{"id":185789,"date":"2014-08-14T20:35:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T01:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/08\/14\/thoughts-on-ferguson-part-2-the-protests-and-the-police-response\/"},"modified":"2014-08-14T20:35:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T01:35:00","slug":"thoughts-on-ferguson-part-2-the-protests-and-the-police-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/08\/14\/thoughts-on-ferguson-part-2-the-protests-and-the-police-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Ferguson:  Part 2: the Protests and the Police Response"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 330px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/XU3plWB.jpg\" rel=\"lytebox\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/XU3plWB.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><br \/><i>These are not peace officers, These are an implacably hostile occupying force.<\/i><br \/><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"180\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/video\/api\/embed.html#\/video\/us\/2014\/08\/11\/newday-howell-st-louis-fatal-shooting-protests.cnn\" width=\"320\"><\/iframe><i><br \/>This guy is eager to start shooting &#8220;animals&#8221;<\/i><\/div>\n<p>First, and perhaps most telling, was the police officer caught on tape screamig, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/colorlines.com\/archives\/2014\/08\/police_officer_calls_ferguson_protestors_animals.html\">Bring it, all you f%$#ing animals! Bring it<\/a>!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is not just a cop who is ill trained to either handl a protest and defuse potential violence, this is someone who actively wants to shoot some people.  (One does wonder which Cracker Jack box this guy got his badge out of)<\/p>\n<p>Then, we have the comments by the Ferguson police chief, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.al.com\/opinion\/index.ssf\/2014\/08\/why_ferguson_missouri_police_c.html\">blaming the violence on &#8220;outside agitators<\/a>,&#8221; which has historical echos to the comments of people like Birmingham&#8217;s infamous police commissioner Eugene &#8220;Bull&#8221; Connor.<\/p>\n<p>I think that it is fairly clear that both the Ferguson, and the St. Louis County PD have not covered themselves with glory, but a bigger issue is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/aug\/14\/ferguson-police-military-restraints-violence-weaponry-missouri\">the increasing militarization of the police, and their increasing view of the general public as the enemy<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Michael Brown was shot dead by an officer from a police force of 53, serving a population of just 21,000. But the police response to a series of protests over his death has been something more akin to the deployment of an army in a miniature warzone.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Ferguson police have deployed stun grenades, rubber bullets and what appear to be 40mm wooden baton rounds to quell the protests in a show of force that is a stark illustration of the militarization of police forces in the US.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cI\u2019m a soldier, I\u2019m a military officer and I know when there\u2019s a need for such thing, but I don\u2019t think in a small town of 22,000 people you need up-armor vehicles,\u201d Cristian Balan, a communications officer in the US army, who was not speaking on behalf of the US military, told the Guardian. \u201cEven if there\u2019s an active shooter \u2013 are you really going to use an up-armor vehicle? Do you really need it?\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course the don&#8217;t but the Pentagon is giving away their slightly older stuff for free, and they are fun toys. <\/p>\n<p>The problem is that it makes things worse, not better:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cAs we\u2019ve seen in Ferguson, the militarization of policing tends to escalate the risk of violence to the communities,\u201dsaid Kara Dansky, senior counsel with the ACLU\u2019s Center for Justice and the prime author of its June 2014 report on the militarization of US police. \u201cWe think that historically, the police and the military have had different roles and that American neighborhoods aren\u2019t war zones and police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">She said the trend of militarizing local police forces has continued over the past several decades and that communities of color bare the brunt of most military policing.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Representative Hank Johnson, a house Democrat from Georgia, said on Thursday that he plans to introduce the \u201cStop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act\u201d, which would end the department of defense\u2019s military surplus program. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Your mouth to God&#8217;s ear, Representative Johnson.<\/p>\n<p>I would also suggest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/national\/archive\/2014\/08\/americas-weaponized-police-force-could-benefit-from-one-more-weapon-cameras\/376063\/\">that requiring on duty police to wear cameras at all time would help<\/a>.