Missouri’s Capt. Johnson Flashes Fraternity Sign, Gets Called A ‘Gang Member’

Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, talks to a group of men outside a market, Friday, Aug. 15, 2014, where Michael Brown allegedly stole some cigars before being killed by police nearly a week ago in Ferguson,... Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, talks to a group of men outside a market, Friday, Aug. 15, 2014, where Michael Brown allegedly stole some cigars before being killed by police nearly a week ago in Ferguson, Mo. A suburban St. Louis police chief on Friday identified the officer whose fatal shooting ignited days of heated protests, and released documents alleging the teen was killed after a robbery in which he was suspected of stealing a box of cigars. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

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.

By Wednesday though people started to point out the confusion.

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.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Good thing it wasn’t a Masonic sign. Now that’s a fearful gang!

  2. Avatar for jep07 jep07 says:

    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.

  3. GanGster RON JohnSON tHROws gANG sign OF Gramercy Riffs ANgerING the BaSEBALL furIES WHo arE BEHind the RIOts in FergusON.

  4. RWNJ’s will believe he’s a gang member because stupid.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

89 more replies

Participants

Avatar for doremus_jessup Avatar for gls Avatar for srfromgr Avatar for meri Avatar for mcnett Avatar for jep07 Avatar for leftflank Avatar for chammy Avatar for damiana Avatar for sandyh Avatar for sylhines Avatar for topcat Avatar for sherlock1 Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for jjrothery Avatar for eastlansing Avatar for quaker_in_a_basement Avatar for ottnott Avatar for dorado Avatar for occamsrazor2 Avatar for antisachetdethe Avatar for jviscont1 Avatar for AquaMadMan Avatar for pab394

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: