Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, the highway patrol captain placed in charge of security in Ferguson Missouri, was photographed making hand signs that some quickly thought were gang signs. The thing is, they were actually hand signs for the black fraternity Johnson has been part of, Kappa Alpha Psi.
The Washington Post’s Soraya Nadia McDonald in a post published early on Wednesday pointed out that the hand signs Johnson had been making in photographs some thought were gang signs were actually fraternity hand signs.
Soraya wrote:
To reiterate: Capt. Johnson is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, a black fraternity that was formed in 1911 at Indiana University in Bloomington, and the hand sign you see in the pictures below is a Kappa greeting. The Kappas are part of the Divine Nine or the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the nine historically black fraternities and sororities that include Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Alpha Phi Alpha, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma, Zeta Phi Beta, Sigma Gamma Rho and Iota Phi Theta, none of which are gangs.
The idea that Johnson was actually displaying gang signs seem to have been rooted in a CNN iReport post that, as the Post points out, seems to have been taken down. But the idea that Johnson was a member of the Bloods or some other gang still gained momentum on Twitter.
@CNN said Ron Johnson was throwing up a gang sign, do they know that that’s actually the hand sign of his fraternity. Retraction?
— Kolyer (@The_Robzilla) August 20, 2014
My 7th grade social studies teacher and “gang” member Ron Johnson throwing up their “gang” sign pic.twitter.com/diqJzgpYmE
— RandaSantana (@DearRanda) August 19, 2014
is #Ferguson capt ron johnson a member of the bloods??is he marching with the bloods and doing gang signs??? pic.twitter.com/zxb8R2cvIb
— Ev1L (@dimebagmetott) August 18, 2014
By Wednesday though people started to point out the confusion.
Wow. So this article said Ron Johnson is throwing up “gang signs”. I’m assuming they know nothing about fraternities. pic.twitter.com/HdB9a0YJHA
— True Eastwood (@true_east_) August 19, 2014
CNN stressed to TPM that the original iReport post was not a straight CNN news report:
iReport is a social network for news. A small number of user submissions are approved for use on air and online. The iReport in question had not been vetted, was labeled as “NOT VERIFIED BY CNN,” and was removed shortly after being flagged by the community.
This post was updated.
Good thing it wasn’t a Masonic sign. Now that’s a fearful gang!
WRITE-IN RON JOHNSON FOR MAYOR OF FERGUSON!!!
It is time to set up voter registration booths in Ferguson, MO. Even after dark, some of those folks circulating can be carrying clipboards.
I don’t care if it is too late for this election, they can also identify already registered voters as they sign up new ones, and get them to turn some of that righteous indignation into voter activism.
The voting history of Ferguson is typically abysmal… The entire white City Council and Mayor ran unopposed last time around, despite a 60% black and otherwise ethnically diverse majority.
LESS THAN 10% TURNOUT!!! Which is no doubt because they feel totally disconnected from the process.
The cycle of futility these people feel is not uncommon anywhere in America, there are so many Americans who have been bullied out of the process by those already entrenched, and Ferguson represents the worst form of it.
TURN THIS RAGE INTO VOTES!
If it is true that Ron Johnson is a legal resident of Ferguson, then they need to start a write-in campaign to get him elected Mayor, and that would begin to topple the all-white house of cards these posers have imposed upon the people of Ferguson.
Just the sordid history of how that City Council and police force have used traffic stops of mostly blacks to generate almost HALF the city revenues should in itself be worthy of intense investigation, and suggests there may be more skeletons dancing in those closets than anyone ever imagined.
That entrenched status quo at the top of city government obviously got very comfortable violating the rights of their own citizens for fun and profit, and those records are hard to erase. When they decided to use the citizens of Ferguson as a stop-and-ticket cash cow, they probably never imagined they’d be subject to the white-hot media microscope they now suffer scrutiny under.
Holder also needs to get a Federal Judge to order Ferguson to protect those records from destruction, because simple logic dictates, as the scrutiny begins to come down on this little village, the miscreants who have managed it for decades may grow desperate to cover their tracks.
I’d bet the shredders are already humming at the Ferguson City Building.
GanGster RON JohnSON tHROws gANG sign OF Gramercy Riffs ANgerING the BaSEBALL furIES WHo arE BEHind the RIOts in FergusON.
RWNJ’s will believe he’s a gang member because stupid.