Time to arrest the police


I’ve been away for 10 days, and trying to catch up with the nightmarish news from Ferguson, Missouri is rage-inducing. I’ve decided that the only possible solution is to declare martial law, call in the National Guard, and let the tanks roll in…to shut down and arrest the police force. These trigger-happy militarized goons need to be stopped, and not just in one town in Missouri, but all across the country: no more drones, armored personnel vehicles, SWAT teams, and thugs playing soldier — those aren’t the police. We need something in between open-carry idiots deputizing themselves to enforce the peace, and these paramilitary pseudo-soldiers who believe their job is to suppress people they don’t like.

Once upon a time, it was people in blue uniforms who were supposed to avoid drawing their weapons in all but the most dire circumstances. Now it’s a race to make the police increasingly lethal, which should not be their mission.

And then, just to get yourself even deeper in a fug, read the opinions of white people in St Louis. We’re screwed.

(By the way, I’m closing this thread full of Ferguson news…now you can fill up this one.)

Comments

  1. Maureen Brian says

    al dente @ 143 on the previous thread,

    Barcelona was especially repressed during the Franco dictatorship and has expended much energy since 1975 reasserting its own identity. People there can probably relate to the folks in Ferguson at a very deep level.

  2. Pteryxx says

    *looks at all my previous comments*

    …Right, I’ll just link to the very last one: (end of page 3 of the previous thread)

    Reposting:

    The Associated Press @AP

    Police in Ferguson confirm they fired tear gas canisters on protesters defying a curfew: http://apne.ws/1oRVNqX

    (Twitter link)

    First report I’ve seen of sound cannon being used, reported by a journalist at the Riverfront Times:

    Danny Wicentowski ?@D_Towski

    Three apcs slowly advance on group of 8 protesters linking arms. Sound cannon. #Ferguson

    (Twitter link)

  3. chimera says

    Like Tony, I’m re-posting.

    I haven’t caught up on the thread today but wanted to share THIS. Scroll down the article for a really fascinating animated map of tweets containing #ferguson and related hashtags around the world between August 9 and 14. You can zoom out to watch the whole world progressively light up with #ferguson or zoom in on your city/country to watch it begin. It’s interesting to note things like Morocco lights up early on but almost nothing from neighboring Algeria. Buenos Aires leads the way in South America, followed by Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, an extremely connected city. Italy remains dark much of the time. Barcelona and Madrid are the brightest cities in Spain. Madrid I get, it’s the capital, but why Barcelona? Is it because there is more of an activist fiber in Barcelona than other cities on the Iberian Peninsula?

    I wonder what all the variables are, having internet access, being proficient in English, having an interest in social justice issues and ???

    In any case, it seems that Twitter’s role in informing the public has reached a clinamen or threshold of some sort.

  4. marcmagus says

    Not sure if anybody’s doubting that report of the sound cannon being used, but it definitely happened. You could hear it on the livestreams from the reporters’ pen.

  5. blf says

    Who is manning the APCs, etc? My understanding is the local policeparamilitaries were replaced, on the Vernor’s orders, by the state’s highway patrol, who did an extremely good job of calming down the situation, using a low-visibility, tolerant, and de-weaponized approach. The situation has flared up some since then, leading to the curfew, but unless there’s been some change in the highway patrol’s tactics, I am very very puzzled as to who the goons are in the APCs, etc ?

  6. Pteryxx says

    blf: As far as I can tell, nobody knows which police agencies are doing what. They still aren’t wearing badges, and the few times I saw that reporters tried to ask what agencies were responsible, they got no clear answers.

    Inaji:

    Via #AntonioFrench: Curfew in Ferguson will be in place for second night

    Reposting from the previous thread: (link to comment)

    Also in Matt Pierce’s timeline:

    Matt Pearce @mattdpearce

    Actually, I asked Antonio French about it, and he said, well that’s what a curfew is. “They can do that.”
    [in reply to]
    Anthony Oliveira @oliveiranth
    @mattdpearce these officers are clearly dealing in bad faith w journalists and acting unethically and illegally.

    (Twitter link)

    So if I’m reading this right in context, one of the functions of a declared curfew is that it keeps cooperative journalists away from whatever happens in the curfew area. Meaning, I guess, that the police might no longer be acting illegally by forcing journalists away or arresting them to get them out of the curfew zone. I hope Ken at Popehat or someone else specializing in First Amendment law weighs in on this.

  7. blf says

    Oh FFS, “on the Vernor’s orders” was supposed to be on the Governor’s orders. I have no idea how that Tpyos offering happened, but trust she/it/they/he is Berry Hopsy.

  8. closeted says

    You might be interested in Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop, which traces the history and attitudes that have led to peace officers becoming soldiers in all but name (and training), and the police state martial law that results.

  9. kathywood says

    In this video, posted on 8/13, you can here the sound cannons being deployed. They start out with short bursts but then they let them rip.

  10. says

    This is America… THIS! #Ferguson Tired of all the BS stats on intrinsic criminality among blk ppl.

    Maxine Baptiste ‏@brownsugar7878 1m
    Make no mistake about the FBI is having 2 knock door 2 door on homes in #Ferguson because the cops did not interview witnesses #BlackTwitter

    The flood of racist tweets hasn’t slowed down at all, they are still pouring in. A sample:

    Leahy ‏@Disciple4Lif 6m
    95%OF BLK VOTERs VOTE FOR theMurder of400,000black babies via #abortion.But they snap when1guy gets shot? #Ferguson

    not better off ‏@nopenochange 7m
    #Ferguson another example of a growing lawless society where accountability is replaced by excuses and criminal acts.

    Scott Molitor ‏@scottmolitor 7m
    Thank God for courageous policemen and firemen who put their lives on the line daily to protect us and our communities! #Ferguson

    Tim Thrash ‏@TimThrash 7m
    I knew there was more to the story than what “witnesses” were saying. #Ferguson

    BobBarkerismyBro® ‏@BobBarker_Bro 8m
    Im glad evidence came out that this #Ferguson thing was self defense. Now we can start laughing about them destroying their town for nothing

    Larry Zimmer ‏@lifeisageless 11m
    Cause & Affect – #MichaelBrown robs a store, assaults the owner, blocks traffic, assaults a police officer, gets shot , dies..#Ferguson

    M3MM ‏@M3MMLove 12m
    You don’t build a hotel unless you expect occupancy. They’re building prisons for YOU. ~ @LouisFarrakhan #Ferguson

  11. blf says

    Sorry, what? At the Risk of unintentionally reading a few things into Pteryxx@13, there are people running around in uniforms without badges pretending to “cops” and shooting people with a variety of weapons (not all of which are the so-called “non-lethal”), some in tanks (APCs)???!?

    (Just to be clear: I can believe it. And wearing badges or verifiability being police does not justify or excuse the goon’s actions.)

  12. rq says

    So there’s a few tweets coming out trying to implicate Antonio French with collaborating with the police: here and here (related tweets).

    Also, this image.

    Those seven arrested last night? Here’s one of their stories. No comment.

    UK protesters in solidarity, passing on that global support.

    Apparently, in this day and age, filming police violence is the ‘see something, say something’. I agree; also that it’s necessary.

    Meanwhile, in LA (re: Ezell Ford).

  13. rq says

    Part 2 (from Twitter):

    So there’s a few tweets coming out trying to implicate Antonio French with collaborating with the police: here and here (related tweets). And here.

