Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced today that he is relieving St. Louis County law enforcement from policing the ongoing protests in the town of Ferguson, Missouri, placing the Highway Patrol in charge instead.
“We’ve all been deeply troubled by this crisis,” Nixon said, adding that the current crisis unfolding in the state “is not what Missouri is about.” He stated that Ferguson looks “like a war zone” lately, and added, “We need to rebuilt the trust that’s been lost” in the wake of Brown’s death and the use of police force on demonstrators.
The highly militarized police used rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas and sonic weapons even on peaceful protesters. They also went so far as to rough up and arrested 2 reporters, shoot another with rubber bullets, gas yet other press and confiscate cameras.
Nixon added that the Highway Patrol’s involvement will not affect the responsibility of those involved in conducting investigations into the killing of Brown and the protests that have taken place since his death. He confirmed that the Department of Justice is conducting a parallel investigation.
Nixon also touched on the controversy surrounding police refusal to identify the officer involved in Brown’s death. In response to a question at the press conference, Nixon said the official’s name should be released as “expeditiously as possible.”
Previously, Rep Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) told Bloomberg News on Thursday morning that Gov. Jay Nixon, also a Democrat, had confirmed to him that county police will be pulled from their duties in Ferguson.
On Wednesday evening, protests in Ferguson for the fourth straight day appeared to resemble a war zone when militarized police began firing tear gas and non-lethal ammunition into the streets towards private residences. Two journalists, one from Washington Post and another from Huffington Post, were briefly detained while on assignment.
“The gov. just called me and he’s on his way to St. Louis now to announce he’s taking St. Louis County police out of the situation,” Rep. Clay told Derek Wallbank, a reporter for Bloomberg, early Thursday.
Earlier that afternoon, US President Barack Obama said during a press conference that he has spoken with Gov. Nixon and Attorney General Eric Holder, and had instructed federal officials to do everything they could to investigate Brown’s death and keep the situation in Ferguson calm. According to NewsChannel 5, the Justice Department will also be spending special prosecutors to Ferguson to assist in the investigation.
Source: rt.com
Photo: AFP Photo / Getty Images / Scott Olson
coming from somebody that dont know all the facts, your stupid
THE NUTS ARE OUT HE ATACTED THE OFFICER WHILE GETING OUT OF HIS CAR BECAUSE HE JUST ROBED A STORE HE WAS SHOT IN THE CAR
Looks like Dem gov ready to cow tow to the rioters that rioted and burned this town make them happy Gov throw the local police under the bus by no means support them you idiot
When you let the lawless dictate the policy of law, then you have no law
Amen to that guys
gestapo will handle it ??
Sure got a lot of scuttlebutt on here. Sure got a lot of people who are dumb enough to fall for DHS’s latest False Flag.
DO YOU REMEMBER THIS? ALOT OF PEOPLE DON’T. MEDIA DIDN’T TALK ABOUT IT!!! IT WAS HORRIBLE!! THESE TWO YOUNG PEOPLE WERE TORTURED, BURNED , MURDERED!!!!!! BUT WHO KNEW ABOUT THIS, NOT MANY PEOPLE !!! WHY?? I THINK YA’LL KNOW!!!!!!
OK, so let’s create a level playing field here. I have not even heard of this on CBS, ABC, NBC or any of the cable news services, even FOX NEWS. OR in any of the Newsrags or other publications. Read this and weep.
Bet you $20 you did not hear this on the national news.
The animals pictured below car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her!
Channon Christian, was beaten and gang-raped in many ways for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breast and put chemicals in her mouth … and then murdered her.
Where be the Revs Al and Jesse? Are they providing counsel and help to the families of the victims?
Of course not – the victims were white
Why hasn’t this received National coverage by the news media like the Duke “rape” case?
Oh, that’s right – the victims were white
Why hasn’t the NAACP, ACLU, New York Times etc, called for an investigation?
Must be cause the victims were white
Why hasn’t the FBI been called in to investigate this as a hate crime?
Oh, that’s right – the victims were white.
Origins: On 6 January 2007, Knoxville, Tennessee, residents Christopher Newsom, Jr., 23, and Channon Christian, 21, went out for a dinner date at a local restaurant, then headed to a friend’s house to watch a movie. They never came back.
When the couple had failed to return by the following morning, their parents notified police. Christopher Newsom’s body was found near some railroad tracks in East Knoxville that afternoon, but Channon Christian remained missing. A trace run on Christian’s cell phone helped authorities locate her abandoned vehicle the next day, and fingerprints raised from an envelope inside the automobile led police to the residence of 25-year-old Lemaricus Devall “Slim” Davidson, where they discovered Christian’s body stashed inside a trash disposal bin and covered with sheets.
