Man Who Shot And Killed An Unarmed Man Was Hired As Ferguson Spokesperson

After police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed 18-year old Michael Brown, the city of Ferguson hired a public relations representative who had also shot and killed an unarmed man.

Did not a single political leader in Missouri think that hiring a person convicted of shooting and killing an unarmed man to be the spokesperson for Ferguson in the wake of a Ferguson police officer shooting and killing unarmed Michael Brown might be viewed as — at best — insensitive, and at worst, shockingly, appallingly, staggering, superciliously sadistic?

To help with the national attention the small town of Ferguson, Missouri was receiving in the aftermath of police officer Darren Wilson‘s shooting of unarmed 18-year old Michael Brown, St. Louis County offered to pick up the tab for a public relations representative. The man they offered was not a resident of Ferguson, St. Louis, or even Missouri. And there was at least one minority-owned St. Louis PR firm who tried to get the contract, but was ignored.

The man who got the contract was the owner of a Tennessee-based advertising agency. 

Devin Sean James is the owner of The Devin James Group. He was contracted by the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, then loaned to the city of Ferguson. Fees, part of which The Devin James Group were to receive according to the contract, were not to exceed $100,000 for “communications management consulting and public relations services related to the shooting of Michael Brown, Jr.,” which was also referred to as “the Project.”

“James, 32, began working for the city about two weeks after Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson killed the unarmed 18-year-old Brown on Aug. 9,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, adding that James “was being paid $154.10 an hour.”

He has been handling media requests and overseeing Ferguson’s public relations strategy, including arranging a video statement released Thursday in which Ferguson police Chief Thomas Jackson apologized to Brown’s family.

Ferguson officials knew of James’ conviction before they signed a contract with him, Mayor James Knowles III said Thursday.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has the details of James’ conviction on reckless homicide, and notes his story is one of someone who had a childhood filled with “turmoil” yet managed to get an education and was just “shy of earning degrees in psychology and biomedical engineering.” 

The issue is not James’ qualifications or ability. The Post-Dispatch says he did a good job. Rather, the issue is the upsetting similarity of his having shot and killed an unarmed man and being chosen to speak for a town whose police did the same thing, to a people rightfully incensed. This is not an attack on Devin Sean James, rather, on political leaders in Ferguson, including Mayor Knowles, and those in St. Louis County who were involved, and who clearly had learned nothing from the Michael Brown shooting and subsequent protests.

In an update, the Post-Dispatch reports the contract with James has been terminated for a lack of transparency about his conviction.

 

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