  14. says

    Argh! Those racist Tweets are fucking annoying.

    Im glad evidence came out that this #Ferguson thing was self defense. Now we can start laughing about them destroying their town for nothing

    Self defense?! WTF?
    What would Officer Wilson be defending against? Brown was unarmed!
    Also, “they” didn’t destroy their town. First off, the town isn’t destroyed. Secondly, only a small number of looters broke into businesses, and citizens of Ferguson were actively protecting businesses the entire week. They’ve also been on hand cleaning up after break-ins. This attempt to characterize an entire community as a group of wrongdoers is repugnant.

  15. says

    Antonio French ‏@AntonioFrench 5h
    Rapper J. Cole’s new song inspired by #MikeBrown and #Ferguson – “Be Free”

    ProfB ‏@AntheaButler 5h
    Just remember, all of this police action in #Ferguson is not about keeping the peace, but maintaining a lie and protecting Darren Wilson.

    When The Media Treats White Suspects & Killers Better Than Black Victims

    Ryan J. Reilly ‏@ryanjreilly 3h
    Citizens of #Ferguson had to come up with their own garbage removal system. Trash hasn’t been picked up from QT.

    Rage Is the Right Response to What Happened in Ferguson

    Steve Marmel ‏@Marmel 3h
    “How do we defuse the situation in #Ferguson?” Arrest Darren Wilson instead of doing this Zimmerman wait. Arrest him NOW.

    zellie ‏@zellieimani 2h
    Justice for Mike Brown begins and ends with the truth. It’s something the STL PD have been avoiding since Brown’s death. #Ferguson

    Steve Marmel ‏@Marmel 2h
    #MikeBrown petition hits 100K, White House will have to respond. Way to go, all!

    #Ferguson

    justified agitator ‏@Awkward_Duck 2h
    Darren Wilson is somewhere enjoying his liberty, while the community is under curfew and Mike Brown vilified. #Ferguson

    zellie ‏@zellieimani 2h
    The American public not just Black America, should be angered at the blatant lies and deception of the STL PD. Angered. #Ferguson

    zellie ‏@zellieimani 1h
    It doesn’t matter what you wear, how you talk or what you do, as long as you exist in a black body you can be harassed by police. #Ferguson

    Elon James White ‏@elonjames 59m
    In 5 months #TWIBnation produced a TV show, handled all the media for a biggest progressive conf in the US & was on the ground in #ferguson

  16. Pteryxx says

    blf: Yes the SWAT-armored cops have no badges or identification, and haven’t since the first reports a week ago, as far as I can tell. And yes, though they hedge and deny, they’ve been firing rubber bullets, wooden baton rounds, tear gas, and using LRAD sonic weapons almost every night this week. There are links all over the previous thread and the first “Robin Williams” thread before that.

  17. says

    blf:

    And wearing badges or verifiability being police does not justify or excuse the goon’s actions.

    For those who haven’t been keeping up, please go back to the other thread, and read the last two pages of comments, which are full of links and background on events in Ferguson.

    Blf, it’s interesting you bring up wearing badges, because it was noted, over and over, that Ferguson PD were not wearing name tags.

  18. rq says

    He was respectful. He didn’t bother people. That’s why the community here in Ferguson, the real community of Canfield, we’re upset now.

    More from the LA Times.

  19. says

    Tony @ 23:

    Self defense?! WTF?
    What would Officer Wilson be defending against? Brown was unarmed!
    Also, “they” didn’t destroy their town.

    Those are the two biggest racist memes flooding the ‘net, not just twitter. They’ve been building for days. The ‘destroyed their town’ one, well, a lot of responsibility for that one lies on the doorstep of MSM, who kept reporting ‘massive riots and looting’, and still refuse to make the distinction between the out of town looters and the townspeople/protesters in Ferguson.

    The ‘self defense’ crap took off with Jackson’s release of the video, and won’t die down. As I noted in the other thread last night, one of the building racist memes is “Officer Wilson may not have known about the robbery, but Michael Brown certainly did know.”, meaning Brown tried to murder Wilson because he didn’t want to get caught for robbery. It’s fucking infuriating.

  20. The Mellow Monkey says

    Inaji @ 28

    The ‘destroyed their town’ one, well, a lot of responsibility for that one lies on the doorstep of MSM, who kept reporting ‘massive riots and looting’, and still refuse to make the distinction between the out of town looters and the townspeople/protesters in Ferguson.

    The impression I’m getting from the MSM coverage and responses to it is that in the minds of many white Americans there is literally no difference between a group of black people being gathered together versus a riot.

  21. says

    Missouri Governor: Ferguson Curfew to Continue Indefinitely
    Nixon Says Authorities Must Balance Interests of Protesters With Residents Worried About Property

    For people in the area, the food bank needs donations: Charles Wade ‏@akacharleswade 17m
    St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church 33 N Clay Ave Ferguson, MO 63135 Ph: 314-521-0138 #Ferguson Food Pantry. Needs boxed meals & non-perishables

    Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon ‘Thunderstruck’ by Images of Ferguson Police:

    Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said today he was astounded by some of the images that came out of Ferguson depicting what he described as an “over-militarization” of the police force.

    “I, all of us were thunderstruck by the pictures we saw,” Nixon told Martha Raddatz in an interview in Ferguson. “I mean, the over-militarization, the MRAPs rolling in, the guns pointed at kids in the street. All of that I think instead of ratcheting down brought emotion up.”

    But Nixon rejected responsibility for failing to quell the ongoing unrest in Ferguson.

    “I’ve been here almost every day,” he said. “The bottom line: we’ve been focused on meeting with groups, meeting with the parents, making sure that we were set up and then taking the unprecedented action on Wednesday to replace and to bring in the Highway Patrol.”

    Nixon declared a state of emergency in Ferguson on Saturday and imposed a curfew following days of protests that erupted after unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer, who was identified Friday as Darren Wilson.

    During his interview on “This Week,” the governor revealed that the state was caught off-guard by the Ferguson Police Department’s decision to release surveillance video of Brown during an alleged store robbery on the same day they named the officer responsible for his death.

    “We were unaware that they were going to release it and we certainly were not happy with that being released. Especially in the way that it was it appeared to, you know, cast dispersions on a young man that was gunned down in the street,” Nixon said.

  22. says

    Mellow Monkey:

    The impression I’m getting from the MSM coverage and responses to it is that in the minds of many white Americans there is literally no difference between a group of black people being gathered together versus a riot.

    I was starting to get the same impression.

  23. blf says

    Not wearing badges or other clear-cut individualized identification (such as name tags) is exactly the same tactic the UK’s goons use when doing “riot control” (which includes policing demonstrations and some community events). Fortunately, they don’t carry intended-lethal weapons (albeit an “armed response vehicle” is quite possibly in the vicinity), but are extremely enthusiastic about clubbing people with batons and tasering them (possibly also gassing people, but I must admit I cannot think of any recent incident off the top of my head). The London goons have recently acquired water-cannon, albeit I have no idea if they have been deployed / used yet or not.

  24. says

    MM:

    The impression I’m getting from the MSM coverage and responses to it is that in the minds of many white Americans there is literally no difference between a group of black people being gathered together versus a riot.

    Yep. People on #Ferguson are responding now with images and stories about primarily white riots (like happened over Paterno), where the response was markedly different. I’m also beyond pissed off at the notion that white folk are above doing that kind of thing. Going by the racist asshats, all white people are saints, and none of ’em has every done anything remotely criminal, or got pissed off enough to riot. Nope.

