague about who he is talking about. Is he just talking the few who chose to riot? Or is he talking about just anyone who points out the fact that African Americans suffer a lot of hardship?

Among those who believe all of that, there are some who are are so sure of these convictions, so certain of the system’s innate anti-black bigotry, that they are ready to rise up in violent protest. Not directly, specifically against police officers or government officials that they have proven to be racist, but against authority in general—and even against society in general. They believe the injustice they have been dealt is so egregious that they are justified at lashing out at virtually anything—smashing shop windows, looting stores, creating general mayhem.

Again it must be noted that Hilliker is very vague here. Is he talking about the rioters or just anyone noting the widespread problems African Americans are forced to deal with? It is hard to be sure because of the way this is written.

Hilliker then minimizes by saying this only applies to a few people, continuing to state that "we" should be very scared.

Surely the number of Americans who follow such “reasoning,” as it were, are very few. But they are numerous enough to arrest the attention of media and law enforcement, and countless others of us who are apprehensive about what they are about to do. And truth be told, this is not unwarranted apprehension; it has been built over time in recent years, incident by indiscriminately violent incident. 

PCG's writers have been fear mongering that massive riots are about to occur since at least 1992 as may be seen in Gerald Flurry booklet, The Ezekiel Watchman, which discussed the 1992 LA riots.  

It is sad that in this tragic affair PCG's writers decide to just say a few words fear mongering about the riots and to insinuate that well documented and widespread racial discrimination against African Americans is just a fantasy some African Americans have. 

***

For more information about this tragic affair here is the testimony presented to the grand jury.