Pres. Obama's Task Force: The Battle for the Public Trust begins...

By Charles Brooks

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

The interim report recently released by President Obama’s task force on policing will shed some light on their view of the public trust - a view that is not shared by those who seek more than just a laundry list of recommendations to address police violence.  The report was released just days before the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report of their investigation into the Ferguson Police Department – a flashpoint of racial frustrations and deep seated tensions unleashed in the face of aggressive and excessive policing.  A rather scathing report that detailed the apparent racist activities engaged not just by the Ferguson police officers but the Ferguson municipal government. However, the explosiveness of DOJ’s Ferguson report on the Ferguson Police Department should not be allowed to overshadow the president’s task force interim report because as the president himself said: “This time will be different,” President Obama said, regarding the effectiveness of the task force compared to prior ones, “because the President of the United States is deeply vested in making it different.”

Where will the next Ferguson uprising take place?

By Charles Brooks

Michael Brown has finally been laid to rest after he was gunned down two weeks ago by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9th.  You can only imagine what his parents, family, friends and those who knew him – have gone through in the last two weeks since that fateful day on August 9th.  Just like that, after an encounter with the police, his parents now have to deal with the grief and numbing sadness that comes with having to bury their 18 year old son.

Who would have thought or even have the foresight to see Michael Brown's murder – the death of yet another unarmed black youth by the hands of a police officer – as the trigger to a rebellious uprising in Ferguson? Who would have believed Brown’s death would peel back another scab of American hypocrisy for all to witness the bubbling infectious sore of American apartheid, racism, and social inequality?  Ferguson has clearly become a flashpoint where racial frustrations and deep seated tensions were unleashed in the face of aggressive and provocative policing.  Within hours after  Brown’s murder, the state response to the rebellious uprising quickly escalated into a domestic military operation – complete with the deployment of the National Guard.