Another young, unarmed black boy was executed over the weekend — this time by the police. Witnesses claim Mike Brown, a young man returning from a store who was due to leave for university in a week, was shot from 30+ feet away by police while he had his hands up. That he was shot ten times. That he was left to lay in the street for four hours while police “contained” the scene.
The police claimed that he had been shot after a struggle with an officer in which he tried to get the officer’s gun. They claim that he had been arrested on suspicion of shoplifting — despite the store claiming they’d never called the police and didn’t suspect Brown of this alleged crime in the first place.
Protesters chanted things like “No Justice, No Peace” and “Don’t Shoot Me”, and the news media reported this as “Kill The Police”. People are rightly outraged that a young, unarmed boy was murdered by white government officials, and these same officials respond to their grieving by bringing out police dogs and tanks. A cop proclaims, on CNN no less, “bring it on, you fucking animals.”
The town of Ferguson, St. Louis is tonight a warzone as militarized police crack down on protesters. And what do you hear on TV? “Looting” and “rioting”. Nothing about murdering an unarmed boy sparking the protests that are being spun as a race riot. And this in a week that already saw a black man murdered by cops for holding an airsoft gun in the airsoft gun aisle of Wal-Mart.
Antonio French has been recording scenes from the day’s protest and the police action, which now includes firing rubber bullets and tear gas into crowds, shining lights directly at reporters who are trying to take video, and intimidating people who are clearly only armed with cell phones.
This brutality has got to fucking end. What year is this?
[…] In Ferguson, police are trying to control a situation. On twitter, you can see footage that is simply chilling (here, for instance, pay attention to the trivial detail of where the gun is pointed). More here. […]
But but but… police officers are magical fairytale creatures who can do no wrong!
Seriously tho, I was reading another article that pointed out in a town that’s 65% black, the police force is only 5% black. Something drastically wrong with that picture.
Ah, here it is. The police force is 53 strong, with 3 blacks, 2 other minorites, and 3 women. In other words, law enforcement in this town is a white man’s club, with just enough token minorities that they can say “Oh yeah, we hire minorities, sure!”
Cops tend to be pea-brained thugs in the US. Regrettably, it might just be that your typical USian is a pea brained thug.
The police must be demilitarized. You can tell who’s prepared for a riot by what they bring and how they dress: and the cops come dressed to kill.
What’s good is that the protesters aren’t coming with guns, unlike Cliven Bundy’s fans.
Have you ever noticed that the cops never de-escalate? Their approach is to come with overwhelming force until the protesters de-escalate. This shows a strategic incomprehension of human relations.
@Marcus
The cops don’t de-escalate since they aren’t being sensible and rational and trying to prevent harm; they’re engaged in some idiotic macho posturing where the only message they care about sending is that they never back down, and that violence, when done by them, is always legal. It’s also a message to the Black community, that they are an occupied people with no rights.
Remember the cop who pepper sprayed the pregnant occupy protester who was already on the ground with the other protesters and doing nothing? Who miscarried? That’s just the ‘look at ME! I’m a COP! I can do anything to you because I’m a COP!’ mentality at work.
Jason:
I’m going to copy/paste a comment I left at Pharyngula in PZ’s thread about the media attention to Robin Williams’ death, because the whole situation in the US with regard to people of color being oppressed and discriminated against seriously hit home for me, deeply, about an hour ago, and I can’t stop shaking and crying and I want people to hear, first hand, how a person of color feels about this situation. I hope you don’t mind:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/12/robin-williams-brings-joy-to-the-hearts-of-journalists-and-politicians-once-again/comment-page-2/#comment-834375