Policing Ferguson, Policing America by Thomas Jackson

Author:Thomas Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2017-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Politicians Fiddle while Ferguson Burns

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I’ve been around politicians my entire adult life. I’ve worked hand-in-hand with local mayors and city managers and councilmen and women, state governors and attorneys general, US senators, and other federal officials. I wouldn’t want to make blanket general statements about politicians, any more than I’d want people to do that about cops or protesters or any group of people. There are some rotten apples, and certainly some who always seemed more interested in the game of politics than in the work of government, but most of the politicians I’ve observed on the job seem as serious about their responsibilities as any other professionals I’ve worked with. I will say this, though: they all tend to want to keep their jobs, which means it is very important for them to look good to their constituents.

During the troubles in Ferguson in the summer and fall of 2014, a number of the politicians to whom I felt close absolutely rose to the occasion, doing their level best to support any effort to relieve tensions, restore order and civility, and protect our community for the future. The key players in the Ferguson city government—the city manager, John Shaw, and mayor, Jim Knowles—gave the maximum effort, for which the only reward they received was being slapped down hard by the Department of Justice report. Despite the DOJ’s scathing and biased descriptions, these two men were part of the fabric of Ferguson, popular and respected throughout the different parts of the community, not that it saved them in the end.

Mostly, the politicians in Missouri were unable to provide genuine leadership. They could not find the right balance between effective action and good public relations. To be fair, nobody could. We tend to forget that electing people to high office doesn’t suddenly grant them superhuman wisdom. They’re people like the rest of us, and we have to remember that we were all facing an unprecedented, irrational, and prolonged situation in Ferguson.

On the state level, two key officials—the governor and the state attorney general—consistently proved that they weren’t quite up to the challenges in Ferguson. Jay Nixon, the second-term Democratic governor—mind you, a Democrat from rural Missouri could easily be mistaken for a moderate Republican in the Northeast or on the West Coast—had retained a pretty high level of popularity throughout his productive tenure in office. He would soon be leaving, thanks to term limits, but was thought to be a rising star on the national scene. At the time, Missouri insiders whispered about his being a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton two years down the road. Nixon was ambitious enough to suit those rumors, but although he was a true Missourian, the governor had a reputation for being a little aloof, inaccessible to the state legislature. He was known to work mostly through staff and surrogates. I had occasion to meet with him in a professional capacity in the past, but I doubt he would have remembered any personal connection, given the thousands of people the governor must meet.

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