13 Days in Ferguson

by Ron Johnson

  I think about the group of young men that Don Lemon and I spoke to during those days in Ferguson, who talked about being targeted by police just because they were black. I think about the students I spoke to at Riverview Gardens High, my old high school, who told me how they feared the police, how they believed the police thought they were above the law. I read the article in the newspaper again and see that the investigation conducted hundreds of interviews and looked at thirty-five thousand pages of police reports.

  The report’s conclusions take my breath away.

  On March 11, 2015, one week after the Department of Justice report comes out, Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson resigns. His resignation sparks a rally outside the police station. Many of the people assemble peacefully, but others, perhaps enraged at learning that Chief Jackson will receive a full-year’s salary and benefits, scream and taunt the police, other protesters, and the media.

  When the DOJ report comes out, I take some heat. I absorb criticism for not spending enough time at the command post and for spending too much time talking with the media. Critics pile on, saying there didn’t seem to be any “direction” and that I didn’t completely follow the prescribed guidelines.

  “We should rebut this,” a colonel in the Patrol says to me.

  “Does it matter?” I ask. “I stand by what I did.”

  Thankfully, we can say that after Michael Brown’s death, we had no other fatalities. And overall, Ferguson experienced minor property damage—at least compared to the devastation years ago in Watts and Detroit, and in South Central Los Angeles after the Rodney King beating.

  As far as the NIMS guidelines, I hadn’t seen any that really applied to Ferguson, that mentioned empathy or connecting with the community or listening—really listening—to what people were desperately trying to say.

  I saw no mention of humanity. Or heart.

  Those were the strategies I used.

  I know police tactics. I know how to fight. Those tactics did not apply. Maybe I did break the rules. But maybe we need new rules, new guidelines.

  I make no excuses.

  I have no regrets.

  I’m not going to debate or defend what I did.

  But if—God forbid—we ever find ourselves facing another Ferguson, I would do exactly the same thing: I would go out on the street, and I would walk.

  Baltimore. New York. Cleveland. Dallas. Minneapolis. Memphis. Cincinnati.

  It doesn’t end.

  It doesn’t stop.

  Every news report from every city mentions Ferguson, compares that city to Ferguson. Every city becomes Ferguson. Ferguson becomes more than a place. Sadly, Ferguson becomes a condition.

  I hear talk about remaking the Ferguson Police Department and retraining police in general. I hear discussions about issuing body cameras to every police officer on patrol. Someone asks me how I feel about that idea.

  “That’s all fine,” I say. “But we have to do more. We have to retrain ourselves as human beings.”

  I believe that, with all my heart.

  We need to change the core of who we are. We need to change people’s points of view. We have to alter our behavior. And we have to start this training when people are young, when they are children. Children don’t come into the world with biases. When I say baby steps, we need to put the emphasis on both words.

  See people as people.

  Start there.

  Abandon labels.

  Try not to prejudge—no matter what you may think of people by their appearance.

  Early in my career, I arrested a guy and took him in to fill out the appropriate paperwork. Going through the forms, I arrived at a question that asked if there were any identifying tattoos. I felt dumb asking that question because I could see he had a tattoo on his back, snaking up his neck from beneath his shirt.

  “No,” the man said, squirming in his chair. “No tattoos.”

  I started to laugh. “Hey, I can see you have a tattoo.”

  “Oh. Okay. Yeah.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  He hesitated and then pulled down his shirt to show me. I couldn’t see the entire tattoo, but I clearly saw the letters KKK.

  “Look,” he said, his face reddening as he struggled to explain, “I know what you’re thinking—”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “What?”

  “It’s all right. You don’t have to explain.”

  He looked confused as I went on to the next question. We continued filling out the forms, and as we did, we began talking casually, one person to another. When I finished the intake procedure, the man looked at me earnestly.

  “Listen, about my tattoo—”

  He stopped as once again he searched to find the right words. Finally, he took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, “Thank you for not judging me. Thank you for treating me like a person.”

  I’m asked to speak to police officers in training. Standing in front of a group of trainees in a classroom, I share a story from Ferguson.

  “During one of the days of chaos, I spot a trooper leading a man he’s arrested for disorderly conduct and failing to disperse. The trooper has the man’s hands handcuffed behind his back. The man’s young son follows them both and begins to imitate his dad. The young boy sticks his hands behind his back and pretends that he, too, has been handcuffed.”

  I pause to allow this image to sink in.

  “I walk over to the trooper and tell him to take the handcuffs off the man and let him go. He hesitates. I can see he’s upset with me, but I outrank him. After a few seconds, he takes off the guy’s cuffs and joins another trooper watching us on the sidewalk. The guy who was arrested stands off to the side, rubbing his wrists. I go over to him, pull him a few feet away, and say to him, quietly, ‘Is this what you want to teach your son? Is this what you want him to see? He’s modeling his dad. He wants to be like you. He shouldn’t be out here. Take him home.’”