  25. says

    blf:

    Not wearing badges or other clear-cut individualized identification (such as name tags) is exactly the same tactic the UK’s goons use when doing “riot control” (which includes policing demonstrations and some community events).

    In the first days, when FPD was playing soldier in Ferguson, cops were also doing this, which I find fucking terrifying – imagine if this person was running at you, or aiming a weapon at you: A photo out of Ferguson to make you feel all warm and cuddly. Or not. *
     
    *First posted here.

  26. says

    Jesus Fuckin’ Vomited, the comments on that photo (linked @ 35):

    Jon ‏@stainless10fp 2h
    @msnbc stop charging at police and they won’t have to shoot you. Well done says me

    Margaret Mickelson ‏@Margarethelenm 2h
    @msnbc brown committed a robbery then fought with an officer…why is this still a story?

    OnlyOneTruth ‏@UROright 2h
    @msnbc Yeah? Perpetual victims…thugs, dependents.

    Greg Kas ‏@gregkas1 2h
    @msnbc if anyone believes a black guy was standing with his hands in the air was shot buy this cop is a dam fool

    Paula Smith ‏@Islandlass 2h
    @msnbc How about: “If we do a crime, we’ll do the time” or “We’ll give respect, to get respect” or “We want peace & love, not war & hate”

    Cracker ‏@TheBigCracker 2h
    @msnbc Is that Tupoc? Get the hell of the street. Seems like they want instant justice. Doesn’t happen that way, for anybody.

    NOT McConell ‏@MitchMcConell 3h
    @msnbc Great….you’re doing a great job attracting young, out-of-state looters to the scene with around-the-clock coverage.

    clovasrh ‏@clovasrh 3h
    @msnbc Blacks lie, They steal, they lie, they They are just taking advantage of all of this.

  27. says

    Also, where does a guy who calls himself “doppelfarter” and has an avatar of two butts passing gas get off defending the dignity of liberals and atheists?

  28. Pteryxx says

    or how about this gem? *spits*

    Mike Muh-Fuckn Brown ‏@Socio_Psycho 3h

    .@msnbc who wouldn’t hire someone like this and pay them 15.00 an hour?

    If anyone still wondered why black people with clean records and college degrees get hired *less often* than whites with criminal records… it’s because of people like these commenters. (A source for that hiring disparity, btw.)

  29. says

    PZ:

    I’m getting the same crap on twitter.

    It’s everywhere. I stopped curating news early last night because I couldn’t stomach anymore. Every feed where you can find legit info is being flooded with racist shit.

  30. says

    These are bad cops.

    Police in Ferguson, Missouri, once charged a man with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms while four of them allegedly beat him.

  31. says

    Pteryxx:

    or how about this gem? *spits*

    Y’know which one infuriated and sickened me the most? This one:

    Paula Smith ‏@Islandlass 2h
    @msnbc How about: “If we do a crime, we’ll do the time” or “We’ll give respect, to get respect” or “We want peace & love, not war & hate”

    There you have it all – white discomfort, the desire to ignore, institutionalized racism, and respectability politics.

  32. knowknot says

    The linked page, “opinions of white people…,” just phaged my entire day.
    I mean, I knew, but somehow the pointed fact that that is the lite version by comparison to other tweets and such completely pegs my freaakmeter.
    Frightening. As in circa 1933 consensus frightening, Godwin or no.

  33. says

    PZ:

    These are bad cops.

    Yeah, that story was linked all over the place the last couple of days. I really don’t know how anyone could read that and still side with those cops. FFS, they didn’t even try to have a coherent story set up, and whether or not running their video at high speed was incompetence or deliberate, they should all be out of a job.

  34. Pteryxx says

    From #Ferguson in Pictures, linked by Inaji at #11… this is heartbreaking.

    Image link

    [Photo of a black woman walking down the street in front of a waiting line of SWAT-armored police, in broad daylight, with a determined expression on her face and a bag of take-out food in one hand. Her other hand holds the hand of a small girl in pigtails who’s craning back to stare at the police line just behind them.]

  35. anteprepro says

    It’s the depressing downside to the media finally getting around to pointing out that this shit is going on: Now we have to deal with outraged idiots, bigoted trolls, and other assorted right-wing douchebags. In the early stages, Twitter WAS the news. Now all the news that Twitter can provide is being swamped by the bleatings of hatemongers, morons, and assholes. So, yeah, we saw the good and useful side of social media like Twitter early on, and now we are seeing its downside. But since the Mainstream Media is the one that worked the right-wing thugs into a frenzy anyway, and is the method which the police used to poison the well with the “robbery” distraction, Twitter still looks damn good even with the current deluge of trolls.

  36. says

    Pteryxx:

    From #Ferguson in Pictures, linked by Inaji at #11… this is heartbreaking.

    Oh, I started crying when I saw that. That little child…

  37. says

    Ferguson fuels ‘kill switch’ debate

    Tech and civil liberties groups are pushing back on a California “kill switch” bill that they warn could be used to silence protests like the ones seen this week in Ferguson, Mo.

    Critics say a California bill passed on Monday contains a dangerous carve-out that could give law enforcement the power to shut down cellphones during emergency situations, possibly including public demonstrations.

    The California bill is aimed at curbing cellphone theft by requiring all smartphones sold in the state — home to 37 million people — to come equipped with a feature that allows users to remotely wipe their personal data and make the devices inoperable.

    It requires that the “kill switches” be turned on by default, though a user can opt out of using the tool.

    If signed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D), the bill will add to the features that some companies already offer to let users disable their phones if stolen.

    But the bill “is not explicit about who can activate such a switch,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a June letter opposing the bill.

    “And more critically, the solution will be available for others to exploit as well, including malicious actors or law enforcement.”

    Concerns about the provision have been heightened by the demonstrations this week in Ferguson, where police at times demanded that protestors and journalists turn off the video cameras on their phones.

    Jake Laperruque, fellow on privacy, surveillance and security at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the California bill could create the potential for an abuse of power by law enforcement.

    “This could effectively be co-opted to disrupt protests,” Laperruque said.

    “So much of what’s happening [in Ferguson] is relevant,” he continued, wondering what the situation would look like “if this was required there.”

    The bill’s supporters say it incorporates protections against the hypothetical police actions.

  38. knowknot says

    Killswitch.
    Not being a mechanic-type, in this context it’s a little resonant to me that the first time I encountered the concept was via Rage Against the Machine, due to it’s presence in Tom Morello’s guitars. (Not an endorsement or promotion of anything, just a vague guitar-dweeb / name-of-band thing.)
    But seriously, free speech, anyone?

  39. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    While what is going on in Ferguson is entirely based on race, there is a reason why I refer to what is going on is a police riot instead of a race riot. It was a cop who started the series of events by murdering an armed black teen. And it wass the police who escalated the events by pulling out their military weapons.

    Calling it a race riot plays into the racist tropes that many conservatives and MSM are saying about the events. And I want the focus to remain on those who started it, the police.

  40. says

    Janine:

    It was a cop who started the series of events by murdering an armed black teen. And it wass the police who escalated the events by pulling out their military weapons.

    Let’s not forget that it was those cops who aided and abetted Wilson fleeing the area, and having time to delete all of his online presence, such as that on FB. Also, there still seems little interest on the part of anyone in authority in arresting Wilson.

