Vox Sentences: Ferguson, one year later

What Ferguson, and America, look like one year after the death of Michael Brown; and the EPA accidentally got 3 million gallons of toxic sludge dumped down a Colorado river.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Ferguson, one year later...

Demonstrators in Ferguson last night, exactly one year after Michael Brown's death. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

• Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of the killing of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO, and the beginning of weeks of nationally-followed protests over Brown's death.

  [Vox / German Lopez, Jenée Desmond-Harris, Rachel Huggins, and Lauren Williams]

• After protests Sunday and in anticipation of more protests Monday, St. Louis County has declared a state of emergency effective tonight.

  [Steve Stenger via Twitter / Durrie Bouscaren]

• Last night, at an anniversary protest, 18-year-old Tyrone Harris was critically injured after a firefight involving plainclothes police officers.

  [International Business Times / David Sims]

• Harris has been charged with four counts of assault on law enforcement for shooting at the plainclothes officers.

  [Reuters / Jon Herskovitz and Mary Wizniewski]

• According to his father, Harris was a high-school classmate and good friend of Michael Brown's. The police maintain that Harris shot first, but his father says he wasn't armed.

  [Washington Post / Wesley Lowery, William Wan and Mark Berman]

• Ostensibly, the state of emergency is a response to the shooting. However, it wasn't announced until after several prominent activists were arrested Monday afternoon for trespassing during a sit-in at a federal courthouse in St. Louis,

  [Mother Jones / Inae Oh]

• The protesters were released the same day; they face fines of $125 apiece.

  [Ryan J. Reilly via Twitter]

...and the year in between

St. Louis Post-Dispatch / Robert Cohen

• Jamelle Bouie argues that Michael Brown's killing precipitated "the greatest national reckoning on racism since the beating of Rodney King."

  [Slate / Jamelle Bouie]

• He might be right. A minority of Americans believe black people are treated fairly. And the number of white Americans who believe treatment is fair has fallen 14 percentage points since 2013.

  [Gallup / Jeffrey M. Jones]

• 1,091 people have been killed by police since Michael Brown's death.

  [Vox / German Lopez and Soo Oh]

• 585 people have been shot and killed by police in 2015 alone, including 24 unarmed black men.

  [Washington Post ]

• These numbers didn't exist a year ago; they're the result of efforts by journalists and activists to track police killings after Brown's death.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Nationally, with the exception of expanding police body cameras, post-Ferguson attempts at policing reform have fizzled.

  [Wall Street Journal / Zusha Elinson]

• In Missouri, a new state law will attempt to rein in the excessive citations and fines that have plagued Ferguson and nearby cities, by capping fines at $300 and saying cities in the St. Louis area can't make more than 1/8th of their revenue through traffic tickets.

  [Washington Post / Max Ehrenfreund]

• But many reform-minded policymakers are worried that the law, thanks to its selective impact, will end up hurting the poorest municipalities hardest.

  [Politico Magazine / Maya Park and Ben Wofford]

• Ferguson itself has rejected the Department of Justice's initial "consent decree" proposal, which would commit the city to make certain reforms to its police and municipal court system to avoid a federal lawsuit. Negotiations are ongoing.

  [St. Louis Post-Dispatch / Stephen Deere and Christine Byers]

A river full of orange-yellow sludge

Durango resident Kalyn Green surveys the damage to the Animas River. (Brent Lewis/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

• Thanks to a failed EPA cleanup project, 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater have flowed into the Animas River near Silverton, Colorado.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• Early EPA tests say that arsenic levels in the Aminas are 300 times normal levels, and lead levels are 3,500 times normal levels.

  [Farmington (NM) Daily Times / Steve Garrison and Joshua Kellogg]

• The EPA has wanted to make Silverton a Superfund site for years, but residents have resisted. Some worry it would hurt the tourism industry, which has replaced the once-dominant mining sector; others believe that the town will only survive if mining comes back (and think Superfund would hurt that).

  [Durango Herald / Chase Olivarius-Mcallister]

• Eventually, the EPA and the town agreed that instead of naming it a Superfund site, the EPA would pay for efforts to clean up the area. Its July attempt to plug up one mine led to the 3-million-gallon spill from a different, interconnected mine.

  [KUNC / Stephanie Paige Ogburn]

• The EPA's been criticized for failing to notify policymakers about the spill quickly enough — and for initially underestimating it by a factor of 3. The Navajo Nation is contemplating a lawsuit.

  [Farmington (NM) Daily Times / Steve Garrison and Joshua Kellogg]

• The good news: there haven't been any "widespread fish or insect dieoffs" in the contaminated portion of the river (yet).

  [Durango Herald / Mary Shinn]

• If you're having trouble picturing the leak, Vox's Brad Plumer explains the geology.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

MISCELLANEOUS

A lot of people think skipping breakfast makes you gain weight. Nope. [Washington Post / Peter Whoriskey]

• The St. Louis area is so segregated that 70 percent of white people or 70 percent of black people would have to move for neighborhoods to be racially balanced.

  [NYT / John Eligon]

• In New York and LA, the mayor gets his own mansion. In DC, the mayor lives in a duplex.

  [Washington Post / Aaron Davis]

• Massachusetts Republicans are more liberal than any other Republicans — and than Arkansas Democrats.

  [Boston Globe / Evan Horowitz]

• Joanna Newsom released a new song! For the first time in five years! It's really good!

  [The Verge / Chris Plante]

VERBATIM

"Adversaries say he has woven a liquor-infused tapestry of fear colored by intimidation, abuse and lies." [Topeka Capital-Journal / Tim Carpenter]

• "If you need to burn something, burn your Congressman in effigy."

  [Lindsey Graham via Slate / Joshua Keating]

• "If the boom in high-end fitness was purely a question of health, no one would have distributed the gyms this way."

  [Washington City Paper / Perry Stein]

• "Just keep clicking 'Add Friend' over and over, and before you know it your Timeline is full of racist Minions memes and pictures of Looney Toons who are somehow mad at Al Sharpton."

  [Vice / Virgil Texas]

• "CCTV host Lu Jian wrote on his verified account, 'he is the husband in everyone’s dream.'"

  [WSJ / Alyssa Abkowitz and Grace Zhu]

WATCH THIS

Vox / Estelle Caswell and Joe Posner

• This single shot in Daredevil is the best fight scene in years

  [YouTube / Alex Abad-Santos, Estelle Caswell, and Joe Posner]

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