  I pause to gauge the response of the officers in the room. Half the trainees look appalled; the other half look confused.

  “I walk over to the trooper who made the arrest and the other trooper he’s standing with. I could see they were upset with me for letting the guy go. ‘I know you guys don’t agree with me,’ I say. They don’t respond, but they don’t have to. They’re obviously angry. And then I ask, ‘Do you guys have sons?’”

  The officers in training rustle in their seats. They didn’t expect me to ask the troopers this question.

  “The troopers tell me they both have sons. I say to them, my eyes going from one to the other, ‘When you go home tonight, I want you to look at your sons and ask yourselves if you would want them to see you the way this young boy was seeing his dad.’ And then I say, ‘When you guys come back to work tomorrow, if you disagree with what I’ve done, I want you to go to my boss and tell him. Tell him how you feel.’”

  I begin hearing another sound in the room—the sound of choked-back tears.

  “The next morning I come into work, and I see those troopers. They come up to me, both of them, and they say, ‘I understand. Thank you.’”

  We rarely learn from lectures.

  We learn from our stories.

  We are our stories.

  August 2015.

  One year after Michael Brown was killed, here’s what I hear:

  “We don’t trust the police.”

  “We need the police.”

  Two separate screams.

  I see Michael Brown’s mother at an event honoring mothers who’ve lost sons to violence. I see her interact with some of the other mothers.

  The loss of a child. The loss of a son. As members of an exclusive and terrible club, these women share a pain both unfathomable and unbearable. The pain rips a piece of their soul.

  When I have the opportunity, I approach Michael Brown’s mother. We talk quietly and warmly, and then we hug. As we do, I feel that she—and Ferguson itself—has at least taken a small step toward some form of healing.


  I also meet with Michael Brown’s father. He, too, has started to come out into the community. When we talk, I don’t expect too much—I can’t expect anything—but I feel that with him, too, healing has begun.

  Tiny steps.

  Inch by inch . . .

  On the Saturday of the one-year anniversary, a large group of people walk to the high school that Michael Brown attended. I join the march. Over and over people say to me, “I want to believe we’re moving forward. I want to believe that.”

  Wanting to believe. I think that even wanting to believe means we have moved forward. That itself is a type of action. A type of faith.

  The Highway Patrol has assigned some troopers to be part of this parade, along with officers from the St. Louis County Police Department. We drive along the route in John Deere Gators, passing out bottles of water and Popsicles to the marchers. The crushing Missouri heat punishes the parade marchers, but the water and Popsicles give everyone a boost.

  “You can do it,” I shout to a couple of marchers who have slowed down and are beginning to fade.

  “How about a ride?” one of them says to the trooper riding next to me. The trooper laughs and reaches out his hand.

  A year ago, this trooper may have been standing on this same street wearing riot gear. Instead of Gators, we saw armored vehicles; burning buildings; SWAT; smoke bombs; tear gas.

  I’m not saying we’ve come far.

  But we have come somewhere.

  Baby steps.

  Inches.

  In the years since I bore responsibility for security in Ferguson, I’ve thought a lot about the importance of media. The media bear the responsibility to report what happens to people in this country, to show the truth. During the events in Ferguson, we in law enforcement didn’t always trust the media. Frankly, police in urban settings often hesitate to cooperate fully with the media because we’re afraid we’ll be shown in a bad light. Now that everyone has a phone with a camera, some police have reason to be nervous.

  We still need to do a better job of integrating police into our communities. It’s the only way out of this. Policing is personal. It has to be. The police need to go into those neighborhoods where we might find ourselves unwelcome. We have to get past those barriers and devote ourselves to being involved in the community. We need to get to know the people we serve and protect. We have to police poor communities the same way we police rich communities. The police need to be present, engaged, and seen.

  I still walk. I still make myself present. I shake hands; I ask people about their day; I hug people.

  I walk over to one guy and I start to hug him.

  “Hey, I’m dirty. I just got off work,” he says, laughing.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m gonna hug you anyway.”

  And I do.

  I pray differently now.

  I don’t ask.

  I simply give thanks—for Lori and my kids, for my mom and my sister, and for all the people in my life. I give thanks for the strength to pick myself up when I fall, and for the faith that powers my life.

  I visit my dad and Bernard at the cemetery, and I give thanks to them. I thank them for all they’ve given me. I thank them for everything.

  And I thank God for giving me the strength to face tomorrow.

  We have a long way to go, I know that, but I believe in tomorrow.

  That’s what I believe in most of all.

  Tomorrow.

  A new day.

  Another chance.

