Charles Pierce: The Body in the Street
The Body in the Street
By Charles P. Pierce on August 22, 2014
I keep coming back to what seems to me to be the most inhumane thing of all, the inhumane thing that happened before the rage began to rise, and before the backlash began to build, and before the cameras and television lights, and before the tear gas and the stun grenades and the chants and the prayers. I keep coming back to the one image that was there before the international event began, before it became a television show and a symbol in flames and something beyond what it was in the first place. I keep coming back to one simple moment, one ghastly fact. One image, from which all the other images have flowed.
They left the body in the street.
<snip>
A police officer shot Michael Brown to death. And they left his body in the street. For four hours. Bodies do not lie in the street for four hours. Not in an advanced society. Bodies lie in the street for four hours in small countries where they have perpetual civil war. Bodies lie in the street for four hours on back roads where people fight over the bare necessities of simple living, where they fight over food and water and small, useless parcels of land. Bodies lie in the street for four hours in places in which poor people fight as proxies for rich people in distant places, where they fight as proxies for the men who dig out the diamonds, or who drill out the oil, or who set ancient tribal grudges aflame for modern imperial purposes that are as far from the original grudges as bullets are from bows. Those are the places where they leave bodies in the street, as object lessons, or to make a point, or because there isn't the money to take the bodies away and bury them, or because nobody gives a damn whether they are there or not. Those are the places where they leave bodies in the street.
Bodies are not left in the streets of the leafy suburbs. The bodies of dogs and cats, or squirrels and raccoons, let alone the bodies of children, are not left in the streets of the leafy suburbs. No bodies are left in the streets of the financial districts. Freeze to death on a bench in the financial districts and you are whisked away before your inconvenient body can disturb the folks in line at the Starbucks across the street. But the body of a boy can be left in the street for four hours in a place like Ferguson, Missouri, and who knows whether it was because people wanted to make a point, or because nobody gave a damn whether he was there or not. Ferguson, Missouri was a place where they left a body in the street. For four hours. And the rage rose, and the backlash built, and the cameras arrived, and so did the cops, and the thing became something beyond what it was in the first place. And, in a very real way, in the streets of Ferguson, the body was still in the street.
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It is what sticks with me as well. They left that child in the street like he was roadkill. No compassion, no respect for human dignity or for his family.
And the media talking heads tsk tsk about protests. Even on Diane Rehm's show today, the focus was on the alleged robbery, the shooter's injury, not on that poor child left in the street. 
The shooting was 13 days ago, 3 autopsies have been performed, the Ferguson cops have TWICE tried to assassinate Mike Brown's character and St. Louis police have gunned down another citizen under suspicious use of lethal force...yet ZERO words have been spoken publicly by Murderer Wilson. No public statements of regret or remorse, no official version of "his side of the story" (as if cold blooded murder has "sides"
, no official police report...
The body in the street was the very first image I have of this entire tragedy....I was shocked by it on the St. Louis news when the story broke and there on live TV I was viewing Mike Brown's body, dead and leaking blood into the street in rivulets that ran several YARDS from his head. It is now burned into my mind with other tragic images...Rodney King video, OJ Simpson police "chase", 9/11 tower impacts and collapses...there was something incredibly visceral and shocking about the way Mike Brown died and then had his remains publicly displayed and treated with contempt and neglect that was and is totally disturbing.
Murderer Wilson MUST answer for this...he must testify in open court and face the eye-witnesses that contradict the story that he was in grave danger from an unarmed man 20-30 feet away and bleeding from multiple previous shots before Wilson shot more into his head.
With no official story after so long, I can only assume Wilson is planning to "lawyer up" and never speak about it. I fear that this will end up with no criminal charges from the disgusting County Prosecutor and an eventual civil wrongful death suit that will see Wilson found guilty but never face true justice for his crimes. I pray that I am wrong, but if I am not....the fires will be visible from space after that verdict (or lack of charges)...
At 66, they would have seen someone fighting for Civil Rights ll and the right, again, NOT to be shot down in the street as an "unnecessary thing". I shall never forget that statement from someone lauding the murder of Michael Brown and applauding the murderer for ridding society of "that unnecessary thing"......
for civil rights l in the 60's, you're voicing disdain and disgust now. Same got your back situation. All decent people are on board. 
The Bush junta opened the doors wider for the racists. This has been developing from Nixon's 'southern strategy', to Reagan and his "trickle down" on) economics and his covert racism. It been reactionary RWers every since Civil Rights War l. Carter was a respite, Obama was hoped, by me, to be the harbinger of a new age in america of healing and reconciliation. All we did was devolve. Very sad indeed. RW hate radio, the pundits at fux news and all those they have agitated into these rabid, frothing at the mouth slugs from the swamp of our racist history will not allow this. This is sad indeed. But with decent human beings standing shoulder to shoulder against their hateful tide, maybe, just maybe, one day...........
thanks
FPD was not investigating a police shooting. They were covering up a murder. Why else would the incident report be blank?
.... prints all his writings in one volume, I'm going to buy it. This one would make one HELL of a speech, delivered by Deval Patrick in one of his fiery moods. 
K&R
alsame http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025423709
Mahalo to Charlie Pierce for so eloquently highlighting that one of the reasons the "rage rose" because the FPD left Michael Brown's body in the street. And, why did they do that? Just more evidence of their vast incompetence and dereliction of duty.
thank you again, alsame
