Edward Crawford, Jr.: May 4, 2017, is the SEVENTH mysterious death of a Ferguson activist. He is the only one NOT found in a burning car.
Darren Seals: September 6, 2016
Vinnie Cascella: February 15, 2015 (it is worth noting that Cascella is the only white activist found dead in a burning car)
Terrell Beasley: December 19, 2014
Deandre Joshua: November 24, 2014 (Night of the Grand Jury Verdict)
Antonio Jones: November 11, 2014
Darnell Robinson: September 8, 2014
Shawn Gray: last seen November 27, 2014 is sometimes included. His body was found in River Des Peres a week later. But he was not a protester and not involved in Ferguson. He was pulled over by a police officer, left his car and took a cab somewhere, and was never seen alive again. I do have a lot of questions about why he left his car after being pulled over, who the officer was, and who the cab driver was, and where Gray was dropped off. Gray's death sounds a like a lynching to me. A black man out during the grand jury verdict protests, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2015/02/09/shawn-gray-death-of-man-found-in-river-des-peres-remains-a-mystery?page=2
Crawford was riding in a car with two women through Hyde Park, began complaining about his life and depression, fumbled around and produced a gun, and either intentionally or accidentally shot himself fatally when the gun went off.
Yeah, that's possible, even plausible... But it is very suspicious.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/05/05/edward-crawford-protesters-from-iconic-ferguson-photo-dead-from-self-inflicted-gunshot-in-st-louis/?utm_term=.4a2659393866
http://www.theroot.com/ferguson-activists-are-dying-and-it-s-time-to-ask-quest-1794955900
http://www.teenvogue.com/story/ferguson-protestor-edward-crawford-dead
What kind of gun was it?
Where is the bullet entry wound?
Where did the shooting occur?
Who called the police and where was the car in relation to the shooting when the police arrived?
Were their any witnesses outside of the car?
Who were the women? How did Crawford know them? Could there have been someone else in the car who got out before the police arrived?
The lack of details in the news reports is problematic.
Edward Crawford, Jr. and Darren Seals
If you ask people in St. Louis that took part in Ferguson protests or other events (like Ferguson October) who the leading Ferguson activists were, you will hear a completely different list of names than what the media will tell you. Many of the names associated nationally are not from St. Louis. Crawford and Seals were both from St. Louis, remained in St. Louis, and neither of them ever formed 501c3 non profit corporations and accepted money for their activism. To many people in St. Louis, especially in the African-American community, or at least those that I have spoken with, this is important, and a sign of integrity. To do it on your own time and on your own dime, and to stay loyal to your roots and your home.
(My understanding of this is that accepting money compromises your activism, and that to leave St. Louis and Ferguson, even to fight racism nationally, is still abandoning the place that launched your fame. Also, for many men like Seals, that had a past that included gangs, it is very important to have a job and be a contributing member of society- to be a role model for other at risk youth. I believe Crawford was also like this, although I don't know that he was associated with gangs in his youth.)
http://allblackmedia.com/2017/05/ferguson-protester-found-dead-months-after-darren-seals-murder/
Darren Seals
Darren Seals was found shot in his burning car in September of 2016. The people I have spoken to that knew Darren before Ferguson, and those that knew his story of his past, do NOT believe the police killed him. But they do think that the police did not bother to investigate at all, because of who Darren was, and what he represented.
http://fergusonthemovement.blogspot.com/2016/09/more-on-darren-seals-murder.html
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2016/09/08/who-murdered-darren-seals-ferguson-protester-was-shot-set-ablaze
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Seals
I have some problems with the witness from the apartment building. I actually talked to him. The next day he had disappeared. I am not calling him a liar. I believe him, but I also have a hard time with the story. But if the car came down Diamond, the scraping gears and jerky driving would have summoned the Riverview police. Riverview is TINY. And late at night the police are clustered near the Fire Station.
Also, why would the driver being wearing socks on his hands if the car was going to be torched, unless the driver didn't know the car was going to be torched? That is a known dumping place by people that do dirty deeds in St. Louis. And no one would choose to drive through well patrolled Bellefontaine Neighbors, famous for its traffic court, or risk the labrynth of slow and twisting streets and the St Louis County PD substation of Glasgow Village, to get to Riverview.
If you are going to dump and torch evidence you will come up Riverview Drive from Hall street or Baden, where you can be assured of never seeing a city cop. And if you do see cops, they will probably be at the site of a major car accident and too busy to pay attention to you.
As I said, that apartment parking lot had had burning cars dumped there
before. I heard that a 67 year old women who had reported many of these
things to police had died under suspicious circumstances a week
earlier. Despite all evidence to the contrary, this was ruled a
"suicide."
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/riverview-woman-s-death-probably-suicide-autopsy-finds/article_0a9ff34c-9efc-5875-9f7f-b79c0a2bc42f.html
In the weeks following Darren's death I heard many rumours about why he died. One was that he had information on Kajieme Powell's murder. Or something or someone related to his death.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-police-turn-over-kajieme-powell-shooting-case-to/article_fc0dab65-aa70-5380-b495-e73fd6afefc9.html
And that a woman who shows up in one of the videos- getting out a car just before the police show up and shoot Powell- had also died under mysterious circumstances. (When I find the link I will post it here.)