  41. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Janine, check your second sentence in #56. I think you left off an “un”.

  42. Pteryxx says

    I’ve been thinking about the looting (which mostly happened *last* weekend, btw) and the reports that the looters came from out of town, that they come in late at night looking for trouble, and also that whoever fired the shots and put that one man into hospital last night ran away and vanished, while the SWAT police line was busy marching down the street and arresting residents dragged out of their own cars in their driveways. Doesn’t that only make sense, from what we know about troublemaking douchebags that troll feminists and harass at conventions? Troublemakers know where the best environments are to victimize without getting caught. They know when the situation is going to give them cover at someone else’s expense. It makes perfect sense that this variety of shitbag hears about a murder and protests in a neighboring community and knows that the racist cops are going to be too busy cracking down on the residents, who *cannot* leave, and the protesters who *will not* leave, to actually interfere with their looting. They’re going in to break shit up *because* the white cops, estranged from the community, can’t tell the neighbors from the outsiders in the dark. (And the cops boasted whined about it. It’s hard to believe the sheer aggressive, systemic, targeted, don’t-give-one-fuck incompetence of the Ferguson police and most of their collaborating departments.)

    (I do note that the incompetent police seemed well able to tell the journalists from the random populace in the dark, from how they targeted them. Telling, that.)

  43. Pteryxx says

    whoa, I forgot the implications of closing school in a high-poverty area. HuffPo:

    Here’s How You Can Help Kids In Ferguson Who Don’t Have Food Now That School’s Closed

    Many students in Ferguson rely on meals provided in school, and the delay in the start of classes means more time having to endure empty bellies. That’s why Fundly user and Raleigh, North Carolina, school teacher Julianna Mendelsohn partnered with the St. Louis Area Foodbank to launch a crowdfunded campaign benefiting hungry kids and families, WNCN News reported.

    “When I found out school had been canceled for several days as a result of the civil unrest, I immediately became worried for the students in households with food instability,” Mendelsohn wrote on the fundraising page. “Many children in the U.S. eat their only meals of the day, breakfast and lunch, at school. With school out, kids are undoubtedly going hungry.”

    Fundly: Feed the students of Ferguson

  44. says

    Pteryxx:

    They’re going in to break shit up *because* the white cops, estranged from the community, can’t tell the neighbors from the outsiders in the dark.

    Yep. That’s why so many people are seriously upset that cops aren’t required to live in the community they serve anymore. It’s a major problem that rests on the top of the fact that a lot of cops don’t give a shit about the community they are supposed to protect and serve.

  45. zb24601 says

    I thought needing weapons to defend ourselves from government tyranny was far fetched. I was thinking about the federal government, their weapons are far too advanced for citizens to fight against. I never thought I would I would see local or state government act this way without the federal government stepping in to stop it. Maybe the NRA has been right (never thought I’d say that) about needing to be armed to protect ourselves against the jack-booted thugs of the government, in this case local and state government.

  46. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Maybe the NRA has been right (never thought I’d say that) about needing to be armed to protect ourselves against the jack-booted thugs of the government, in this case local and state government.

    You’re still out-gunned and out manned. So, what do you need a gun for, other than making you an obvious target to take out first?

  47. says

    Menyambal:

    I notice that a lot of those pictures of the militarized cops show big bunches of the white plastic handcuffs. They were expecting to arrest a lot of people, maybe.

    Inaji’s reminder upthread of the riots in the Paterno scandal was so appropriate. Where were the militarized cops then? Oh, wait, they were largely white, so they get a pass. Just normal police security.

  48. says

    zb24601:

    Maybe the NRA has been right (never thought I’d say that) about needing to be armed to protect ourselves against the jack-booted thugs of the government, in this case local and state government.

    They aren’t right. The only thing that would happen is that we’d end up with a shitload of dead people. We have enough dead people at the hands of authority, most of them POC. That is the issue at heart – institutionalized racism. Every day racist attitudes. Do not be arguing gun crap in this thread. Just don’t. If you want to do something useful, go back at least 2 pages on this thread, and click every single fucking link. Learn. Educate yourself. Then start educating others.

  49. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    You are right Nerd. This is one time I wish there was a chance to edit an already posted comment.

    Just to make it clear, I meant that Micheal Brown was unarmed.

    Too many lies have been spread already. I am sorry about my stupid typo.

  50. magistramarla says

    I grew up in the St. Louis area. Race relations were always tense there.
    I was not allowed to date a young man who was half Japanese because my mother hated “Japs”.
    She had derogatory names for every ethnic group that lived in the area, but especially hated black people.
    Since I had learned to hate her because she was so abusive to me, I made a conscious effort to think in ways that were the exact opposite of her beliefs.
    She was livid when I went off to college and was assigned a black room-mate. I ignored her, and my room-mate and I became good friends.
    My hubby and I left the area in ’81. I guess I was naive in believing that once the hateful, bigoted older generation died off, St. Louis was going to get better. Sigh.

  51. tomwithhat says

    Sigh, after putting in charge of Furguson someone who isn’t incompetent the Governor of Missouri imposes a curfew and the riot cops are back. Capt. Johnson knows what he is doing; everyone else in the Missouri government needs to back up, do what he says, and stop screwing the whole thing up.

  52. Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm says

    Pteryxx @ 63

    Thanks for bringing up the school closings. I’d also forgotten that but yes. A lot of poor families really count on their kids getting fed at school. This whole situation is having a much wider impact than just the immediate danger posed by an out of control police force.

  53. says

    I am also seeing a rise in the amount of assholes tweeting things like “I see a lot of praying. Is that helping? Hmmm”. If you’re an atheist, and you’re tweeting, try to fuckin’ figure out if that sort of tweet is helping.

  54. says

    Pteryxx:

    RT if you shoplifted as a teen and no cop ever shot your white ass.

    I did. Got caught once, too. I wasn’t gunned down in the street for it, imagine that.

  55. Esteleth is Groot says

    I saw a report that the employees at the beauty store hit by the (reportedly out-of-town) looters had a lot of people they didn’t recognize in “browsing” that day, with a lot of them apparently spending more time looking at price tags than anything.

    Which is to say that this was planned.

    And yes, the fact that the people threatening/throwing rocks/starting fires were (often white) people no one in the neighborhood knew (and sometimes driving cars with out-of-state plates) is pretty gross.

  56. What a Maroon, oblivious says

    Maureen Brian @2,

    Barcelona was especially repressed during the Franco dictatorship and has expended much energy since 1975 reasserting its own identity. People there can probably relate to the folks in Ferguson at a very deep level.

    More to the point, Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain (about 4.5 million in the metro area per Wikipedia). More interesting to me is the blip in Donostia (aka San Sebastian) at the end–Donostia is in the heart of the Basque country, and they certainly know from police repression there.

    Just got back from our annual trip to Spain. Ferguson was pretty well covered in the newspapers there (can’t speak for the TV because I don’t usually watch the news, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they reported fairly closely). Right now I’m just deeply angry and ashamed at my country, but if there’s one silver lining it’s the way the people of Ferguson have reacted with controlled and righteous anger.

  57. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    An other person who got caught shoplifting as a teen.

    The worst I got was a cop tickling my foot when I was in the holding pen taking a nap.

    Still not hearing a justification for the shooting of an unarmed teen.

