Scott Bonner and Janessa Hall

00:02 I'm Janessa Hall. I'm 42 years old. Today's date is December 27th 22nd 2015. I'm at the Ferguson Library and I'm with my spouse Scott. My name is Scott Bonner and 44 years old today December 22nd. 2015. I'm at the Ferguson Municipal Public Library District and I am I am with my wife by Moore husband.

00:31 What?

00:37 Well, I think what I want to talk about today is

00:43 Kind of the darkest night in the whole Ferguson 2014 story was the night of the grand jury announcement and I was here in Ferguson and dealing with things and so I think what I want to do is talk about that.

00:58 But I think that story really kind of starts earlier last August just to get time frame last August August 9th officer, Darren Wilson shot and killed Mike Brown jr. In the street.

01:12 And

01:16 Unlike other times at this kind of thing has happened. This time is set off protests that lasted for months and months.

01:25 A grand jury was convened the a few days after the shooting but the grand jury didn't actually release its decision until November 24th and

01:40 So one thing I know is that right after my grandma shot. There were a few nights of really it was quite hot and new classes in the street between protesters and police in that kind of thing and one or two businesses burned down.

01:56 In some places looted like me on the Percocet withdrawal line on the south end of West Florissant fire the purchase it will be out there if we could draw a line there be the teargas over bullet thing and then up on Northwest Loop North End of West Florissant to you to have easy looting that kind of thing, but then there was months and months and months of peaceful protests where people be out there every night and they be angry to be chanting but no one was getting hurt nothing but getting broken.

02:26 And so one thing that I don't want you waiting for what is the grand jury announcement and

02:35 The three weeks or so before the grand jury announcement. It's an impossible describe how incredibly tense and worried. Everyone was.

02:44 And there are lots of false alarms. It's going to be announced this Tuesday. Go to leaked email going to be nice next Monday at we know this because so-and-so told someone so and that kind of stuff and it was all a bunch of false alarms again and again and again, which just increased everyone's anxiety.

03:04 And there was a lot of talk during those three long long long weeks.

03:11 About what was going to happen? Cuz no one really knew how it was going to go kind of surprises me how tense everyone was because

03:22 Everyone knew what was going to happen before it was released. I'd not a single person thought that they were going to indict Darren Wilson, some people having a kind of studied neutrality. We cannot predict the future and everything else going. No Punta Cana.

03:44 So I I don't know why I kind of its it wasn't like the tension was there because they were concerned about what the verdict was going to be. It was they were just waiting for the explosion was the question that the doubt was there about how bad it was going to get when the verdict finally came down with the new indictment came down and there was a lot of debate and we had me and people worried there was going to be a couple more businesses burned people worried. That would be a no place of looted there was people worried that

04:21 That it would get rough between the police and protesters dumb will get hurt and then you don't weigh out and felt St. Charles which is like a mano racial bedroom community outside of the edge St. Louis. They were saying crazy shit. Like we're going to have to Camille fly in with bombers and shoot them, you know bomb the place and there's just insane which I cannot express how much that piss me off cuz you know what we're freaking town where a normal town that has Daily Town life and we are human beings. Guess what? You know, I think it would be better if we why don't you talk about

05:03 You sure because they can go watch old news reports for the general reaction and the analysis talk about how you felt in the weeks coming up to this tell talk about what you did that night. I was The Optimist. I thought that it wasn't going to be so bad that it will be very angry protest but it has been peaceful protest for months. So I thought it's going to be before we're going to be okay when you get through this, all right?

05:44 And turns out that I was wrong, but we'll get to that in a minute.

05:48 I was just as anxious as everyone else during that time and I

05:54 Neil had trouble sleeping notice obsessing on things I was staying up late at night watching Twitter feeds to see how bad things are getting night tonight and

06:11 What I did the two things that stand out that I did during those 3 weeks 1 is back in August. We had something called the school for peace and which is whenever the schools were delayed and opening by a week and 1/2 some teachers put together a program here at the library. We had a big old program with lots and lots of kids lasted for a week. So big it spilled over the First Baptist Church that kind of thing we did school, right? Cuz the schools couldn't so we did what we could we put a bandaid on that wound.

