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

TPM

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.