Ferguson Burns, As Time Goes By

No Bill: Parts of Ferguson, Mo. are a smoking ruin this morning.

Demonstrators began throwing objects at the police even as the St. Louis County prosecutor announced that a grand jury had decided to bring no charges against Officer Darren Wilson for killing the unarmed teenager Michael Brown in August. Outside the local police station Brown’s mother screamed “They wrong. Y’all know y’all wrong!”

Sporadic violence slowly grew for hours as demonstrators roamed the streets, smashed police cars and set fires while the cops fired teargas. Occasional gunshots were fired. As the night wore on stores were looted and burned and cars set on fire. Even the convenience store where Michael Brown had stolen cigars, setting all these events in motion, was looted.

In a lengthy statement prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch described the conflicting testimony of witnesses and sorting out what happened last August. McCulloch said the grand jury ultimately concluded that Brown assaulted Wilson inside his police car and was fatally shot after Wilson got out of his car. McCulloch said Brown’s blood was found on the street behind where his body fell, suggesting that the fatal shots were fired as Brown was charging back at Wilson.

McCulloch said the physical evidence, unlike the conflicting stories told by some witnesses, supported Wilson’s story. “Physical evidence does not look away as events unfold,” he said.

Brown was wounded on a thumb during the struggle at the police car and his blood was found inside the vehicle and on Wilson’s uniform. Wilson had some minor bruising and abrasions, but he testified that “I felt like a five year old child holding on to Hulk Hogan.” Wilson had told the grand jury he had fired the final shot at the top of Brown’s head as he charged. McColloch said the entire incident took 90 seconds.

All of the testimony heard by the grand jury was immediately posted online and the servers were overwhelmed with demand by viewers. But the version of events delivered by the prosecutor was met with immediate disbelief, disappointment, and violence in the streets of Ferguson.

Old Case: The confession of a New Jersey man who told police he killed six-year-old Etan Patz in New York City 35 years ago is admissible in trial even though he now disavows it, according to the ruling of a Manhattan Court. Pedro Hernandez confessed to police in 2012, but has since recanted. The disappearance of Etan Patz on May 25, 1979 is one of the most infamous cases of child disappearance. The boy vanished walking to the bus stop alone for the first time. Hernandez told investigators he grabbed Patz, choked him, and stuffed him alive into a garbage bag. No body was ever found.

The Beats: One of the most famous missing letters in literary history has been found and will be put up for auction next month. The so-called “Joan Anderson letter,” written in stream of consciousness by Neal Cassady to his friend Jack Kerouac, is credited with inspiring the style of Kerouac’s beat generation novel “On the Road.” Cassady was said to have spent a wild weekend with Anderson in 1950 and wrote the 18-page, single-spaced letter soon after. A woman whose father had died found the letter among his possessions. It had been missing for 65 years.

Play It: The intricately painted upright piano that had a starring role in the movie Casblanca has been sold at auction for $2.9 million. The famous “letters of transit” that were the focus of the plot were hidden inside by Humphrey Bogart’s character “Rick.” The piano was played, but no one ever said “Play it again, Sam.” You must remember this. The line from Ingrid Bergman was, “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’ ”

-30-

 

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