06:42 Small Band-Aid on a very big wound and

06:46 One thing I did leading up to the grand jury announcement as I called the principal players from the school for peace message. We know they wants to know if Mike comes if there's going to be some. Whenever schools going to be closed.

06:58 Are we up for this and we all agreed that and is still in effect now if

07:07 Unrest caused of the schools to close unexpectedly then we do school for peace. So that's one thing we did to prepare going forward. We knew that was a possibility sweetie. We set that up. The other thing I did during the three weeks heading up is I became your rationally obsessed with the idea that someone was going to burn down the library not that protesters were going to come through give me writers are going to come through and bring in the library, but that someone would have a plan because in those months, you know, we have peaceful protest, but every time some place new showed up in the news reports and the other protests would happen until like 1 a.m. Or something like that and then able to go home a few hours later. Someone would try to burn whatever this new location down. So whenever the pizza place showed up in the news protest happen until like midnight.

08:03 Then everyone went home and then 3 a.m. Someone tried to burn the place down to whoever the person was.

08:09 They were really really bad at their job.

08:12 Because what they would try to do is they try to Molotov cocktail the place and every time it failed to actually burn anything down.

08:18 Does matter I had the irrational fear that someone's going to break a window in the library cost something through the window and the whole place would burn right and we wouldn't have a library for this town anymore.

08:32 And I need realize now that what I was doing was just sublimating all my worry into that instead of you know.

08:40 Kind of admitting that I might get rough and said, I focus all my energy for that one thing and maintain my optimism.

08:48 So that led to me making a decision to stay the night of the grand jury announcement at the library, but first, so there's all these false alarms right again and again and again and there's all this talk about will the schools will get early warning or the police will know early or a business will get early warning and so I had all these feelers out in the community, you know, if you hear something let me know if you hear something. Let me know.

09:18 In the end. No one got any kind of warning as far as I could tell on a Monday afternoon the Monday before Thanksgiving.

09:27 I'm at 4 in the afternoon. They announced today at night.

09:31 They were going to announce the grand jury's verdict. Everybody thought was a terrible decision. You can read a lot of news articles about how if you were going to concoct a situation that would maximize the damage. Here's how you would do it and you wouldn't do it at night but not so late at night. The people are tired. You would do it. You know the someone that sell for

09:56 And that's exactly what happened.

10:01 So the night when we got that word at 4 at that point I have to do make a decision about what the library is going to do.

10:11 Because I'm the director of the library and so I

10:16 Thought about it.

10:18 And I thought you know, we had we had steak out of black August. I made a decision that my only criteria was safety if safe open if open do everything we can and so the question was would it be safe and I thought about it and decided that the grand jury announcement supposed to happen if we're supposed to close 8:00. It'll take him a couple minutes to get the microphone. They will talk for who knows how long before they actually get to the magic words that will cause a reaction and so I thought okay that's going to be enough time for staff to get out to get home. Now. The road will be closed yet because you know, if that'll happen after the crowd gets after the police start responding to the crowd that kind of thing.

11:09 And so I decided that we could stay open till till 8:00. And so I

11:15 Told staff and we put up a sign and I went to Twitter and I said

11:21 And you know knowing that everything everything else on the street was closed like every business every nonprofit everything closed. There was no lights on except for the library. And so I went on Twitter and I said other organs are closing.

11:35 The library is open will stay open until 8 p.m. As long as it's safe for pictures and staff.

11:42 Love each other

11:44 And it took me probably 10 minutes to write that tweet because I wrote it exactly like I just said it and then I stood there for 10 minutes thinking. Can I can I really say something?

11:55 As emotional as

11:59 Charged as love each other at the end of that and in the end I decided that you know, I had to be true to myself. We can't hide from ourselves in the process of doing social media. And so I send it out and then you grabbed it.

