13 Days in Ferguson

by Ron Johnson

  I always felt as if Grandfather Sherman were looking over my shoulder, keeping tabs on me. In a way, I feel he still does.

  When I sat down for my captain’s interview before a panel of seven staff members, the colonel in charge asked me a couple of preliminary questions, and then one of the majors asked me Jim Ripley’s exact question.

  “Why should we pick you?” he asked. “You’ve got only fifteen years on the force.”

  It hit me again.

  Bias.

  In this case, age bias.

  Because I had already thought through the age issue, I was ready to respond. I had to believe that the colonel would recognize the bias, confront it, and hear me out.

  I paused for a count of one . . . two . . . three . . . and then I said, “Sir, I would ask that you not judge me on what my age says I should be, but on what my actions say that I am.”

  “Wow,” someone on the panel blurted out.

  At that moment, I knew they would choose me.

  I found out officially a few hours later, after I arrived home in Kansas City. Lori and I began to make plans to move back to St. Louis, where I would take on the responsibilities of a captain in the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

  At the cemetery, just outside Ferguson, I stand facing my family’s headstone and slowly bow my head. The quiet consumes me, soothes me. I sense the power of these departed souls—my father, my brother—and I feel at peace. A tiny smile lights my face. Eight days into the turmoil in Ferguson, a cemetery has become a place of comfort, just as a bathroom had become my sanctuary.

  My father passed away from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Months after my mom moved him into a nursing home, the disease progressed and he needed to go to the hospital. For days, our family gathered in his hospital room, settling around him. We watched basketball, recalled family stories, remembered the good times, and laughed. How we laughed. There was no sense that this was a deathwatch. The time we spent during my dad’s last days felt upbeat, almost like a warm family get-together. My father appeared completely present and engaged, taking everything in and enjoying—really enjoying—our company. Then, one afternoon, he died of a heart attack.

  After the accident in San Francisco, my dad had learned to live with less than—less than the full ability to walk, less than the ability to play sports with his kids. After the Alzheimer’s took hold, he had to learn how to live with less than the full ability to function mentally.

  Here at the cemetery, looking at his gravestone, I see him the way he was when I was a child, when he was a police officer, when he was the father who played catch with me, when he was that man.

  Now that he has passed on into eternity, I believe he is once again whole.

  I look at my brother’s name on the headstone.

  Bernard.

  I relive the morning of his fatal motorcycle accident. The pain of that day—the physical pain—returns and grips my heart.

  I didn’t see the crash, but I can envision it. I have worked enough motorcycle accidents to recreate the scene in my mind—especially the aftermath: the stillness, the sorrow.

  Nobody knows exactly what happened, but I do know that Bernard was on his bike in the early morning and veered off the road at high speed. And I know he hit something and was killed instantly.

  That morning, a Sunday, my dad called to tell us. He was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and for a moment I thought he had made it up or dreamed Bernard’s accident. But after he broke down in tears, I knew he was telling the truth.

  For months afterward, I was in a numbing state of shock. The grief would hit me in waves, and so many thoughts bored into my brain, along with the inevitable Why? Along with that searing question came the haunting sadness that I never got to say good-bye.

  I tried to lose myself in my work, in gospel music, in sitting by myself and remembering the times we’d had together, in weeping, in spending time with friends and family who knew him and loved him.

  Distracting myself didn’t help. Prayer didn’t help. Nothing helped. I couldn’t find anything to take away the pain.

  One night, I spoke with one of my neighbors, who’s a pastor. He, of course, knew about my brother and asked how I was doing. I told him that I still felt enormous pain. I asked him, “How long is it going to take for me to get over this?”

  My neighbor looked at me and said, “Ron, you’ll never ‘get over it,’ so don’t even try.”

  I needed to accept the grief.

  Allow the pain.

  Realize that I would never get over the pain of my brother’s death.

  I needed to hear that and acknowledge it.

  That knowledge gave me strength.

  And the pastor was right.

  I’ve never gotten over it.

  Seeing that it’s time to get on to work, I whisper thanks to my father and my brother, and I start walking back to my car.

  Though nothing will ever take away the pain, accepting the grief and allowing the pain have shown me this: I am strong enough. I can stand.

  Eleven a.m. We hold the press conference in a local church building, and the meeting room is packed with local and national press and people who’ve spent their days and nights walking the streets of Ferguson protesting, making their voices heard.

  Before Governor Nixon approaches the podium, he whispers to me, “Ron, you did the right thing last night. Don’t think twice about it.”

  “Thank you,” I mumble as the governor moves to the podium.

  He begins by thanking and praising law enforcement. He rushes through a few other sentences to get to the purpose of his appearance today: He is imposing a curfew from midnight until five o’clock tomorrow morning. The crowd in the auditorium roars in disapproval. Many of their words are indecipherable to me, but their emotions are clear: surprise, anger, outrage.

  The governor hastily folds his sheet of paper and nods at me. I take his place at the podium.

  “The governor has enacted a curfew to allow us to provide safety for the citizens of Ferguson, but also to maintain the right of the people,” I say, competing with the crowd to be heard. “We will enforce that curfew in an effort to provide safety and security to the area.”

