Local community tackles issues surrounding Ferguson
Residents of Ferguson, Mo., advocate for change in policing practices and justice for Michael Brown after he was shot and killed in the street by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9,2014.
BY CLARE FORRISTER
Staff Writer
At approximately 12:01 p.m. on Aug. 9,18-year-old Michael
Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson.
Even now as the United States, including Greensboro,
reacts to Brown's death and decides what it means for the
coimtry, the sounds of those six gunshots reverberate.
Wilson is under investigation, but at present, the details of
the encounter remain dubious.
Eyewitness accounts have provided conflicting
information, and no conclusive proof has emerged as to
whether Brown provoked the officer physically or submitted
with his hands in the air.
Regardless of what really happened, the effects of Brown's
death on the nation are undeniable. Himdreds of protestors
gathered on the streets of Ferguson claiming that the officer's
behavior was a result of prejudice against Brown as a black
male.
Now the protests have died down, but the conversations
sparked nationwide about police brutality, profiling and
accountability have not.
Guilford College held a panel on community and police
accountability on Sept. 5 in the community center. The
panelists covered the events in Ferguson and the importance
of police accountability in Greensboro.
At the panel, James Shields, director of the Bonner Center
for Community Service, related his first encotmter with a
police officer when he was a teenager. He was pulled over.
and the police officer reached for his gxm despite the fact
Shields had done nothing wrong.
"(I began to understand) what it means to be a black man
in America," said Shields. 'To actually have it happen to me
... (I really felt) as if my life was in danger."
Barbara Lawrence, associate professor of justice and policy
studies, spoke on the panel from her experience as a former
police officer, explaining the rules of engagement. According
to Lawrence, officers are trained in protocols to de-escalate
situations, but problems persist.
"One of the problems that we see consistently across the
country ... is consistent patterns of blatant racial profiling
that have a serious impact on communities of color," said
Lawrence. "At some point, we have to find better ways to
find police officers more accoimtable."
Will Pizio, associate professor of justice and policy studies,
disagreed with the panelists about the extent of police
misconduct.
"PoHce brutality, contrary to popular opinion, is a very
rare occurrence," said Pizio. "Is it a problem? Yes. Are there
policies in place to prevent that excessive force? Absolutely.
Body cameras, dash cams, recording devices, civilian
review, internal affairs, all those types of things .... Police
accoimtability is probably at its best right now."
Pizio claims that profiling is rare as well.
"If you deny that racial profiling occurs, then you're living
in a hole somewhere. But most of the cops out there are law-
abiding. They're honest. They're trying to do the right thing."
However, Pizio did comment lhat the police can always
do better.
"The police in Greensboro have had problems regarding
accountability for years," said Pizio. However, the outgoing
police chief, Ken Miller, has made progress by listening to
concerns and making internal efforts for accountability.
For instance, supervisors are now held accoimtable for the
misconduct of the officers.
Greensboro residents, both within the police department
and outside it, are making efforts' to fe^rove pdlice
accountability.
Two of the speakers from Friday's panel serve on an interim
citizens' police review committee: David Allen, a community
organizer at Beloved Community Center, and Lawrence.
Lawrence expects that the committee, once established
permanently, will make a difference in police accountability
in Greensboro.
"Folks in the community will be able to have an unbiased
look at some of these complaints," said Lawrence.
However, she commented that this cannot occur unless
the pohce cooperate with the committee.
No matter to what extent police are abusing their power,
all sides seem to agree that improvement is needed.
As Allen pointed out, major change starts when people
work on issues locally, which is more successful than leaving
Greensboro to protest in Ferguson.
As panelist Lorenzo Meachum explained, though
Greensboro is victim to "white, patriarchal domination" —
like the rest of the country — Guilford has the possibility to
bring change.
Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and similar gronps tnm to the Internet for recmitment
BY CARLTON SKINNER
Staff Writer
The recent explosion of popularity
and use of social media and networking
websites like Twitter and Facebook, has
completely altered the way information
spreads across the globe. However, whether
or not this change is a good or bad thing
remains to be seen.
"Any change of this magnitude has
positive and negative aspects," said Diane
Norman, the managing editor for the
Hendersonville Times-News. "I think it is
wonderful that people, in what we consider
to be (developing nations) countries or
oppressed societies, can now communicate
with the outside world, (but) these
communications have the potential to be
tools of terror."
Indeed, three years ago, the United
States' Department of Homeland Security
made the discovery that Jihadi militants
had begun attempting to recruit new
fighters to their cause via avenues such as
Twitter and Facebook. In addition to being
the tools of violent organizations, al-Qaeda
and Taliban fighters are now maintaining
an active web presence. Some fighters
even have followers who number in the
thousands.
Through romanticized tweets espousing
the ideals and goals of these groups, as
well as other visual propaganda such as
photographs of masked fighters armed with
machine guns, groups like al-Qaeda hope
to entice young American sympathizers.
In an interview with NPR in Dec. 2011,
William McCants, from the Center of Naval
Analyses, stated that these attempts were
an interesting new outlet for terrorist
groups but that ultimately, they appeared
to be a complete disaster for them as well.
However Dina Temple-Raston, NPR's
counter-terrorism correspondent, said
terror groups are less interested in
pinpointing recruits than broadcasting
information across the Internet where many
more potential fighters may see it.
"It's not about accuracy. It's about
'immediacy," said Temple-Raston.
Whether or not these tactics are successful,
the questions remain. Do websites like these
have an ethical responsibility to uphold? Or
should Twitter and Facebook be monitoring
and alerting the United States government
to activity such as al-Qaeda recruiting on
the web?
Opinions on this issue are mixed.
"Yes, I think that they do have an ethical
responsibility to make it harder for terrible
people with odious viewpoints to use their
sites to attract and encourage likeminded
people," said Vance Ricks, associate
professor of philosophy. "But I'm really not
sure that I'm right about that."
"After all, to whom would they have
that responsibility? Would it be to the other
users and account holders? Would it be to
the governments of the countries where
the jihadist fighters and organizers live or
fight? Would it be to humanity at large?
Would it be to their own vision of the kind
of space they want to create?"
Some feel that monitoring and reporting
suspicious activity online would be an
infringement of our First Amendment
rights.
"Facebook and Twitter are like AT&T
— they carry the signals," said Norman.
"I don't think it's appropriate in our free
society for these communications to be
screened or censored. (It is) incumbent of
the users to behave in an ethical manner. It
isn't the government's duty."
On the other hand, some people feel
differently about censorship and the
government's role in this process.
"Tm all for the First Amendment, free
speech and all, but neither Facebook,
Twitter or the Department of Homeland
Security are doing their jobs effectively if
they are not policing the web for this sort
of thing," said Erin Skinner, a senior web
analyst with ROI Revolution.
"Users of these websites are not the
ones with an ethical responsibility. The
government is the one who should be on
the look out."
With the recent growth of groups like the
Islamic State and their sophisticated use of
social media, the government may have to
make their decision — whatever it may be
— very soon.