12:17 And the Aviary posted something similar to Facebook like a longer version expanded version of explain the more

12:26 Which turned out to be a big deal because the rest of the world noticed that and that'll come in later.

12:33 So we decided we're going to be open in one thing that I had forgotten for. This is we're not talking about this a year and loose change later. You're in a month later. One thing I had forgotten that I was reminded of yesterday. We had a board meeting that night like not only were reopened and helping the public but the board came down and they have a board meeting and we just did our usual stuff. Let's talk about the budget. Let's talk about, you know Capital Improvement. Let's talk about the things we have to do now. It was the shortest board meeting I've ever seen after you know, that was later on that was that was at the one-year anniversary. I think I'm being killed.

13:18 So yeah, we had a board meeting. We didn't we were normal library and we had lots and lots of people up until about 7, and then suddenly there was no one here, right? But so I had had this irrational idea that there was maybe a fire book and I had planned for this right? I was going to stay the night. I had bought soda pop to stay awake. I had bought chips to eat. I had a bag for you. That's right. And I had planned out an Escape Route right in case things went crazy. Here's how I would get away. Right and I tried walking up the hill behind the library after the train tracks and found out that was really hard and I wasn't sure that there was a good place to park my truck up there until instead. I park my truck at the shop and save next door because the shop and save parking lot has two roads right in and told the police shut down the big road where the protests are going to happen. They can still get out on the side road Airport Road, right?

14:18 Again to previous stuff from way back. So anyway, so I I plan my Escape Route I parked over the shop and save parking lot right at the middle of the parking lot. So it wasn't too close to the roads and I walked to work with my bags and bags of stuff and when we closed

14:39 We turned on Ice. I was here in two of my employees to employees that have been active in the protests. And so they were not as worried as some other people were the three of us stayed at the library and we turned on the computers and we watch the news reports and they watch for a while until you know, we started getting trouble getting internet connection and you're cutting out and cutting out until they left probably about maybe 5-6 minutes after 8 until then it was me and

15:12 The internet came back on and I was able to watch the news reports and I'll tell you.

15:18 There's something incredibly surreal about watching a helicopter camera feed of the protests and hearing the noise of the protest coming to the computer wore the same time hearing the real world noise coming through the wall.

15:37 And it's just slightly off sink and it's just strange and surreal and I I guess that's ever going to be a strong memory for me for the rest of my life that. Double echo of what was going on.

15:50 Protests are happening at the police are outside the police station, which is you know, like a couple blocks up. So I heard he had it if it wasn't for the train tracks blocking view. I'd be able to see the police station from the library Easley and the noise was loud enough and close enough. There was coming through the walls.

16:12 So I watch this this camera view and one thing, you know about mob action, right? So I watch the people they're out there. The new Gregory Nelson has made people are very angry. People are chanting. People are staying there, right?

16:33 And one thing you know about what turns a protest into.

16:39 Ms. And understand there's a difference between a protest and a riot and looting their all three different things that three different motivations and there's not necessarily any kind of overlap the people that do it but that night I watched that crowd transform from protest into mob action. And the way that usually happens according to the researchers is that you have a big mass of people go fight or flight response, right?

17:08 So something happened and everyone has that fight or flight at the same time and then you either get a router a right.

17:16 A watch that camera feed and the camera feed is looking down the crowd and they're like we're hearing gunfire and I watched that crowd start to break apart and then come back together. And I knew at that point it was going to be a very bad night.

17:34 Because

17:36 They already held it together once.

17:39 So whenever I broke it was going to go big and whoever fired there was fired shots. Did it for a reason was going to do it again?

17:49 And so that point I started being really really worried about how bad it was going to get and sure enough shots fired again, crab breaks apart and

18:02 Things go very dark.

18:06 We found out the next morning that he and every piece of glass they could find for like 1/2 Mile North of the PlayStation with a broken out except for the library and over on West Florissant. There's another like mile of ground where everything was broken out a dozen businesses burned that kind of thing.

18:27 That night I am in the library waiting to hear the broken window in the molotov cocktail being thrown in.