  I speak to a group of students at Lipscomb University in Nashville. I speak intimately about my faith. The three days I spend with these students move me deeply. I learn much more than I teach.

  “Sometimes we shy away from talking about our faith in public, or even with our friends,” I say. “I can tell you, I used to be one of those guys. And then Ferguson happened. Those days allowed me to reach deep inside me and find a depth of faith I never knew I had.”

  I pause and scan the faces of the students looking raptly at me. The only sound I hear is the pulse of my own heart.

  “We had briefings before we started our day,” I say, my voice dipping just above a hush. “The first day I took over, I told all the police officers gathered there that we were going to pray. A chaplain started the prayer, and I could see that some of the policemen didn’t close their eyes. I heard mumbling. Grumbling. I heard someone say, ‘This guy can’t make me pray.’ And I heard worse.”

  I smile, remembering, envisioning the faces of some of those policemen.

  “As the days went on, something happened during that morning prayer. More and more police officers closed their eyes—until finally one day I saw that every eye was closed, every police officer praying. And then I saw tears coming down their faces.”

  Before me, some of the students begin to cry.

  Faith, it seems, is infectious.

  I began with a story of being guilty of bias. I end with a story of being a victim of bias.

  One Friday night, Lori and I splurged and went out to a fancy restaurant. After dinner, I took a different route home.

  “Where are you going?” Lori asked.

  “I decided tomorrow’s the day I get started on those house projects I promised you,” I said. “I want to see what time the hardware store opens in the morning.”

  I drove into the hardware store’s parking lot, slowed the car in front of the store, and peered at the store’s hours printed on the door. When I had the information I needed, I drove slowly out of the parking lot.

  As soon as we reached the street, a police car rolled up behind us and flashed its lights. I pulled over. I heard the thump of the police officer’s boots on the pavement before I actually saw him. I lowered my window and smiled at the officer. Big guy. Strapping. All business. White.

  “Good evening, officer.”

  “Good evening.” He eyed me and Lori, then scanned the inside of the car, training his eyes on the back seat. He looked back at me—I was wearing a suit and tie and Lori was in an evening dress.

  “I’m wondering why you pulled into that parking lot,” he said.

  I tried not to laugh.

  Here we have two people north of forty years old, dressed up for the evening, driving in a freshly washed, late-model car, with no sign of burglary tools or ski masks in the backseat, and I have to wonder, Does he think we were casing the hardware store? Really?

  Then, as if he were reading my mind or trying to justify why he pulled us over, he said, “We’ve had some thefts in the area.”

  Now I did laugh.

  “Officer, we’re coming from dinner. This is my wife. I was checking to see what time the store opened—”

  Still all business, still eyeing us with what I sense is a trace of suspicion, he won’t let it go.

  “This store has been broken into several times.”

  Now, I know he didn’t pull us over because we’re black.

  I do believe that.

  But once you saw we were black, you thought we were casing the store, didn’t you?

  I don’t say that.

  I don’t want to believe that.

  After he saw how we were dressed, how we behaved, and heard why we pulled in front of the hardware store, he should have acted differently. He should have realized we weren’t thieves. He might have apologized. We might have shared a laugh.

  Would he have acted differently if we were white?

  James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”[14]

  We all have to face our biases.

  Only then will things change.

  August 2017.

  Hope will arise—from our pain, from our distrust, from our sorrow, from our ashes.

  On the site of the former QuikTrip, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and the town of Ferguson built a gleaming new youth center, the Ferguson Community Empowerment Center. Its purpose is to provide job training and placement services.
/>   I attend the dedication ceremony, along with hundreds of others. As I walk into the building, I see a bench with a plaque in memory of Michael Brown and pause to read the inscription. Inside the foyer, a collage of photographs covers an entire wall. Riveted, I follow the photos upward, and there I see . . . myself.

  In uniform.

  Peering off slightly, my jaw clenched in determination.

  I could interpret the look on my face in many ways: I could be looking at a crowd of protesters. I could be taking a moment to pray. I could be talking to my dad.

  I stare into my own eyes and realize that I will live here forever, part of the fabric of this community; a fixture of its past, present, and future.

  Today, Ferguson lives within me, a breathing piece of my heart. An attitude. A part of who I am. Part of my definition.

  I don’t walk as much now. West Florissant is not by nature a walking street. So I drive. But I remain present. I get out of my car and I speak to residents. I interact. I acknowledge people’s continuing struggles and concerns. Most of all, I try to listen.

  As I wait at a stoplight one day, a young man on a bicycle leads his two kids on their bikes across the street. I roll down my window and call to the young dad.

  “Hey.”

  The young man stops.

  I smile at him. “I just want to say that I like seeing this. I’m proud of you. You’re a good dad.”

  “Thank you,” he says. “You made my day.”