&nbsp; We know what happens when both the police, and the citizenry, become aware that there is monitoring of law enforcement interactions with the general populace:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>.<br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\">In 2012, Rialto, a small city in California&#8217;s San Bernardino County,  outfitted its police officers with small Body Cams to be worn at all  times and record all working hours. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.parsac.org\/parsac-www\/pdf\/Bulletins\/14-005_Report_BODY_WORN_CAMERAS.pdf\">$900 cameras weighed 108 grams<\/a>  and were small enough to fit on each officer&#8217;s collar or sunglasses.  They recorded full-color video for up to 12 hours, which was  automatically uploaded at the end of each shift, where it could be held  and analyzed in a central database.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">When researchers studied the effect of cameras on police behavior,  the conclusions were striking. Within a year, the number of complaints  filed against police officers in Rialto fell by 88 percent and &#8220;use of  force&#8221; fell by 59 percent. \u201cWhen you put a camera on a police officer,  they tend to behave a little better, follow the rules a little better,\u201d  Chief William A. Farrar, the Rialto police chief, told the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/08\/22\/us\/in-california-a-champion-for-police-cameras.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0\"><i>New York Times<\/i><\/a>.&nbsp;\u201cAnd if a citizen knows the officer is wearing a camera, chances are the citizen will behave a little better.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The situation in Ferguson has gotten so bad that both <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/livewire\/elizabeth-warren-ferguson-war-zone\">liberal icon Elizabeth Warren<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/livewire\/justin-amash-ferguson-war-zone\">Teabagger militant Justin Amash<\/a> have condemned the overreaction of the police, and civil rights icon John Lewis has <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/livewire\/john-lewis-obama-martial-law-ferguson\">called for Barack Obama to federalize the National Guard and declaring martial law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On the bright side, the local constabulary, both the Ferguson and the St. Louis county PD have been removed from command, and replaced by the state Highway Patrol, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/aug\/15\/ferguson-disarming-tactics-of-highway-patrol-pay-dividends-as-calm-descends\">which has resulted in a lighter touch and less violence<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">A wall of militarised police had blocked the centre of Ferguson, Missouri, this week, shooting teargas and rubber bullets at seething protesters who dared to show any defiance.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">On Thursday evening it melted away.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">A carnival-like demonstration filled the centre of the city after a new police chief given control of protests over the killing of an unarmed 18-year-old implemented a dramatic shift in tactics.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Hundreds of people gathered at the same intersection in this northern suburb of St Louis that has been the epicentre of violent clashes with police in the previous days.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">But where the officers with assault rifles once stood, backed by armoured trucks topped with snipers\u2019 nests, on Thursday there was almost no police presence.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Car horns filled the air as people blew whistles and chanted \u201cno justice, no peace\u201d and \u201chands up, don\u2019t shoot\u201d, the slogan adopted in solidarity with Michael Brown, who according to witnesses was shot by a police officer as he fled a confrontation with his arms aloft on Saturday afternoon.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">The shift followed the installation of Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri state highway patrol as the effective commander on the ground, under orders earlier in the day from the state governor, Jay Nixon. His force replaced the St Louis county police in leading the operation<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gee, a simple rule, &#8220;Don&#8217;t be a savage and blindly unreasoning racist asshole,&#8221; appears to have defused much of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>I think that the police forces in that part of Missouri rate a full deep dive investigation of their policies and actions by the Feds. <\/p>\n<p>Zero tolerance, baby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These are not peace officers, These are an implacably hostile occupying force.This guy is eager to start shooting &#8220;animals&#8221; First, and perhaps most telling, was the police officer caught on tape screamig, &#8220;Bring it, all you f%$#ing animals! Bring it!&#8221; This is not just a cop who is ill trained to either handl a protest &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[971,969,1041,1006,1001,1126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-evil","category-law-enforcement-misconduct","category-military","category-racism","category-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}