18:36 And I'm thinking I wonder how bad is going to get. Well, I know that's when you say bad. So I'm watching and something else 20 minutes later. I want to say but who knows everything is so screwed up in my memory for time dilation. I hear this boom.

18:54 Boom boom write the whole Library physical Library shaking and I look up at the security camera and I see 8-10 people outside the library at the front doors not understand. Our doors are glass doors, right? We have a double set of glass doors and then four feet further and another Dell'Osso class doors, and they're kicking trying to kick those doors in.

19:19 And so I

19:22 Like a goofball, I grabbed the fire extinguisher and I come running around the corner going. No, no not here not here. Please no yelling through the glass doors and they kick it a half-dozen more times or more and then they left.

19:41 And so the door stood thank goodness. No one thought to look and pick up one of the paving stones. We have lots of paving stones outside the library we have big rocks. We have a trash can we have all kinds of things that would have gone through that door in a second. But instead they tried to kick and thank goodness for that. And I don't know what made them give up. Maybe they just got tired of messing with it. Or maybe they saw a human being inside and remember something that hadn't been remembering up till then. I don't know.

20:13 But at that point I took a deep breath and that okay good is over. All right now go back to listings for my Firebug in and that'll be it and I went back over to you now check make sure everything's secure went back over satin down look the monitor again and waited.

20:33 And I thought it was done and I thought I was just going to me and I'll wait until it blew me off early morning, and then I'll go home but then a half an hour or so later.

20:43 Boom boom boom, right

20:48 And so I do the same thing again to come whirling around the corner. I got a fire extinguisher man. I'm like, no not here not here.

20:55 And the same thing happened just another crowd of people probably 10 or so and they're taking turns kicking at the door and kicking at the door knocking at the door and then they start to filter away and the last one that leaked Eve.

21:09 He stops he has a glass bottle with a really sick bottom like on a square heavy glass bottles and he wins it at the door and let me tell you this guy can throw like this guy should be on the Cardinals. This guy's a monster. He Wing that bottle so hard.

21:29 That's the neck called p-wing the bottles. So accurately that it went straight to the metal handles at the middle of the door and shattered on them and it shattered so hard but the next morning we couldn't find a large piece of glass. It was all small slivers and you know metal embedded are Sheila Glass embedded in the middle of that door. So Sky could throw and if it had been a few inches one side or a few inches the other it would have gone right through and I cannot imagine that that group would have continued leaving if that would have happened is that point that I realized that I was a moron?

22:09 Did I was a dummy I had been 4 years for years. I had been teaching the emergency dental procedures to staff right at my previous job and I'd always told them that people are more important than things. You can release of people replaced things which can't replace people and that's the night that I realized it. You know, I'm a people too.

22:31 So interesting because the story that you told me when you got home was not that same story. Yeah, I was there and there were some teenagers and they said they came, you know, they came up a couple times but I came around with the fire extinguisher and they left your life and I think things are going to be okay. So I just decided to come home instead of spending the night at the library. So he lied. Yeah, it wasn't that I just said things will be okay with that. I decided that I was an idiot for being there and that if if that happened again, there was nothing I can do to stop them.

23:17 Right and ends. I just basically take it out and ran so I grabbed up my stuff and I went out the back door and I had this very also cereal walking at the back door. Actually. I check the back door man at the front door because I have to set the alarm but I had this very kind of tents walk back to my truck where I am with my coat in my backpack, and I'm just trying to look like I belong there.

23:46 Which wasn't hard there was people of many different Neil backgrounds ages racist excetera out wandering the streets at that time, but I do know that I passed a couple of groups of people when they gave me good long looks as I went past them pin Ford my truck.

24:03 And I got in the truck and I drove home and I don't know if I slept at all that night. If I did it was only off and on.

24:15 I suspect nothing people in and I'll will Ferguson slept either.