  58. says

    Aaron V Steimle ‏@IttoUsagi 15m
    It’s almost amazing to see how much ingrained racism in Amricans comes to the fore when people talk about #Ferguson. Almost.

    Tracy McGill ‏@tfrnk 17m
    RT @IowaPeg: “He stole cigars” is the new “She was wearing a short skirt” #Ferguson

    IG: 10Tru #FreeJhawk ‏@10Tru 19m
    I grew up in #Ferguson my whole life harassed plenty of times even beat as a teen I’m glad they shedding light on that racism n #StLouis

    Jamilla ‏@jammytyme 19m
    Why wasn’t the shooting called in? Why the heck is Wilson able to skip town?Why was mike’s body put in a SUV? #importantquestions #ferguson

    Ta-Nehisi Coates @tanehisicoates · 56m
    Worth noting that the mythology @jasonrileywsj peddles here is basically liberal consensus right now.

    jessica ‏@80mercy 5m
    capt johnson :”i stand up here and i wear this uniform and i want to tell you im sorry” talking to mike brown’s parents #Ferguson

    Statement on 7 Arrested Last Night from the Legal Support Team

  59. says

    zb24601:

    Maybe the NRA has been right (never thought I’d say that) about needing to be armed to protect ourselves against the jack-booted thugs of the government, in this case local and state government.

    No. Not at all.
    Arming the populace will only serve to amplify the potential for deadly violence. It’s bad enough that the police are armed with military weaponry. Civilians do not need to arm themselves as well.

  60. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    And yes, the fact that the people threatening/throwing rocks/starting fires were (often white) people no one in the neighborhood knew (and sometimes driving cars with out-of-state plates) is pretty gross.

    As someone who has been involved with radical politic over the years, I am well aware of these types of white wannabe street fighters. I see them as being agent provocateurs. And even if they are sincere, I wanted nothing to do with them.

    Still have bad memories of the white dreadlocked men who tried to recruit my group for street violence during the 96 Chicago Democratic Convention.

  61. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Still have bad memories of the white dreadlocked men who tried to recruit my group for street violence during the 96 Chicago Democratic Convention.

    Why does my cynicism think this was undercover cops/police/sheriffs/marshals?

  62. Pteryxx says

    from #84 link on the 7 arrested last night:

    After leaving the march, they went to the home of one of their aunt’s on Kirk Drive. They were sitting in their parked car in front of the house smoking a cigarette when a swarm of police officers dressed in fatigues and what the arrestees describe as “military garb” rushed the car, put guns in their faces, and began pulling them out of the car. Two young women were pulled out of the car by their hair, and one was dragged through the dirt. All were told they were resisting arrest.

    .

    That’s another thing. Why isn’t anyone in the media picking up on that cops are pre-emptively lying as soon as they target someone, and they’re trained to do this just in case a recording device is around and the encounter might go public?

    I also noted the eyewitness accounts of Brown’s murder reported the police car passed the two men walking in the street, then backed up and smacked Brown with the passenger door. The Ferguson cops don’t have any dashcams YET, but such a maneuver would effectively prevent the encounter being recorded in the first place.

    There’s already a long long pattern of suspicious equipment failures and accidental erasures of recorded evidence in police hands (here, for one).

    A comment at Ophelia’s:

    Law enforcement are trained to do that (I work in law enforcement, and I was trained to do that). If you find this account Orwellian, imagine rows of police officers practicing one-two-one-two: swing the baton; holler “stop resisting!” Swing it again; “drop the weapon!”

    The instructors are not coy about why they do this. “It looks better on YouTube,” for one thing. And “witnesses won’t remember whether they saw a weapon–but they’ll sure as hell remember hearing you holler ‘drop the weapon’ over and over,” for another.

    This should be investigated the fuck out of.

  63. says

    TMM

    The impression I’m getting from the MSM coverage and responses to it is that in the minds of many white Americans there is literally no difference between a group of black people being gathered together versus a riot.

    Indeed. I recall one fellow I had an argument with at one point who was also convinced that said ‘riots’ were organized by Communists.

    Inaji

    Yep. People on #Ferguson are responding now with images and stories about primarily white riots (like happened over Paterno), where the response was markedly different. I’m also beyond pissed off at the notion that white folk are above doing that kind of thing. Going by the racist asshats, all white people are saints, and none of ‘em has every done anything remotely criminal, or got pissed off enough to riot. Nope.

    For that matter, as I noted in a previous thread on this topic, one of the most common reasons for white people rioting in the U.S. has historically been non-white people trying to live to close to them.
    Goodbye Enemy Janine

    Calling it a race riot plays into the racist tropes that many conservatives and MSM are saying about the events. And I want the focus to remain on those who started it, the police.

    There’s no excuse whatsoever for describing what happened in Ferguson as a ‘riot’ of any sort, racial or otherwise. In a riot, you see, there are injuries and/or deaths that aren’t caused by the police. That didn’t happen in Ferguson.

  64. says

    Joins in the spitting at the idea of supporting Darren Wilson.
    My response to that on FB:
    I don’t have words for how angry this makes me.
    Support Darren Wilson???!!!
    He killed an unarmed teenager.
    He shouldn’t get *any* support. He should be arrested and jailed to await a hearing on bond. Then he should be waiting to face a judge and a jury. He killed an unarmed young man in cold blood. That is inexcusable.
    And no, I don’t give a motherfucking rat’s ass if more facts come to light. What facts are going to come out that justify his actions? If Brown robbed a store, does that justify his murder? No, it doesn’t. Being a robber doesn’t mean that someone deserves to be killed. Even IF Michael Brown were connected to the robbery-and that was refuted by the PD hours after they released the video-he still should have been entitled to justice under our system of law. He should not have been murdered by a racist cop.
    And that racist cop should get to benefit from our system of law as well. I don’t advocate throwing him in jail for 25-life without a trial. Our system may be broken, but it’s what we have and I do not advocate lawlessness. But this guy must be made to answer for his crimes.
    NOW.

  65. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Because that sort of thing has happened a lot?

    Oh, you mean the radicals back in the late ’60s weren’t paranoid about the aggressive/violent late joiners who couldn’t quite pull off the “true Scotsman”? *snicker*

  66. Esteleth is Groot says

    My thinking is that if they weren’t APs, then they were your classic middle-class-and-up suburban brats who thought it would be “fun.”

  67. Pteryxx says

    Disturbing and powerful performance art via Feminist Batwoman: (with a heavy-duty racism warning)

    There were a billion little quips I heard today. Some broke my heart. Some restored my faith in humanity. There was an older white couple who wanted to take a picture under the statue.

    The older gentleman: “Why do they have to always have to shove their politics down our throats.” Older woman: “They’re black kids, honey. They don’t have anything better to do.”

  68. zenlike says

    Inaji

    Support Darren Wilson Rally.

    Damn.

    The ‘Support Darren Wilson’ Facebook page has 13260 likes.
    The ‘I Support Officer Wilson’ Facebook page has 18158 likes.

    I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still always takes me aback that so many people automatically take the side of a cold-blooded murderer if the murderer is part of the authorities.

  69. Esteleth is Groot says

    Zenlike, I’d gently suggest that Mike Brown’s race has slightly more to do with the support Wilson is getting than the fact that Wilson has a police badge.

