Tag Archives: Missouri

Ferguson Grand Jury Brings No Indictments

The grand jury in St. Louis County Missouri has issued no indictments in the case of officer Darren Wilson.

The grand jury made up of nine whites and three blacks examined every piece of evidence collected by the local, state and federal investigators.  They heard hours of testimony and were able to ask direct questions of those involved including officer Wilson.

The evidence showed the claims of supporters of Michael Brown did not know the facts of the case.

One witness said Brown charged at officer Darren Wilson in a manner that was “like a football player.  Head down.”

Wilson said that Brown attempted to grab his gun while the officer sat inside his cruiser.  When the officer fired a round through his car window in an attempt to back off Brown, the 18-year-old showed an “aggressive” posture.

“The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked,” Wilson told the grand jury. “He comes back toward me again with his hands up.”

“Just coming straight at me like he was going to run right through me,” Wilson said. “And when he gets about … 8 to 10 feet away … all I see is his head and that’s what I shot.”

The Justice Department says their investigation against Officer Wilson is still open and no decision has been made regarding charges.

National Guard Called In To Ferguson Area

Missouri’s governor is preparing for violence in the wake of the release of a grand jury’s decision on the Michael Brown case by deploying the National Guard and declaring a State of Emergency.

Governor Jay Nixon said the troops would only play “a backup role to police” in response to protesters breaking the law if they are dissatisfied with the grand jury’s actions.

Police in Ferguson had been criticized for their response to the violent protests following the death of Brown because some felt they acted in a too “militarized” manner.

St. Louis aldermen were upset about the declaration of the governor.

“The National Guard is called in when policing has failed. Military presence in my city will mark a historic failure on the part of (government),” Antonio French, a St. Louis alderman, said on Twitter. “This is not a war. There is no military solution.”

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said the city’s police force will handle any issues and that they will wear normal police attire unless “conditions become violent.”

Church Gives $40,000 To Ferguson Neighborhood

A Missouri church is stepping up to help residents of Ferguson, Missouri whose businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed by looters in the wake of the Michael Brown situation.

The Episcopal Church said it will provide $40,000 in grants to help those in need.

“This joint effort helps restock food pantry shelves to feed the hungry today, but it also provides nutritional counseling and food preparation education for a more healthy future,” said Bishop Stacy Sauls.  “… it helps local businesses get back on their feet, but it also partners with public and private groups to encourage entrepreneurship and sustainability; it provides a mechanism to deliver food and other assistance to shut-ins, but it does so by offering skills training to young adults and older youth that will help improve their lives for years to come.”

The Reverend Michael Dunnington of All Saints Episcopal Church told the Christian posts that he sees the grants helping multiple parts of the community.

“I think that this grant will go a long way to show the residents of Ferguson that the Episcopal Church cares about the immediate effects of the August troubles, and that we are interested in addressing longer-term needs in their community,” he told the Christian Post.

Dunnington added while protests are continuing in the town, they have been peaceful and not lead to further destruction.

Police Name Officer In Ferguson Shooting

In an attempt to quell the violent protests that have rocked the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, police have now named the officer involved in the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Officer Darren Wilson, a six-year member of the force, has been removed from duty with pay and he & this family evacuated to an unknown location because of fear the same people who sparked the violent rioting would attack him.  Governor Jay Nixon said the family would be under 24-hour protection.

“I was pleased to hear the chief indicate this would be a day in which, finally, that initial name would come out, and we’ll work to make sure that his family [is safe] and there’s security around that,” Nixon told ABC News. “I think those kinds of concrete steps of transparency leading to justice are vitally important now to heal the old wounds that have been made a fresh by this difficult and horrific situation.”

Police noted that Officer Wilson has been treated for an injury that was sustained on the night he shot Brown.  Witnesses had been trying to claim that Brown had done nothing wrong.

Police also handed out a report to those attending the press conference showing that Brown was a suspect in a “strong arm” robbery that had taken place in the area not long before the shooting incident.

Anti-Christians Threaten To Sue Missouri National Guard

An anti-Christian organization is threatening to sue the Missouri National Guard because a display of Bibles was located on a base.

The anti-Christian American Humanist Association had a lawyer send a threatening letter to the Missouri National Guard demanding the removal of a display of Gideon Bibles from the General Services Administration building in St. Louis.

The AHA claims that the Bibles in a government building “represents a clear breach of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.”

“The machinery of the U.S. military … is being used to distribute Bibles,” the letter claims. “ … The religious endorsement is particularly egregious in this case because unlike in many of the school cases where private citizens distributed the Bibles, the government is the entity distributing the Bibles here.”

The Bibles are available for someone to take if they want them but they are not given to soldiers nor are soldiers required to take them.  Various courts have permitted similar placement of Bibles across the nation.

However, the anti-Christianists say the mere existence of the Bibles is coercion.

Military Bans Troops From Vacation Bible School Honor

A small country church in Carthage, Missouri wanted to honor veterans and soldiers during their Vacation Bible School.  The military banned troops from going to the event.

Paramedics, police and firefighters in the community showed up Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to talk to the kids, teach them some basics of their jobs and receive thanks for their efforts to make the community better.

On Thursday, when the National Guard was supposed to show up, no one was there.