24:19 So

24:21 The next morning, you know, I don't get a call from the alarm company at any point. So hopefully that means but they'll course if they broke the clasp it would have set off the alarm as long as they can open the door, so, I don't know really what happened to the library. I made it a point to drive a different route. Normally, I would drive up Airport Road, which is kind of a back way and that morning I decided to drive up Florissant Road, which is up to the middle of town for the library past the fire department in the police station and everything else.

24:53 And it was like an alien landscape. It was so strange driving that space. No humans. No Cars Moving and broken glass everywhere and I was

25:10 Shock sets at how bad it had gotten.

25:14 Understood before I'd heard about business of being burned or any of that stuff, but I could just and the church the church got burnt to the girl eyes that I thought that it was probably some white supremacist taking a chance to opportunity to do something you are there was a lot of opportunism happening all throughout their gone.

25:40 So I got the library and I was incredibly relieved whenever I park my truck and saw that none of the windows. I could see were broken and the front doors were not broken and it looked like it was probably intact and so I got on the truck and went in and we may lead to walk around the whole place. Make sure there was nothing damaged or broken Rizzoli and there wasn't the library came through without a scrape other than in your class and better than the front door handles. And so we opened we had school for peace teacher came out to volunteer we had kids here and I had to make another decision which was

26:24 For that night one thing I know is that whenever this kind of thing happens. There's an echo like it happens. Not just one night, but two or three nights.

26:34 And so I knew that Tuesday was going to be more of the same as what it happened Monday night. And so I decided okay school for peace is going to go till 3:30. It'll be dark about 4:30 or 5.

26:50 We know it's going to get hard. I don't know. What's not going to be safe in this area until we're going to close at 4. And so I announced that to the world through Twitter and sell to social media and we did our thing. We were open that day. We did everything we could we close at 4 cuz it was not safe and it turned out that was a good call because that night it was more businesses burned cars flipped and burned my had a heart attack moment in the middle of the night in the wee hours whenever someone said, oh, no, they got the library.

27:20 Like what and it took a little digging around online with his anal hard to do really to figure out what it really happened. Is that that people write up the car and burned it near the library and the police of chase them down into the library parking lot and tackled them there and arrested them there according to report that I finally found until Mike. Okay, they didn't get the library, but it was really ugly just outside.

27:48 Wednesday we opened him eat it or normal day Thursday and Friday were Thanksgiving. Yeah, so, you know, it would be so much better if they would have done that announcement on Wednesday night to the Monday.

28:02 But there are a lot of things that could have been different it would have been better. But what happened happened?

28:13 It was a strange time for all of us like cuz none of us were sleeping. We'd all come down with some kind of.

28:23 You look kind of been we were all sick and I was staying up handling all the social media while you were going to your things and it was because I remember that night.

28:40 The night of the the grand jury announcement and the next day in the few days and I was trying to do something else a grading or something and

28:51 Like okay. I'm only going to look at this when it pops up every 10 announcements and it was unit within a few minutes. There were a hundred notifications and it became clear that we were going to I was going to do anything but social media and people from all over the country and we became report in a way and you know people asking about us and people

29:22 Donating things and we had gotten of following social media and throughout August September and October.

29:39 That's a long train.

29:49 Just let it ride.

30:02 So used to being for the airport, I thought it was an airplane.

30:14 Can maybe the longest train ever heard maybe just cuz I'm thinking about it and worried about time.

30:20 You could posit while the train goes by it's easier. They said it's easier. If you got a temporary pause like this, just let it ride the other two. Later if they're going to edit it at all.

30:32 If you were going to get up and leave the room until the bathroom babies stop it, but

30:39 So we had developed a Following over August September October on social media, but I think that that night and people responding to the things that we tweeted about the hopeful think we're tweeted and the next day when we tweeted all about all these resources you can use and here's this contact for this organization. And here's we can get this kind of help in that kind of help. I think that that made people across the country notice us and we got a lot of support from all over the place a lot of me on this positive supportive messages as well as senior significant donation significant book donations on number of book drive started following that phenomenal things which could all be in the separate story of Their Own.