  70. says

    T.J. Holmes ‏@tjholmes 1m
    Sharpton: “there’s a difference between calling for peace and calling for quiet.” #MikeBrownRally #Ferguson

    Pteryxx:

    Law enforcement are trained to do that (I work in law enforcement, and I was trained to do that). If you find this account Orwellian, imagine rows of police officers practicing one-two-one-two: swing the baton; holler “stop resisting!” Swing it again; “drop the weapon!”

    The instructors are not coy about why they do this. “It looks better on YouTube,” for one thing. And “witnesses won’t remember whether they saw a weapon–but they’ll sure as hell remember hearing you holler ‘drop the weapon’ over and over,” for another.

    Doesn’t surprise me in the least, but I’d bet money most people are happily unaware of this.

  71. zenlike says

    Esteleth is Groot

    Zenlike, I’d gently suggest that Mike Brown’s race has slightly more to do with the support Wilson is getting than the fact that Wilson has a police badge.

    Granted. It wouldn’t surprise me if there is a huge overlap though, authoritarianism and racism go hand in hand.

  72. says

    Zenlike:

    I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still always takes me aback that so many people automatically take the side of a cold-blooded murderer if the murderer is part of the authorities.

    Especially if the murderer in authority is white, eh? After all, as someone so blithely put it in the first thread on this subject, “it’s just another wrongful killing of a black kid.”

  73. Pteryxx says

    New data on racial inequality in schools, at The Nation via Feminist Batwoman again:

    Comprehensive data released Friday by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights offers a striking glance at the extent of racial inequality plaguing the nation’s education system.

    Analysts found that black, Latino and Native American students have less access to advanced math and science courses and are more likely to be taught by first-year instructors than white students. Black and Native American students are also suspended and expelled at disproportionate rates.

    For the first time in history, the Education Department also examined school discipline at the pre-K level, finding that black students as young as four years old are already facing unequal treatment from school administrators.

  74. says

    I have only one criticism, martial law? PZ are you sure you meant this?

    Typically, the imposition of martial law accompanies curfews, the suspension of civil law, civil rights, habeas corpus, and the application or extension of military law or military justice to civilians. Civilians defying martial law may be subjected to military tribunal (court-martial).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law
    This normally equates to military law and doesn’t protect or enforce civil rights. All of the examples given are the same, just to restore order not to protect the rights of individuals. I’m just saying it seems counter productive proposal.

    As for bigots acting like bigots, I’m starting to realize that the south hasn’t changed it’s views in a long time (well this should come as no shock since many still lament the loss of the Confederacy, it’s like watching a train wreck you can see it coming but you just didn’t recognize it until it was too late). I will make mental note. Even fifty years after the civil rights movement bigots are still breeding and passing down their messed up views in large scale. Add to this the people who want nothing more than biblical law (I admit many are the same) and presto Idiot Soup.

    I do hope the Brown family gets proper justice for their loss. The officer is clearly a killer, and this self defense crap when he is the one initiating and escalating the conflict, is just so retarded.

  75. says

    So many children #Ferguson

    They came all the way from India to #Ferguson.

    Ana Cabrera ‏@AnaCabrera 56m
    Brown Family Attorney Anthony Gray has confirmed that the body of Michael Brown will undergo a total of three autopsies. #Ferguson

    jonathan ‏@jcedric81 10m
    “If you’ve got enough money to bring all that equipment in here, you got enough money to get jobs in here.” #MikeBrownRally #Ferguson

    Timothy Zoll, a spokesman for the Ferguson Police Department, said Sunday that there actually are four African-American officers among the 53-person officer corps. “The discrepancy may have been that we really don’t see black or white among our colleagues,” Zoll said. Source.

  76. says

    Wes Aaron:

    I have only one criticism, martial law?

    Speaking of someone who has been helping curate news out of Ferguson for the last four days straight, I invite you to take your quibble and shove it. Preferably where the sun don’t shine.

  77. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    “The discrepancy may have been that we really don’t see black or white among our colleagues,”

    Of all the bullshit being said, this is only the latest one.

  78. says

    Inaji
    Read it how you will, after all that is what you do best. (Accusing people of being for something, because at the time they didn’t have all and say they need more info before they decide is wrong and your clearly guilty of that.)

    Martial Law is generally bad and only used in extreme circumstances, plus given many of those that would be part of the national guard (are the racists and the very people you don’t want to give additional authority to). It makes no sense.

  79. blf says

    I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still always takes me aback that so many people automatically take the side of a cold-blooded murderer if the murderer is part of the authorities.

    I had a direct encounter with this sort of attitude many yonks ago, c.1980: A fundie-leaning relative snail-mailed me a photograph clipped from a newspaper showing a uniformed officer (in riot gear as I recall) dragging a long-haired man along the ground by the man’s hair. The relative’s comment: “This sort of STUFF is why I don’t support environmentalists.” † (I do not recall if the caption was still present, but the clipping did not include any story, so I can only assume it was an incident at some environmental rally / protest.)

    I pointed out in my return letter the only happening there was a cop apparently abusing a student. (I have no idea if the presumed protester was a student or not.) I never did get a reply…

    (Both the uniformed officer and the presumed protester were white.)

     †  I very distinctly remember the ALL CAPS usage in the (typewritten) letter.

  80. Pteryxx says

    “If you’ve got enough money to bring all that equipment in here, you got enough money to get jobs in here.” #MikeBrownRally #Ferguson

    I was thinking that too. Every officer gets a long gun (or two), 3000+ rounds of ammunition, more body armor than actual US military had in Iraq, and military style camo outfits in their size.

    Meanwhile, graduating seniors from the beleaguered and poverty-crushed school district have to share two (2) graduation robes among them, in turn, for school photos. (Daily Kos)

  81. says

    Great, the asshole Adam Baldwin is in #Ferguson now. On his feed, he told Antonio French that police aren’t obligated to protect civilians, so of course, his solution? Arm everyone! ‘Cause that will help.

  82. chimera says

    Does anyone know of an online radio giving coverage of Ferguson? I’ve got to do some cooking and can’t really sit here any longer.

  83. says

    Wes Aaron:

    As for bigots acting like bigots, I’m starting to realize that the south hasn’t changed it’s views in a long time (well this should come as no shock since many still lament the loss of the Confederacy, it’s like watching a train wreck you can see it coming but you just didn’t recognize it until it was too late). I will make mental note. Even fifty years after the civil rights movement bigots are still breeding and passing down their messed up views in large scale. Add to this the people who want nothing more than biblical law (I admit many are the same) and presto Idiot Soup.

    You’re fooling yourself if you think racism is limited to the Southern States.

  84. Pteryxx says

    chimera – this is Argus Radio’s livestream (with video) but it’s more their reporter embedded in the crowd than a curated stream of information. Yesterday they were speaking to people when they could. (It’s also very noisy.)

    Argus Radio livestream link

  85. says

    From my link @118, here are some of the types of military gear made available to police departments across the country:

    At present, the state of Missouri — and every other state in the Union — has access to a veritable grab-bag of military surplus gear. “A small sample of the types of items issued in the past to participating agencies are aircraft (both fixed wing and rotary) and four-wheel drive vehicles (such as pickup trucks, blazers, ambulances and armored personnel carriers),” a page on the Missouri government’s website touting the program and encouraging law enforcement to apply for it reads. “The armored personnel carriers are used for S.W.A.T. teams along with victim an officer recovery. Ballistic helmets and vests are issued for officer safety. BDU clothing (including Nomex fire retardant), boots, wet weather and cold weather clothing, canteens, and web belts are some of the types of field gear items issued for marijuana eradication. Binoculars, radios, camcorders, and tv/vcr combinations are used for tactical and intelligence gathering operations.”

