Its critical if you are concerned with actually alleviating the situation and bringing the confrontations to an end, yes.
But when you are more concerned about covering your ass, swapping them out is the way to go.
1 Like
County police chief Jon Belmar claims two dozen police vehicles have been destroyed. I call bullshit on that claim, if there were two dozen police vehicles destroyed you can bet there would have been pictures.
5 Likes
the Open Carry advocates should provide the guns. They all claim that guns are necessary to stand up to the “gummint.”
1 Like
“Hours earlier, the police chief had said race relations were the top
priority in the town, where a white police officer fatally shot the
black teen. Authorities have vowed to reach across the racial, economic
and generational divide in a community in search of answers.”
Just when did the police chief actually show any desire to work on race relations? I mean before one of his officers gunned down an unarmed kid. From the accounts I have heard two witnesses have said that the officer shot the kid at least once close to his squad car and then several more times as he followed the fleeing kid.
1 Like
The shooting happened on Saturday. Its now Thursday and the police haven’t even interviewed a single witness to the shooting besides the cop himself.
An incredibly stressful situation has been induced upon the area, which seriously impacts people’s ability to recall events clearly. Not to mention the effect of an adrenaline rush combined with sleep deprivation which certainly must be happening.
Each day that goes by makes gathering evidence and testimony more difficult.
2 Likes
Can we please get our facts straight here? There were no molotov cocktails. The photo that was used to deduce that by the AP and other news stories was of a protester throwing back a tear gas canister.
We could watch this going on live online as several protesters were live streaming the conflict. They were standing in the middle of a street as they were pushed back from the location they were at earlier that day. They were there chanting and protesting peacefully while the police at the other end in tanks were telling them to leave. The police gave them two “final warnings”, and about 2 minutes after the last one tear gas was thrown and rubber bullets were fired into the crowd with absolutely no provocation. The first tear gas canister that was hurled at the crowd landed near this guy’s feet and was sparking. He threw it toward the cops, but the cops were too far away for anyone to have thrown anything remotely near them. It fell, spun around, and went off with a bang like fireworks then a gas cloud started bellowing out of it. After this all hell broke loose.
The protesters were sent back into a residential neighborhood. The cops then proceeded to fire rubber bullets into the neighborhood without any consideration for property or anything. As they rolled by a house an old man started hurling insults at the cops, and they just simply threw a tear gas canister at the old man on his porch. The cops kept telling the people to disperse, but at that time people who actually lived there were looking out their houses and were in their yards in complete shock as to what was going on. They yelled back “To where?! We live here!”
4 Likes
That’s absurd. I think African Americans are capable of voting for the party they think will look after their interests best without your helpful advice and guidance. It’s also so irrelevant that it’s flaggably off-topic. We’re talking about an evident police murder, a community reaction, and police overreaction. Talk about that or be quiet.
2 Likes
Yeah, “destroyed” strikes me as bullshit too.
1 Like
It’s cute that the head of the Ferguson police department thinks he’ll still have a job when this is over.
I have tried to make sense out of both the witnesses statements and the statements of the police as to what actually happened in the Brown encounter. They are fairly consistent up to the point where Brown starts running away, the officer exits his car and unloads his pistol into Brown. The best and I mean best take for the police officer has him using excessive and illegal force. It would probably be better charged as a murder. There is certainly enough to arrest the guy. That would go a long way toward defusing the situation.
Instead the later day Bull Conner running the Ferguson police department says his investigation is going to take weeks before any charges can be filed. Weeks. Really.
1 Like
It appears the cops have taken it upon themselves to declare marital law and suspend the Constitution. Which should be raising some serious red flags all the way up the flagpole.
We aren’t just talking about killing unarmed black men/boys now. We are talking about infringing upon the profits of Corporate America, directly. That’s a big No No.
1 Like
Well, that speaks volumes about the police force’s competence and willingness to get to the truth of what happened. Independent agencies need to step in immediately. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is basically calling for that from the state.
2 Likes
The AP is wrong about Molotov cocktails and rocks being thrown by the crowd. Watch the live video from a reporter on the scene available on Salon.com for eyewitness account. This police violence is scary. When did the public become the enemy?
1 Like
I am pretty sure the FBI took witness statements yesterday and so did the police, but only after the witnesses were delivered to them by the NAACP. A real police department would have had trained detectives talking to the witnesses Saturday night. The St. Louis County prosecutor would have been running the show.
Maybe the Ferguson Police Department needs fewer armored personnel carriers and better trained personnel.
3 Likes
The crowd is all black and the cops are all white. Nothing more needs to be said.
1 Like
This is what happens when you “militarize” the police.
They go from “protect and serve” to “seek and destroy”.
When you arm and train them as a military force they see ALL interaction with non-police as a “combat mission”.
When you give them military weapons, they WANT to “use it or lose it”.
It becomes especially bad because many, many police recruits come directly out of the military where you are trained to solve all conflict with the business end of your rifle.
2 Likes
There were quite a few white people in the crowd as well. It’s simply a case of cops vs. public. At this point the cops don’t care who they hurt. They’re a pseudomilitary, not a police force anymore.
1 Like
Yeah. TPM can do better than to run the AP account.
2 Likes
All they know is that it’s they, the Noble Defenders of Civilization, versus “The Others”.
He’s supposed to preserve, protect, and uphold the Constitution. that’s what. Up to and including putting the DoJ and the NG in.