31:26 Huge things happened and it's made a huge difference for the library since then we've actually done tons and tons and tons of improvements because of the money that we got that night so that one time donation and I would get rid of all of it if we could just not have that night and the night in August.

31:53 What else would you like? What else Buskey tell me about what it was like at home while I was doing this other stuff.

32:05 It was

32:08 It was a very hard time for us. I mean and it's especially this far out. It's hard to even remember.

32:18 The specifics, you know, as far as this event happened this day.

32:27 I mostly just remember how it felt.

32:30 That I was exhausted.

32:34 And that the kids were worried and the Keno's the old riding the oldest.

32:44 Was asking me about Mike Brown and you know when he's like, why did this happen and asking me about you know things he'd heard about it at school. I mean the other little kids he lives in a really we live in a really diverse area and a little kids at school were talking about but policemen killed a guy and he also heard it from me cuz I didn't talk to her about it and showing him where

33:21 You wouldn't understand what was going on with him by then my friend Memorial talk about it over driving past that and that kind of stuff. And so there was a lot of

33:36 It was surreal. It's sort of.

33:41 There are moments in your life that I called them a time out of time where?

33:51 You're not even necessarily aware of events.

33:56 You are just sort of aware of being in the moment, you know, so when like when we got married that was a time out of time and you know exactly what we said and exactly the order of things that's hard to remember, but you can remember.

34:18 How you felt in that moment and that's you know, that's what I can really remember and it was you do and the things that we're going on around us were incredible things. Incredibly good incredibly bad, you know the people

34:37 Out in the streets people

34:41 You know, I'm not just with Mike Brown but with

34:48 The Injustice that happens across the country.

34:54 You know, I mean

34:57 But it's

34:59 But it just all sort of blended into we know it's like I stopped being.

35:05 Scared and I stopped being excited or just

35:15 Sort of stayed in that space and she's the only yes or driving in. The only thing I knew was that people depended on us, I mean, and I'm not the library director obviously, but

35:35 They depended on you and so

35:39 My job for that whole time was to prop you up and feed you and keep the kids together and

35:53 Put you together and send you out on your way.

35:57 For my in diadem had a whole different understanding with my mission was in like my ideas of little libraries for what it does kind of magnified by 10.

36:08 Weed become in August. We become the kind of countermelody, right? There was all the negative coming out and we were the pasta that remind me people that Ferguson has an actual living thriving community and there's more to it than just this moment of tragedy and it wasn't just a war zone. It was actually very complicated. And so we had a role to play in a federal pretty seriously enough probably abscess to a Ludacris degree in way too much time doing it in and I'm sure they've suffered all the time not because of me taking this job way too much way to being so dedicated to the job.

36:49 I think that.

36:52 The night of the grand jury. I was a different person coming out of that than I was going into it.

36:59 I think this town is a different town coming out of it then going into it.

37:04 Entry out for the whole fall. I think our country has changed them too, or at least we're paying attention to things we never paid attention to before.

37:14 I don't know. It's hard to describe. Sorry to put a context.

37:21 Anything else you want to cover?

37:24 It has been a long year.

37:26 Yep.

37:29 And I'm glad that the library got things that it did.

37:35 And it's been good for the library and probably in the long-term good for our country that these things have happened. You know, it's like having a baby. Do you have to go through the pain before you get to the good part?

37:51 But it's been hard on us and I'm glad the Earth over.

37:57 Hey, man, there's a meal they may still be a flare up at some point. Especially if someone else gets killed in the area, but for the moment, we haven't had any activity significant activity since the one-year anniversary back in August. So it's quieting and then say it's transitioning into normal Library life. I guess though. We're more active in word more busy than than we ever could have been if not for us making the stand and doing the things we did last. Well, we're still feeling the effects of that but just being, you know standing room only on some afternoon tea or at the library.

38:37 That's true. I've been invited over at 2 to talk to the library conference in Norway.

38:44 Okay, thank you very much for for helping me talk about this and get everything out. I appreciate all the support you've given me and it means more than I can even express.

39:03 It was the right thing to do and so we did it.