  86. says

    Wes Aaron:

    I do hope the Brown family gets proper justice for their loss. The officer is clearly a killer, and this self defense crap when he is the one initiating and escalating the conflict, is just so retarded.

    (bolding mine)
    Please do not use bigoted slurs here. Get mad or frustrated all you want, but please do not use mental disability as an insult. It’s ableist and very offensive. There are other words you can use.

  87. says

    Tony
    I don’t think it is just limited to the southern states but they seem to be way behind the rest of society. I more meant it as they hadn’t changed in the slightest since the 60’s. And your post about them having access to and deploying military hardware, truly frightening. The state wide curfew, yep this is sounding like racists enacting martial law and I do hope something is done about this rampant abuse.

  88. Pteryxx says

    chimera: Sorry about that. The stream was live when I checked it, but that was during the church service.

    Ken White at Popehat just weighed in on the law and very much not-law ramifications of the store video release: Popehat lawsplainer

    Whether or not they released the surveillance video in response to a public records request, as they claim, the Ferguson Police Department undoubtedly knew that the news would reach the pool of prospective jurors in any criminal or civil case against Officer Wilson, telling them facts that they might not hear in court. They knew that the media would run with the story, and that the media would run with it multiple times: first to report it, then to ask why the police released it, and possibly a third time in a mock-self-critical analysis of whether they were played. The effect in the public’s mind is to emphasize the point Mike Brown was a robber, with the subtext so he probably had it coming.

    The alleged robbery matters because nearly everyone accepts the subtext that a robber deserves to be shot even if he’s unarmed. People who say “look, he was a robber” accept it, as do the people gleefully digging through Mike Brown’s life to find things to dirty him up3 But more insidiously, many of Mike Brown’s champions accept the narrative of just deserts as well. When Mike Brown’s supporters say that he had no record, that he was a high-school graduate, that he was never in any trouble, and that he was going to college, they advance the narrative that because of these things he did not deserve to be shot as he stood, unarmed, attempting to surrender. This implies that had been a dropout with a record, he might have deserved it.

  89. alkaloid says

    @zb24601, #65

    I realize that you don’t know me at all, but I would appreciate it if you would provide me with an email address (or vice versa) so I could say a couple of things to you? This isn’t spam or some kind of trick. Thank you.

  90. Morgan!? Militant Pacifist says

    To Inaji, Tony!, Pteryxx, Blf, rq, Goodbye Enemy Janine, and everyone else here who are doing the heavy lifting, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Curating the unfolding events in this tragedy is truly service above and beyond.

  91. says

    Nixon is tweeting about how residents cooked up lunch for law enforcement and others. His being quiet would be a mercy at this point.

  92. fernando says

    The news here about Ferguson:
    -> A man robbed some shop
    -> That man was unarmed
    -> The police of Ferguson killed that man
    -> Many people in Ferguson and other places says that was a racist action of the police
    -> Manifestations againts the use of excessive force by the police and racist actions by the same police
    -> Groups of criminals sacking several buildings in Ferguson
    -> Police try to stop violent manifestations, but without much sucess
    -> The governor orders a curfew
    -> Continue all the confusion in Ferguson, with criminals looting the place and disobeying the authorities

    Is this correct, or the news are more like “Faux News”?
    There are really groups of thieves looting and destroying things in Ferguson, or the all thing is much exagerated, and an atempt to give a bad reputation to a manifestation to demand a better police, one that don’t be too trigger happy neither racist?
    Or, more probably, all this is true: pacific manifestations, that are used by despicable people to loot shops and other buildings, creating a grand confusion in Ferguson, increased by the lack of force and respectability of the local police force, and the need of intervention of the upper echelons of state authority?

    Anyhow, i hope all of this is solved, and no more people being hurted or worse.

  93. says

    Fernando:

    Is this correct, or the news are more like “Faux News”?

    Go with Faux news, Fernando. This thread, from the beginning, is stuffed full of links to what has been happening. Please click and read.

  94. Pteryxx says

    Thanks Morgan – it’d sure be nice if we could trust regular media to cover all the background, ask the hard questions, and basically provide fair coverage in a convenient package, wouldn’t it? ;>

    —-

    via BB: Every item distributed to local law enforcement by the Pentagon’s 1033 program over two years

    “Wondering how the St. Louis County Police ended up armed with surplus military gear, and what other departments have? A FOIA request at MuckRock has turned up every item given to local law enforcement under the Pentagon’s 1022 [sic] program, the mechanism by which local law enforcement can apply for surplus or used military gear.”

    Also, picture. *hurk*

    [image shows a black military Humvee heavy truck decorated with “Lewisburg Police” and a rampant US flag paintjob.]

  95. says

    #Ferguson made front pages in Turkey

    scotia626 ‏@scotia626 9m
    So sad:America needs *pundits on cable* to point out the execution of people in the street is wrong. #Ferguson no other info needed.

    zellie ‏@zellieimani 10m
    Demilitarization of police is important. But police, militarized in weaponry or not, are still militarized psychologically. #Ferguson

    Peg ‏@IowaPeg 14m
    Another thing not being reported by many MSM is legal observers on the ground in #ferguson told protesters curfew was illegal.

    How many more unarmed Black men have to be hurt or killed by the police before we say something #Ferguson

    #Ferguson Curious kids on sleepy side streets near protest, we had a little chat photography and my job (Via David Carson, photojournalist)

    tatyanafazlalizadeh: In solidarity with those in #Ferguson, I painted this piece and am releasing it for anyone who wants to use it.
    Find download links here.
    Download, print, keep on.

  96. The Mellow Monkey says

    Good segment on Speak Out with actor Jesse Williams talking about Ferguson and racism.

    Also, Jesse Williams is the executive producer of Question Bridge:

    Question Bridge is an innovative transmedia project that facilitates a dialogue between a critical mass of black men from diverse and contending backgrounds and creates a platform for them to represent and redefine black male identity in America.

  97. Pteryxx says

    ThinkProgress: Mike Brown’s Family Asked To See Robbery Footage Before Police Released It To Media, But Were Ignored

    Anthony Grey, a local lawyer in Ferguson, told ABC’s This Week that the Brown family was not shown the video before it was released to the press, even though they had requested “to see any video footage before it was released.” Nor were they given the chance to positively identify Brown in the video.

    “They were appalled by it,” Grey told an ABC reporter on Sunday morning. “They saw it for the first time – a glimpse of it — on nationwide TV. They had requested an opportunity, through the attorneys, to see any video footage before it was released. That request was not honored.”

    “No one was given the opportunity to authenticate it was Mike Brown Jr. in the video.”

    When asked if the family believes it is their son in the video, Grey said “they haven’t examined it for that purpose,” but “there’s no reason not to believe that it’s him.”

  98. Ichthyic says

    @zb24601, #65

    I realize that you don’t know me at all, but I would appreciate it if you would provide me with an email address (or vice versa) so I could say a couple of things to you? This isn’t spam or some kind of trick. Thank you.

    …signed: your friendly neighborhood militia?

  99. Esteleth is Groot says

    Chatting with someone who pointed out that if the reports that the Ferguson 911 service was turned off a few nights ago are true, that’s a serious FEDERAL offense. If it is established that this was done at the heeding of the Ferguson PD, then the Chief and pretty much the entirety of the leadership are, at minimum, getting fired.