  I pause several seconds for the crowd to quiet down before I continue.

  “We won’t enforce it with trucks. We won’t enforce it with tear gas. We will communicate. We will talk to you when it’s time to go home.”

  More shouting erupts, the anger now coming hard. I wave my hand, waiting for the shouts to subside.

  “Last night’s events precipitated that response,” I say. “You saw that. You saw that. But I can tell you that tonight, if someone is standing in the street, an armored truck is not going to come out. You saw people sitting in the street. You saw that, too. They will have a chance to get up. And that’s the way it’s going to continue.”

  Sudden applause drowns me out. Stunned, I step back from the podium as the applause builds and fades and people start screaming questions at me. I swivel from one side of the room to the other, trying to hear what people are asking.

  “One question at a time,” I say.

  A broadcaster’s deep voice booms, trampling every other sound in the room. “Were you not aware—even though you are in command—that SWAT teams were being deployed last night?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I was aware.”

  “You gave that order?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you ordered the tear gas?”

  “No.”

  The crowd reacts, roars. The guy with the broadcaster’s voice shouts something I can’t make out about the use of tear gas. I want to respond to him, but he goes off shouting about something else I can’t hear, and then other people scream questions over his. I shake my head and peer in the direction of that booming voice.

  “Can I answer the question?” I say.

  More shouts, and then someone yells, “Let him answer the question.”

  The uproar slowly fade
s and the room goes quiet. The man with the booming voice takes the floor, shushing the crowd. He speaks calmly but pointedly.

  “There are reports that this happened without your knowing it.”

  Amazing, I think. Everyone knows everything and hears everything. Every rumor is scrutinized and analyzed.

  Policing in a fishbowl—that’s what this feels like.

  Maybe that’s what we need.

  I take a breath and count: One . . . two . . . three . . .

  “Last night we had several officers who were trapped in a parking lot,” I say. “They tried to get out. We sent two armored vehicles to help them out. An officer deployed one can of tear gas. One. He was there. He made that decision. I got a call at home and said, ‘I am back en route.’ I got out of my bed and I went back. I said to the officer, ‘Make sure we don’t use any more tear gas. Do not use any that is not necessary.’ That is what I said.”

  A rush of questions rise, overlap, and veer off into muddled shouts. I pick up only scattered words: “rubber bullets,” “tear gas,” “Darren Wilson,” “curfew,” “tear gas,” “tear gas,” “tear gas . . .”

  Overwhelmed, I step to the side. Someone takes my place at the podium and indicates that the news conference has come to an end. With an uproar at my back, I join a scrum of officers heading out the door toward cars that will take us to the command post. As soon as we step outside, the officers begin to attack me with their questions, their accusations.

  “Why did you tell them you weren’t going to deploy tear gas?” one of the commanders asks.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  I know what I said: I wouldn’t enforce the curfew with tear gas.

  My intention felt clear to me. If protesters or looters don’t comply with the curfew, or if they break the law, I will do what I have to do.

  “You said you were not deploying tear gas,” the commander insists.

  I sigh, the weight of this moment crushing me.

  “That’s not what I said.”

  I take another breath, and then I explain.

  “If the behavior is correct and nobody is causing any issues, I will not be using tear gas. I thought that was clear. I think everyone got that.”

  “You know, Ron, I’m supporting you,” the commander says, his eyes aflame. “But you’re making it hard.”[5]

  I cruise Ferguson with CNN’s Don Lemon, who interviews me as we ride through town. Don talks about doing a special hour devoted to Ferguson, focusing on how the community responds to the police. I think that story should be told. Still, I feel guarded, uncomfortable. I focus my attention on doing my job, trying to forget about the microphone wired to my shirt and the camera shadowing my every move.

  This, too, is part of the job, I tell myself.

  I walk along West Florissant past the concrete slab of the former QuikTrip. Don Lemon trails me, just out of camera range. At my suggestion, the city has erected a chain-link fence around the site to prevent looters from congregating here and claiming this spot as some kind of shrine or testament to violence. As I walk by on the sidewalk, an elderly woman in a splashy pink pantsuit, carrying a matching pink umbrella to protect herself from the brutal rays of the midday sun, approaches me. We talk briefly and she smiles warmly, almost lovingly. As she continues on her way, she stops for a moment and turns back.

  “I just wanted to come over and holler at you,” she says.

  “Well, I’m glad you did. Feels good just to be able to walk out here and relax and be in the neighborhood, doesn’t it?”

  “It feels safe,” she says. “I’ve been living in this neighborhood forever, and this is the first time I’ve ever felt this safe.”

  “A new day is coming,” I say, surprised at how passionate I sound.

  Don and I continue to walk. He asks me a few questions along the way, but mostly we just observe. We come to a row of burned-out and boarded-up storefronts on West Florissant. Outside, on a short concrete wall, a group of young men and a couple of young women in their late teens or early twenties sit and look off, trying to appear nonchalant, cool, and disinterested. As Don and I and the cameraman approach, I say hello and shake their hands. Don smiles, puts his hands on his hips, and says to the group, “How you doing?”

