Only someone who has not read the recent analysis by esteemed Washington Post columnist Dana Millbank, reprinted in last week’s St. Louis American and titled, “Justice is rigged,” would still think it sensible or prudent that Bob McCulloch remain as the prosecutor in the Michael Brown case. Millbank begins his nationally syndicated column, stating: “What happened in Ferguson, Mo. last month was a tragedy. What’s on course to happen there next month will be a farce.”
Millbank then discusses the grand jury process and the police officer “who killed an unarmed black teenager by firing at least six bullets into him,” and says to his worldwide readership about St. Louis: “It’s a good bet the grand jurors won’t charge him, because all signs indicate that the St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, doesn’t want them to.”
The column is nothing less than a scathing indictment of the system of justice here. Millbank goes into McCulloch’s prosecution background and credibility in prosecuting cases of police shootings of blacks – “McCulloch’s office ultimately came up with only one case over 23 years that The Washington Post could verify of the prosecution of a white officer using inappropriate force against a black person” – and then points out his political juice: “But if McCulloch lacks credibility, he apparently has political clout,” noting the support he enjoys from such fellow Democrats as Governor Nixon and Senator McCaskill.
I cannot imagine any objective person reading Millbank’s column and not thinking that there should be a special prosecutor appointed in Michael Brown’s case. I cannot imagine any person who cares about the image of this city not being upset that we are being portrayed to the world by a highly respected journalist as a town still locked into that old Southern racist era when blacks could not look to the local legal system for justice.
Eric E. Vickers is an attorney, organizer and chief of staff for state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed.
