The Gantt Report
Fear in Ferguson
By Lucius Gantt
    Donât be surprised at the recent Grand Jury findings in Ferguson, Missouri. If you are in America, wherever Black people live, they live in âFergusonâ!
A grand jury is a legal body that is empowered to conduct official proceedings to investigate potential criminal conduct and to determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may compel the production of documents and may compel the sworn testimony of witnesses to appear before it. A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning.
Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearings. Grand juries perform both accusatory and investigatory functions. The investigatory functions of the grand jury include obtaining and reviewing documents and other evidence and hearing the sworn testimony of witnesses that appear before it. The grand juryâs accusatory function is to determine whether or not there is probable cause to believe that one or more persons committed a certain offense within the venue of the district court. The âgrand juryâ in the United States is composed of 16 to 23 citizens.
In other words, grand juries almost always find the indictment or non-indictment that prosecutors want them to find!
Grand jurors are not selected the same way trial jurors are selected. The devilish suggestion that grand juries are groups of randomly selected, fair and impartial citizens is more joke than justice!
How many times have you served on a grand jury? Who do you know that has served on a grand jury?
When was the last time a grand jury was needed to investigate whether any person of color, Black, brown, red or beige, should be indicted to face charges for killing a scary white person?
The Ferguson lawman that murdered Michael Brown in Missouri was not indicted by a grand jury because he was without blame in the deadly encounter between a white man and a Black teen. He was not indicted because he was white. And, unarmed, defenseless Michael Brown was shot multiple times because he was Black!
Any time a white cop wants to shoot a Black, Hispanic or another person of color all he has to do is say he was âafraidâ or he was âattackedâ!
In 1989, I was charged with Felony Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer. A North Florida cop told a Court of Law that I attacked him and beat him so severely the cop had to have neurosurgery. I believe I would have been shot dead myself if there were not so many African Americans that witnessed the whole confrontation.
There was no grand jury verdict for Lucius Gantt. I was taken straight to jail and handcuffed to the jail bars, torture-style!
Police are told when to and how to lie by legal counsel to prevent law suits and subsequent damages to government and government budgets.
And, to me, whatâs worse is the âcode of silenceâ where officers look the other way or cover up crimes when unjust arrests or wrongful killings of suspects take place.
I donât think you can march away police misconduct that takes place in Black communities. Prayer is good but God helps mistreated people that help themselves!
I have no idea what happens now in Ferguson but I do know some Blacks in Missouri. The Missouri Blacks that I know are scared! Not just afraid of cops, they are timid in general.
They are slow to respond, reluctant to stand up and speak out and have little desire to fight for their children and their community.
Victims and parents typically say that Black community violence is not the answer but history says the opposite.
There is no one on earth more violent than the American white man and no one more violent in Americaâs Black neighborhoods than the white law enforcement officers that use tasers on old Black women, sick dogs on Black children and gun down Black teenagers in broad daylight!
If the police wonât protect you, your family and your neighbors, there is nothing wrong with protecting yourself in Ferguson and wherever else you feel threatened by racists in uniforms that are out to kill you! (Buy Ganttâs book âBeast Too: Dead Man Writingâ and contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net)