  One of the young men says to me, “Can I get my picture taken with you?”

  “Sure.”

  “So,” Don says, the bright sun causing him to squint, “the police don’t really get out and mingle with you guys, do they?”

  “No, they don’t,” a young man in a tank top replies in a muted, nearly inaudible voice.

  The guy next to him, wearing a T-shirt and a baseball cap turned backward and tilted, says in a bold voice, “The only time they come out here is when they lock us up or something. Let me tell you like this . . .”

  He cocks his head at the kid in the tank top.

  “Me and him are standing in front of my house about a month ago. I see a police car go past, up the street. I knew he was gonna come back. He came back about two minutes later. He said—”

  “‘Was we smoking marijuana—’” Tank Top jumps into the conversation.

  “‘—over at some apartment complex?’” Baseball Cap says. “I was like, ‘No, we just stepped outside my house.’ We were three blocks away from where he was talking about.”

  Don Lemon nods and says, “You don’t feel that police officer is part of the community . . .”

  “No, I don’t,” Tank Top replies.

  “Not at all,” Baseball Cap chimes in. “All they want to do is take us in. Get us off the streets.”

  A young man I haven’t seen before—shirtless, wearing a long, bushy goatee—says, “The thing is, you all probably heard this from Mom or Grandma or somebody: How you approach somebody is how they’ll approach you back.”

  I nod in recognition of the truth. “There you go,” I say.

  The shirtless young man says, “How you come to somebody is what make us go, ‘Hold on, why you coming at me like that? Why you grabbing on me? Can you explain to me what I did? What was the reason you’re messing with me in the first place?’ If I’m on the sidewalk, he could’ve said, ‘You’re on the sidewalk.’ Whatever the reason is, he could’ve got out of his car and approached me like a man instead of cursing. Why couldn’t he be, ‘Listen, young man, let me talk to you for a second.’ I might stop and listen to what you got to say. But if you jump out at me with animosity and stuff like that? I’m gonna make you do your job today.”

  Don Lemon takes this in. “So if an officer approaches you with respect, you will respond with respect.”

  “Yeah,” says the shirtless young man. “They’re approaching us like we already committed a violent crime. Or like you caught me selling dope or something. You pulled me over, why? Because my pants were sagging?”

  The shirtless young man stands up to demonstrate.

  “If he says, ‘Could you pull them up?’ I say, ‘I can pull them up, officer, no problem’ instead of ‘Pull them up! PULL THEM UP!’”

  The shirtless young man sits back down on the low concrete wall. He looks me in the eye. I see frustration. I see resignation.

  Nothing’s gonna change.

  He doesn’t speak the words, but I see it in his face.

  He shakes his head, sadly. When he speaks now I hear pain.

  “Man, look,” he says.

  Look.

  See me.

  Look.

  That is what so many young people of color feel.

  To the police, they are either committing a crime . . . or they’re invisible.

  Strangely, the exchange with these young men fills me with hope. When we get back in the car, with the camera rolling, Don leans over the backseat and says, “That was good. I think they heard you. One guy even took his picture with you.”

  I stare out the window.

  “This is what we should have been doing all along,” I say.

  As the afternoo
n heats up, I walk. The sweat pours through me. My shirt sticks to my skin. I feel raw and grimy. A woman runs out of the crowd and hands me a bottle of water. I thank her and slug it down. I keep walking. I shake hands with countless people. I hug some. Several people call my name. Several more clap for me. At one point, a man walks alongside me for several minutes.

  “All this here,” he says, “feels like a fraternity.”

  He says he felt the same way in college when he joined Kappa Alpha Psi, a black fraternity, one of nine historic black fraternities and sororities known as the Divine Nine.

  “I was in Kappa Alpha Psi,” I say, laughing.

  We stop on the street and pose, flashing the Kappa Alpha Psi hand signals, sharing a goofy, incongruous moment in the middle of a protest march. The CNN camera records us. People snap our picture with their phones. People immediately post the pictures on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The posts go viral.

  An hour later, I’m buried by a storm of hatred.

  “Captain Johnson posed with a protester, flashing gang signs.”

  That’s what they’re saying.

  What’s worse is what I hear from several police officers.

  “I knew it,” a cop mutters as I walk by.

  I hear worse. Much worse.

  “Oh, I really want to do a special about this,” Don Lemon says as we drive.

  “No,” I say. “Don’t make a big deal about it. Let it fade away.”

  I say that, but I don’t believe it will.

  The Saturday swelter burns into evening. My legs feel like lead. My back aches. Today I feel as if everything has piled on, one thing after another—the curfew, the news conference, the fraternity signs mistaken for gang signs. The NAACP and other groups rail against the curfew, calling it unfair and discriminatory. Several officers keep a running, nasty dialogue with me about not planning to deploy tear gas. Other officers don’t want to deal with me at all and simply walk away. And even though I explain repeatedly that I flashed fraternity signs and not gang signs, and several other people, including newscasters, confirm this, I continue to receive icy, hateful stares from officers in my own command.