The details of the crime as later revealed by court testimony were horrific: Christopher Newsom was repeatedly sodomized with a foreign object; he was bound, gagged and blindfolded; he was dragged outside and shot in the back of his head, neck and back; and his body was set on fire. Channon Christian was tortured for several hours, beaten about the head, and raped; afterwards, bleach was poured over her body and down her throat, then she was covered with several plastic garbage bags, dumped in a disposal bin, and left to suffocate.
(Some of the details presented in initial press accounts of the crime later proved to be inaccurate: The perpetrators did not cut off Christopher Newsom’s penis or Channon Christian’s breast, they murdered Christian within a day of the kidnapping rather than holding her captive for several days, they poured cleaning solution into Christian’s mouth to eliminate DNA evidence rather than as a form of torture, and they did not shoot Christian or set her body on fire as they did with Newsom.)
Five suspects were arrested and charged with the murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian (and related crimes). LeMaricus Davidson, along with his brother, Letalvis “Rome” Cobbins (24), and George Geovonni “Detroit” Thomas (27), were all indicted on a total of 46 counts each: 16 counts of felony murder, 2 counts of premeditated murder, 2 counts of especially aggravated robbery, 4 counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts of aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft. Vanessa Coleman (18), was indicted on a total of 40 counts: 12 counts of felony murder, 1 count of premeditated murder, 1 count of especially aggravated robbery, 4 counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts of aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft. Eric DeWayne “E” Boyd (34) was not indicted and faced federal charges only as an accessory after the fact. Boyd was convicted in federal court of being an accessory to the carjacking and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
On 25 August 2009, Letalvis “Rome” Cobbins was found guilty of multiple counts of first-degree and felony murder in the death of Christian but opted for lesser charges of facilitating murder in the slaying of Newsom. He was additionally convicted of multiple charges of rape and kidnapping and robbery and received a life sentence, as did George Thomas. Vanessa Coleman was sentenced to 53 years in prison. On October 2009, Lemaricus Davidson, convicted on kidnapping, rape and murder charges, was sentenced to death.
In October 2011, the presiding judge at the original trial, Richard Baumgartner, was disbarred by the Tennessee Supreme Court after an investigation revealed he had illegally purchased prescription pain pills from a convicted felon under his supervision, and Jin December 2011 a special judge ruled that Baumgartner was impaired at the time of the first trial and granted new trials to Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, and Vanessa Coleman. In May 2012 the Tennessee Supreme Court vacated that ruling and allowed the original convictions to stand: further legal maneuvering eventually resulted in retrials for Thomas and Coleman but not for Cobbins and Davidson. In November 2012, Coleman was convicted a second time (on lesser charges than her initial convictions) and re-sentenced to 35 years in prison. In May 2013, George Thomas was convicted a second time on all counts and given consecutive life sentences with an additional 25 years.
As for the question of why the murders weren’t prosecuted as a hate crime, the answer is that no evidence demonstrated the race of the victims was a motivation in their killing. Police, prosecutors, and the families of the victims all stated that they believed Newsom and Christian were not victims of a hate crime.
It is true that the bulk of the initial news reportage about the Newsom/Christian murders was local (predominantly in Tennessee, where the crimes took place, and in neighboring Kentucky) while the case received little or no national coverage by major news outlets, a phenomenon some attributed to racial bias on the part of the national news media. However, the fact is that only a tiny handful of the approximately 15,000 homicides that occur in the United States every year makes national news, and the cases that do tend to attract prolonged, nationwide coverage are ones exhibiting a combination of factors absent from the Newsom/Christian case (e.g., scandal, mystery, sexual elements, celebrity involvement, shockingly large numbers of deaths, murders of children and other victims who elicit especial sympathy) that makes them particularly fascinating and compelling to the public at large, such as the still-unsolved murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, the mysterious disappearance (and death) of pregnant Laci Peterson, the massacre of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech, the sexually salacious trial of Jodi Arias for stabbing her boyfriend to death, and the celebrity trial to determine whether actress Lana Clarkson committed suicide or was killed by reclusive record producer Phil Spector.
Last updated: 5 June 2013
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/newsom.asp…
snopes.com: Murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian
http://www.snopes.com
Account describes the rape and murder of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian.
if they had not acted like a bunch of wild animals,the police would not have to use such tactics! Think about it,Idiots!
It is for the better safety of the community and county wide. State Police agencies are a lot more level headed than your “run of the mill” hotheaded city police departments.