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December 18, 2014
The All-Too Familiar American Narrative: Justice is too Scary! Witness 40 in Ferguson, USA
By Dr. Lenore Daniels
Commentary on the recent The Smoking Gun report and revelations about Witness 40/ the Ferguson grand jury.
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At a pro-Wilson Facebook, on September 13, 2014, nearly a month after police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot the unarmed 18-year old, Michael Brown, Witness 40 "posted a graphic" image. It is the image of Brown lying dead on the pavement, and the type overlay reads: "Michael Brown already received justice. So please, stop asking for it."
Here is Witness 40, Sandra McElroy, 45-years old, who, according to The Smoking Gun, testified at the grand jury that Brown "'bent down in a football position...and began to charge at the officer.'"
Before we dismiss her as a "troubled, bipolar" woman with "a criminal past"--remember, her testimony was permissible and aided in the exoneration of Brown's murderer. Think about this!
On several occasions, McElroy made allegations to the police which police latter determined were "complete fabrications," writes reporters William Bastone, Andrew Goldberg, and Joseph Jesselli, in their article "'Witness 40': Exposing A Fraud in Ferguson."
Here is McElroy commenting at her YouTube page (now deleted) about a missing white woman. The woman "had a baby with a black man." McElroy's response: "'see what happens when you bed down with a monkey have apes and party with them.'"
McElroy has a "history of making racist remarks and once insinuated herself into another high-profile St. Louis criminal case with claims that police eventually dismissed as a 'complete fabrication,'" again.
And yet, it is this woman who is allowed to testify for the officer who murdered Michael Brown. It is here testimony heard at that Ferguson grand jury and her testimony heard globally thanks to corporate-owned news anchors who imparted the news, that is, the image of Michael Brown supplied to them by Sandra McElroy.
The corporate media's overlay of the image of a dead, shot down, Black, unarmed18-year, echoes McElroy's Facebook posting: he charged Officer Wilson "'like a football player, head down.'"
"She saw Michael Brown pummel a cop before charging him," according to The Smoking Gun.
He "'looked like he was on something.'"
"'Grunting.'"
Twelve panelist on the grand jury listened to McElroy. The FBI interviewed her. She "appeared, and under oath, regaled the jurors with her eyewitness claims." That is, as the reporters at The Smoking Gun write, "despite an abundance of red flags, state prosecutors put McElroy in front of the Ferguson grand jury the day after her meeting with the federal officials."
So, ultimately, Sandra McElroy, with a criminal past, a bipolar disorder, and a history of "racial animus" is permitted in words to condone and to exalt the murder of Blacks committed by a militarized police force and the exoneration of any responsibility on the part of that police force.
I was there. I saw the monster rise up!
Perhaps she did!
Sandra McElroy lied to the police and to the Ferguson grand jury. Her lie became the lie proliferated all through the corporate media and set in the minds of millions of Americans sounding legitimate and comfortable. Familiar. Well, yes. Why not?
Perhaps she did see a monster that night--but she, according to the article, waited for a month to reveal her "eyewitness" account of the encounter between Brown and Wilson. McElroy went to the authorities one month later: listen I have a story to tell. I was there!
She has a journal to prove it. She took notes that night!
Why is she at the scene, a white woman in Ferguson, at the scene? McElroy says she was lost. She wanted to see an old friend, lost her way, of course, she forgot her cell phone, and there is Wilson and Brown just as she began to smoke a cigarette and ask for directions.
McElroy told the grand jury that she "watched as Brown leaned into the car and began raining punches on the cop."
But she waits a whole month before coming forward!
It is a good chance that Sandra McElroy never saw Wilson or Brown in reality. Never saw the confrontation. But like any good American, law-abiding American, hard-working American, she could imagine such a confrontation between the police, Wilson, fearful for his life, and the Black, "hulk," Michael Brown. The corporate media would have helped her and her fellow citizens out with the usual spin about all "evil doers" in the world, and she would have her story. Write it down. Mull it over some more and come running to the authorities a month later.
Save us from those "monkeys" she could not even bring herself to see Blacks as humans, but referred to us as "niggers."
Sandra McElroy is but one example of the parity between white and Black life in the US. The same system of injustice grants white America the right to speak (and lie, if need be) while it takes away Black rights to live.
Something demonic rose up that night. It rises everyday and stays awake every night. It never rests nor sleeps. It is something disturbing in the person of a Sandra McElroy or a Darren Wilson or any "politely" cordial neighbor or co-worker or any flag-waving, good-American patriot. It is something dismissed as inconsequential, to be avoided, hushed up, even while it continues to sway the one dismissing, one avoiding, and the one begging for silence, please!
It is always a fabrication--but with real consequences to its victims--even to those who employ it, as did McElroy, Wilson, the prosecutor's, the corporate media, to assure themselves that the use of violence is necessary when the demonic rises.
Unfortunately, how does a country, proclaiming to be a just nation, yet, always finding itself confronted with charges of injustice--violence--how does this country that can only respond to every national and international demand from the Black and Brown to be treated as human beings with violence, how does such a country begin to recognize the origins of its demonic hauntings?
Justice is scary!
Activist, writer, American Modern Literature, Cultural Theory, PhD.