And let's not forget that Riverview is a place where the City Museum founder was found dead under suspicious circumstances, and was never investigated until the family got involved 5 years later.
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2016/10/11/bob-cassilly-was-beaten-to-death-medical-expert-concludes
Vinnie Cascella
Torching a car is overkill for a botched robbery. And criminals target easy marks. You don't break into a house that has a barking dog. You don't carjack a car with bumper stickers all over it. And Cascella would not have put up a fight for his car or his money. It's much more likely that Cascella either had stumbled across something in Ferguson, and was targeted. It's much more likely that some sort of meeting took place in the car, didn't go the way the shooter expected, and the car was torched to hide evidence and send a message to others.
Ferguson really messed up a lot of "insider" "ole boy networks" and a lot of corruption. Not just because of National media attention. Or the DOJ coming in and auditing all of these municipalities. But also because white kids from Ballwin and black kids from the North side met and talked and formed relationships at the protests. The white kids from Ballwin saw things that they didn't see in the suburbs, upstanding members of their communty's doing not so upstanding things. Like the strip clubs of East Saint Louis, when the Ministering Sisters reaching out to the sinners find the Pastor with pants around his ankles, Ferguson had the "Young Goodman Brown" effect. (When Young Goodman Brown finds himself out in the woods on the night of the Witches Sabbat, he finds that the witches are the pious town elders.)
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2015/02/15/ballwin-mans-remains-found-in-burned-out-car/
http://fox2now.com/2015/08/05/family-bumps-reward-25000-after-son-found-shot-in-burning-car/
Terrell Beasley
Beasley's
death is really suspicious. He was killed in a shoot out with Officer
McGhee, but then was found later in a burning car. It is his death that
makes me think that the burning car is an internal message- a smoke
signal that is deciphered by other members of a gang- criminal or law
enforcement.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/man-found-dead-inside-burning-car-by-st-louis-firefighters/article_217f51d1-2292-5766-b78f-343f4a831349.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/off-duty-st-louis-police-officer-critically-wounded-in-shooting/article_0dd3a2ec-da6d-56a2-bf94-f2ec683ed758.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/recent-parolee-charged-in-shooting-of-off-duty-st-louis/article_da90c18a-2bb0-5767-a467-1ecf1f04d788.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/three-st-louis-police-officers-removed-from-duty-amid-allegations/article_0fe3bae2-9a59-5990-9ea8-a7be368e6d6a.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/former-st-louis-police-officer-admits-giving-shotgun-to-drug/article_ea0a909b-9573-584c-a781-c4b76766b5d1.html
Deandre Joshua
Most people know Deandre as the first of the Ferguson protesters found in a burning car. Many people also erroneously believe he was going to testify in the Wilson Grand Jury. Those that knew him personally say he absolutely did not testify against Darren Wilson. However, the night of the verdict there were a lot of white supremacist and paramilitary groups in Ferguson, and his friendship with Dorian Johnson might have made him a target. (Johnson was actually in jail, if I recall, the night of the announcement of the grand jury verdict.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/26/deandre-joshua-shot-killed-protests_n_6225380.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/us/another-killing-in-ferguson-leaves-a-family-grappling-with-the-unknown.html?_r=0
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/st-louis-cops-eye-link-similar-ferguson-murders-article-1.2781576
Antonio Jones
He was found in the trunk of burning car in East Saint Louis. A man was arrested, but there are very few details forthcoming.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ferguson-man-shot-to-death-left-in-burning-car-in/article_d5609156-3e8b-594a-a525-d85a7e95b25f.html
http://www.kmov.com/story/28414420/man-found-dead-in-burning-car-in-east-st-louis-identified-as-ferguson-man
Darnell Robinson
Three
people were arrested for this, but obviously the torched cars didn't
stop. And as with all the other reports, the story is convoluted. (It
was a woman in the surveillance tape, then later it was man, etc.)
http://www.kmov.com/story/28469104/warrants-issued-for-suspect-after-man-found-dead-in-burned-car-in-sept
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/man-charged-with-setting-car-ablaze-with-st-louis-murder/article_0b55b0c5-1fd6-516a-b83f-2b5317bd9230.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/fugitive-charged-in-st-louis-murder-is-found-hiding-under/article_6db2965f-2ffb-57b0-ac6f-5d192a9bba04.html
I
don't know if Darnell was related to Rayford Robinson, who was
involved in another strange story of murder in St. Louis. This time on
the east side. He was 16 when he was killed in a drive by shooting.
