With apologies to Wallace Stevens.

I

Note that Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson is wearing a red polo shirt instead of the uniform of his office. He’s not apologizing as the representative of the police force; he’s just a guy. In a polo shirt.

Among hundreds of uniform- and riot-gear-clad men,

The only red thing

Was the grandfatherly, faded, soft-collared shirt.

II

“Overnight I went from being a small-town police chief…”

Aw, shucks. (He’s so folksy! He was in over his head! Also, the reason he led with the impact on him rather than the impact on Michael Brown, Michael Brown’s family, St. Louis, African-Americans, or people all over the world watching Ferguson in horror is because he is the most significant.)

I was one lone man,

A tiny man swept up in events beyond his control

In which there were zillions of bad people.

 

III

“…to being part of a conversation about racism, equality, and the role of policing in that conversation.”

No. He’s not “part of the conversation.” He’s it. Also, “conversation” is probably the wrong word, since he’s not actually engaged in it. He’s spinning.

The Devin James Communications Agency whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

 

 

IV

“I am truly sorry for the loss of your son.” 

Not, however, for any role the police played in it.

A man and a force

Are one.

A man and a force and a microphone

Are one.

 

V

“I am also sorry that it took so long to remove Michael from the street. The time that it took involved very important work on the part of investigators, who were trying to collect evidence and gain a true picture of what happened that day. But it was just too long and I am truly sorry for that.” 

He can’t blunt the brutality of that first sentence. It still has the power to shock after all these weeks. A human being lay alone, dying and then dead, in the street, for four and a half hours. Then, with utter tone-deafness, Jackson justifies what he just apologized for. (“Important work” was being done! The investigators were busybusybusy in search of TRUTH, JUSTICE and THE AMERICAN WAY. Possibly they could have done this important work a little faster, if you’re being anal about it.)

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of calculated half-apologies

Or the beauty of condescension,

The microphone hissing

Or just after.

 

 

VI

“Please know that the investigating officers meant no disrespect to the Brown family, to the African-American community or the people of Canfield. They were simply trying to do their jobs.”

Sometimes jobs require bodies lying in the street for many hours. Sometimes they require not releasing an officer’s name for days. Sometimes they require not being at all forthcoming or even, one might say, truthful, about occurrences that kill an unarmed and unthreatening person.

Tear gas filled the long streets

With barbaric clouds.

The shadow of the microphone

Loomed

The press conference

Not yet recorded

But cell phone cameras and citizen journalists and Twitter conferenced the street.

 

VII

“There were many people who were upset about what happened in Ferguson and came here to protest peacefully. Unfortunately, there were others who had a different agenda. I do want to say to any peaceful protestor who did not feel that I did enough to protect their Constitutional right to protest, I am sorry for that.”

Bad, sneaky people with an unnamed agenda (but bad) necessitated the things that must have happened that the chief does not name because he’s apologizing for something. Sadly, the good people’s right to protest could possibly have been impinged upon by unnamed someones. Not that the chief or his force stood in the good people’s way in any way — he’s not apologizing for that. He’s apologizing to “any” peaceful protester who MIGHT feel the chief personally didn’t do enough to protect their them, but the implication is that he was kinda OCCUPIED, PREVENTING BAD PEOPLE FROM DOING BAD THINGS, so sorry if your little right to assemble got shunted to the back burner because THE COPS WERE BATMAN.

O Black people of America,

Why do you imagine white injustice?

Do you not see how this microphone

Records my sad apologies

That I am not actually making live, in person, in front of you and Michael Brown’s family?

 

VIII

“The right of the people to peaceably assemble is what the police are here to protect. If anyone who is peacefully exercising that right is upset and angry, I feel responsible, and I’m sorry.”

“If” does not belong in an apology. As we have noted many times on this site. WHY DO WE SCREAM INTO THE VOID.

I know noble policing

And clear, inescapable, virtuous force;

But I know, too,

That the microphone is involved

In what I know.

IX

“I’m also aware of the pain and the feeling of mistrust felt in some of the African-American community toward the police department.”

Some?

When the microphone was out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of truth-telling, remorse, kindness to the dead and understanding of the living.

 

X

“As a community, a city and a nation, we have real problems to solve, not just in Ferguson, but the entire region and beyond.”

At the sight of microphones

And the green “on-air” light,

Even the crankiest protester

Would have to admit that there are, like, places way worse than Ferguson.

 

XI

“For any mistakes I have made, I take full responsibility.”

“Any.” (The “may” in “may have made” is silent.) He “take(s) responsibility” — but for what? He names no mistakes. As we have discussed repeatedly, that’s NOT how one apologizes properly. Again: Name the offense, take ownership, show that you understand the impact, make reparations, make changes to insure the offense doesn’t occur again. Also, apologize to the individual you’ve wronged before holding a press conference. None of these essential apology criteria were met. Then maybe one shouldn’t double down by showing up and trying to march — surrounded by riot-gear-wearing forces — with the protesters and causing a near-riot.

He rode roughshod over the marchers

In a force-field of riot cops, pushing.

More than once, arrogance pierced him,

In that he mistook

The the idea of forgiveness

For performing for microphones.

 

XII

The apology video was put out by the Devin James Group, one of the two public relations firms recently hired by the city of Ferguson to help repair its image as a hotbed of racial strife. Some of the sites featuring the video have the name of the PR firm prominently in the corner.

The truth is a moving target.

A microphone is not the only recording device.

 

XIII

This leaden press conference came on the heels of St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar’s meeting with the county’s Board of Commissioners, with reporters in attendance. There, Belmar unapologetically assured his bosses, “At the end of the day, we didn’t kill anyone because of our actions or seriously injure someone,” Belmar said. (Yay?) But he was regretful about the whole snipers-atop-armored-vehicles-repeatedly-scanning-the-peaceful-crowds-through-rifle-scopes. “The optics made a difference,” Belmar acknowledged. (You know how optics are.) “But you should have seen it in person.”

It was dark all day.

Remorse had been away for weeks

And it wasn’t coming out.

The microphones sat

In arm of the boom, on the podium, on the ground.