The military told the National Guard troops they were banned from the event and if they showed up at all on the grounds of the church they could face discipline.  The military said that just the presence of the troops or any National Guard asset meant they were sponsoring the Baptist religion.”

The military officers were more concerned about someone who is not a Christian being offended by the troops appearing at the church than they were about any Christians who might be upset at being told they weren’t worth visiting.

The Missouri National Guard reportedly tried to do all they could to attend the event but it was at the federal level where the ban on associating with Christians was ordered.

National Guard troops were furious at the Defense Department’s actions.

“We had a lot of disappointed kiddos because of the National Guard being unwilling to allow a Humvee and a few soldiers to spend an hour at a Baptist Church,” a Guardsman said. “It makes we wonder what I’m actually fighting for.”

Missouri Governor Vetoes 72-Hour Abortion Bill

Missouri Democrat Governor Jay Nixon has vetoed a bill that would have required a 72-hour wait before ending the life of a baby via abortion.

The bill would have tripled the current 24-hour waiting period for an abortion.

“[This bill has] no demonstrable purpose other than to create emotional and financial hardships for women who have undoubtedly already spent considerable time wrestling with perhaps the most difficult decision they may ever have to make,” Nixon said.

The governor also said the bill was “extreme and disrespectful” and would “unnecessarily prolong the suffering of rape and incest victims and jeopardize the health and wellbeing of women.”

Republicans said they would attempt to override the veto during a September session.  It would require a 2/3 vote of both houses to override the governor.

Woman Credits Prayer With Saving Life In Car Accident

A Missouri woman says that prayer saved her life after being trapped inside a wrecked car for eight hours.

Cassandra Wiggins was traveling to work Thursday morning when her car hydroplaned, sliding across the road and down an embankment.  The car was 100 feet below the roadway but completely out of sight to the passing cars.

The 39-year-old lost consciousness during the wreck due to a blow to the head.  The woman was reported missing when her employers called Wiggins’ mother saying she had not arrived for work.

“It’s a mother’s gut and the Holy Spirit that told me that there was something seriously wrong,” Anita Finney told KSHB-TV. “And by that point, I could just start praying that the Lord would save her until I found her.”

Wiggins regained consciousness around 3 p.m. and was able to use her foot to reach her cell phone.  It took fire department personnel over two hours to free her from the crumpled car.  She suffered a severe hip injury that required surgery and will need rehab to learn to walk again.

“She said, ‘Daddy, I thought at first I was going to die, then I just kept praying,’” her father, Robert Wiggins, told KCTV News. “That’s what we taught Cass from early childhood, and that’s what she did and the Lord answered her prayer. So we’re grateful.  We’re thankful for the firemen that came and helped her up that hill,” he added. “I don’t see how they got up it; that hill was so long.”

School District Settles Suit With Anti-Christian Group

A Missouri school district has announced a settlement in a lawsuit with an anti-Christian group that claimed they violated the U.S. Constitution by promoting Christianity on the campus.

The anti-Christian American Humanist Association of Washington had filed a lawsuit in November 2013 against the Fayette School District on behalf of an “anonymous student” and “anonymous parent” who claimed the school wrongly promoted Christianity over other religions or no religion.

The complaint said that one of the school’s teachers prayed with students and that the high school’s principal announced weekly prayer meetings of a Christian group on the intercom.

The settlement was reached because the school said they did not want to spend more tax dollars fighting the anti-Christianists.  The school added that while they did find one allegation was accurate, most of the complaints from the anti-Christian group were false, misleading or deliberately taken out of context.

The judge in the case has banned the schools’ teachers from participating in prayer or other religious activities at student events and prohibits teachers from having religious materials in sight of students.

The anti-Christian American Humanist Associated celebrated their latest removal of Christians from public life.

“Public schools must uphold the separation of church and state,” remarked AHA Executive Director Roy Speckhardt.

Anti-Christianists Enraged Over Principal’s Graduation Speech

Anti-Christianists are outraged that a principal of a Missouri high school spoke about the history of God in public life during his address to graduates.

Kevin Lowery, principal of Lebanon High School, told the graduates during a May 23rd commencement to remember that “God is still important” after the students were prohibited from praying at the event.

“In one of the most famous sentences in American History, taken from our Declaration of Independence, reads, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,’” Lowery said in opening the gathering. “This passage has come to represent a moral standard to which the United States should always strive.  And even though God is reflected in the very fabric of our nation, we are told that it is inappropriate and even illegal to mention God at high school graduations, let alone say a prayer.”

Lowery then asked those in the room to hold a minute of silence.

“[J]ust in case you’re interested, during my moment of silence, I gave thanks to God for these great students, their parents, their teachers, and for this community,” he said after the moment of silence, causing the room to erupt in applause.

“Oh, I’m not finished,” he continued. “I asked God to protect these students as they go their separate ways into the world. I asked God to avail Himself in every possible way.  I asked God to watch over them, to protect them, and to bless them with self-fulfillment, with compassion, inner peace, and personal prosperity. Thank you for indulging the thoughts I had during my moment of silence. And yes, God is still important, and let us not ever forget it.”

The school district has reported that anti-Christianists have sent angry messages to the school after news reports of the principal’s comments reached the internet.  The complaints have come from people who do not live in the community and did not attend the ceremony.