William Sherrill was also killed, and Lane was found not guilty. Read
the link and you will see that the police chief over there never thought
it was the three of them.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/man-not-guilty-in-belleville-triple-murder/article_2d2196af-a8ed-542c-8db8-b13dc3b43579.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/bill-mcclellan/mcclellan-black-on-black-crime-is-fact-we-can-t/article_f8cb6307-7040-5b21-a184-b86601e43526.html
A FEW MORE THOUGHTS
I cannot completely rule out a rogue policeman, or group, maybe white nationalists, going after Ferguson protesters. It could also be a corrupt federal agent, DEA or ATFE, cleaning up witnesses to things that happened years ago, and counting on the local police to not investigate anyone involved in Ferguson.
I need to do more research on the occurrence of burning cars, and in particular, burning cars with bodies in them, BEFORE Ferguson. Because it really seems like there weren't that many before Ferguson, and now they are routine. As I said, the burning car seems like a message, or a mark, of a particular group or person.
And this person or people is bold enough or protected enough to kill with impunity. Who is both bold and protected enough? Gangs? Or police? Or both when working together?
In St. Louis, the police have been known to both sell drugs, and to work with drug dealers.
Local officers accused of partnering with drug dealers to steal heroin | KMOV.com St. Louis
In the Hyde Park division, where Edward Crawford, Jr.
was found dead, two police officers tried to co-erce a man into giving
them a name of someone that the police could plant heroin on and frame.
Man films local officers’ attempt to intimidate him under false pretences | KMOV.com St. Louis
(Both
of these stories are gone from the web, but they can still be found in
the archives of KMOV, and the reports are still in the police files.)
The officer that shot and killed Terrell Beasley was partnering with drug dealers. Beasley was found later in a burning car.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/former-st-louis-police-officer-admits-giving-shotgun-to-drug/article_ea0a909b-9573-584c-a781-c4b76766b5d1.html
**
The DEA
The DEA was able to compile a report that there are 240 street gangs in St. Louis. This is why these reports shouldn't be called "intelligence". Without any transparency on how this knowledge was acquired there is no way to validate any of their findings. What did they do? Walk around asking people "are you in a gang? and which one?" etc? Why would anyone tell them the truth? If anyone needed to make a deal to get out of jail time, or wanted informant cash, they would just make something up. Or use the opportunity to spin a story that served them. And if the DEA knows so much how come we still have this huge heroin problem in St. Louis?
http://www.kmov.com/story/31843471/dea-240-street-gangs-operate-in-the-st-louis-area
And as I've said before, I don't think all of these drugs could come in
without some sort of cooperation from some police and some agents. And in this national case, linked below, this corrupt DEA supervisor, Carney, now works in Los Angeles. Carney had an affair with someone, turned the woman into an informer, and gave her $212k in a period of about two years. This case is all over the map, both geographically and historically, and goes back to Black Family Mafia. As a writer of fiction, I can see so many scenarios in this, and none of them make the DEA look good. Either the agents were all in on the corruption or the entire agency is so inept it should be shut down.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/evidence-in-st-louis-drug-ring-case-should-be-tossed/article_afb1bc5d-724a-5e30-b29f-5f519300f8d6.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/atlanta-dea-sex-scandal-claim-continues-playing-out-in-st/article_570a0834-269b-5741-b47c-e1c1215440cf.html
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/grassley-to-dea_-confidential-source-program-follow-up
The ATFE
I am willing to bet that a lot of the problems with gang violence escalated when the ATFE showed up here back in ?? 2006 or so. Their "fictional sting operations" are notorious for creating more problems than they solve.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/atf-undercover-operations-in-st-louis-elsewhere-criticized/article_f3e1f678-f62d-5ba9-a372-6be7f681d400.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-botched-atf-sting-endangered-st-louis-residents/article_d577b23e-0bfc-5757-aecf-1db03985418d.html
One of their operations made national news when it happened during the Ferguson protests.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/atf-shots-miss-burglary-suspects-during-capture-in-ferguson/article_86f44a88-c31e-563a-a102-cbe51caa0cbf.html
Only We The People can ask these questions, and keep the investigations of these 7 men open and active.
RIP Edward Crawford, Jr. And thank you for throwing that tear gas cannister away from those children. You are appreciated, and you will be remembered for your bravery and selflessness.
**A few other St. Louis suspicions, not Ferguson related:
Like Officer Don McGhee
who shot Terrell Beasley, Officer Jason Shockley is rumored to be part
of some sort of police drug ring, and that he shot Anthony Lamar Smith
for that reason. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-lamar-smith-videos-offer-insight-into-2011-st-louis-police-shooting/
I doubt Chicago is the only city where police tax drug dealers.
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/21/chicago_cops_who_broke_code_of
Many
people are suspicious of the story involving George Bush the Third, who
improbably walked up to a policeman's car in front of the Police Union
and shot the officer. To me and many other people it sounds much more
like a war between the cops, the criminals, and the cops that work with
criminals.
http://fox2now.com/2016/11/22/teen-who-shot-st-louis-officer-now-a-suspect-in-at-least-6-more-crimes/
And
if Bush's story is that the criminals are becoming less afraid to
murder police, a lot of that could be attributed to the fact that black
men in St. Louis can be reasonably certain that their murders will never
be investigated, and that crimes that they do commit have a good chance
of getting pinned on someone else.