    Which is to say that the Ferguson PD have nothing left to lose. They’ve well and screwed the pooch here.

    They may be of the mentality that they may as well go down punching.

  100. anteprepro says

    Esteleth is Groot, that’s assuming that they do not just believe that they are untouchable and it doesn’t matter if they behaving immorally, unethically, or illegally, because no one with any power is gonna shit to punish them. But, I mean, that is the same effect. Except instead of “may as well go down punching”, it is “may as well keep punching because they ain’t go do nothing about it”.

  101. greg hilliard says

    As we wait for all of this to play out in Ferguson, please notice that the mainstream media has been all over the story and no longer obsessing over the passing of Robin Williams.

  102. says

    greg hilliard:

    As we wait for all of this to play out in Ferguson, please notice that the mainstream media has been all over the story and no longer obsessing over the passing of Robin Williams.

    Thanks ever so much for informing us. There’s no possible way that we would have known this. Nope. There haven’t been 3 or 4 threads over the course of this last week where many people on this blog have been discussing the events in Ferguson as well as the media’s lackluster response. Nope. We were waiting for someone to let us know this.

  103. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    Aren’t you clever, greg hiliard.

    Also, stop to think about why the MSM is now paying attention, they were forced to do so. Social media was used by people there and people who went to Ferguson to get the story out.

    Also, please notice that many in the MSM are spreading the same old racist tropes about rioting people.

  104. says

    The fact that the media is paying attention to Ferguson does not change the fact that they were paying precious little attention to the events for the first few days. The death of a celebrity was still more important that covering civil rights violations. PZ’s original post about the fucked up priorities of the media is still valid.

  105. lakitha tolbert says

    This is pure spec but I’m guessing that releasing that video was a surprise to everyone who is not the local police and that they’ve spent the last week shredding any and every piece of evidence that might allude to the corruption in the department and local politics. Once they’ve got their ducks in order then they’ll release a faux apology or double down on why the shooting occurred. At any rate, I’m pretty sure that quite a few members of local politics were busily shitting their pants while scrambling to clean themselves up.

    I’m also guessing after the release of the video ,a higher authority forced that guy to go on air and admit that the video had nothing to do with the shooting and that Wilson didn’t know about it.

    Btw, has anyone seen the dispatch records around the time of the shooting?Released to the internet by Anonymous, I was wondering if that was genuine? That not only didn’t Wilson call in the shooting but that dispatch got their information from TV and had to ask him about it after he called for backup?

  106. gobi's sockpuppet's meatpuppet says

    The mass media are still refusing to properly investigate the events of an unarmed teen being gunned down by a police officer.
    Now they have a media engineered ‘race riot’ to report on – with explosions!
    …and the Robin Williams ‘tribute’ movies are still playing …and Mork and Mindy has appeared on our screens again…

    So, all in all, greg hilliard, that was a pretty pathetic troll you did there.

  107. Pteryxx says

    That not only didn’t Wilson call in the shooting but that dispatch got their information from TV and had to ask him about it after he called for backup?

    lakitha – I’ve only seen a few internet news sites, such as Mother Jones, address the dispatch tapes. I have not seen any mainstream media pick them up nor confirm them, and the Ferguson PD still refuses to release any dispatch information about the shooting – they released the incident report of the convenience store robbery, but nothing about the shooting or Brown’s death.

    From that MoJo link:

    9:35: “Ferguson is asking for assistance with crowd control . . .”

    10:58: “Now they have a large group gathering there, she doesn’t know any further. . .”

    11:20: “We just got another call stating it was an officer-involved shooting . . .”

    11:30: “Be advised, this information came from the news . . .”

    11:55: “We’re just getting information from the news and we just called Ferguson back again and they don’t know anything about it . . .”

  108. alkaloid says

    #Ichthyic, @153

    If you had so much confidence in nonviolent protest and pleading for elected officials who chronically do the wrong things to reverse themselves then why did you use your money to move as far away from the United States as you could?

  109. alkaloid says

    @166

    Is that an official pronouncement or not? If he’s going to imply that I’m a militia member (even though that’s blatantly false), then I’m going to bring up questions like that. If you (and him) want this taken to Thunderdome, then I’ll take it there.

  110. What a Maroon, oblivious says

    @greg hilliard, 158,

    Oddly enough, while we were passing through the passport control line yesterday in Newark, the monitor tuned to CNN was showing all Robin Williams, all the time (details of what happened, tributes from the likes of Wesley Snipes and the Governator).

    I’m sure that’s just coincidence.

  111. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    If you (and him) want this taken to Thunderdome, then I’ll take it there.

    Take it to the ‘dome.

  112. Ichthyic says

    If you had so much confidence in nonviolent protest and pleading for elected officials who chronically do the wrong things to reverse themselves then why did you use your money to move as far away from the United States as you could?

    let’s see, adhom in the form of well poisoning, and an irrelevancy.
    how about you tell me why I should even bother answering your “question”?

  113. says

    The media didn’t cover “Unarmed Black Teen Shot by Cop Multiple TImes” in favor of Robin Williams.

    The media are now covering “Black People Riot, Loot to Support Suspected Robber” in favor of (now-stale) Robin Williams.

  114. rq says

    Another question of who’s in charge.

    All those journalists and reporters? Violating curfew, apparently. How’s that for transparency (@AmyKNelson has more on her feed)?

    Wow, I can’t even begin to list everything I’d want to post – I’m going to sort through some of it, or find a good recap.
    A sampling: how cops talk to reporters.
    Even Antonio French sounds despondent. (His previous Tweet: “We just watched Vice News be escorted out past us while we just… stood there.”)

    Meanwhile, here’s something for those in Vegas.

  115. Ichthyic says

    The National Guard again, from the LA Times.

    post is filled with comments that look like what I expected:

    since so many witnesses reported “It looked like he was shot in the back”, the conclusion from the mob is that all the witnesses must be lying.

    nobody is even bothering to:

    -consider again EXACTLY what the witnesses said
    -consider why they might have been mistaken about Brown being shot from behind, without lying about it.

    it’s fucking sad.

    it’ll take MONTHS to sort all this shit out, and in the meantime, the prejudices will continue to rip and tear at the fabric of society.

    so, so tired of the same shit happening over and over again, and the media doing an absolutely crap job of even trying to filter the noise; hell they seem to even be encouraging noise any more.

  116. says

    I’m gonna need a strong drink to get any sleep before morning. Good thing I don’t work today.

    Police chief got what he wanted… No responsibility and inciting more violence. (Shaking head with disbelief. He knew this was coming.)

    The double talk of the governor is also very disheartening… There’s no curfew, we call it street closures now. (Facepalm)

    This sick twisted display of officers playing soldiers has to stop before… shit too late. (Weapons grade facepalm)

    I will not try to rationalize this, it’s beyond the pale. Had a point to all of this but the rum has finally affected my mental facilities helped me from breaking down in tears watching their struggles. Sorry but this isn’t going to end well for many of the citizens of Missouri. It will tarnish the victims and authorities will struggle to cover it up their asses, that is easier than admitting blame protecting the rights of minorities. I strongly doubt even the police abusing their authority will be handled harshly. Another skeleton for the “Let’s all get along closet”.

    Sorry but I am not well and this isn’t OK is fucked up. Especially that bullshit about support Darren Wilson this asshole he kills minorities.

  117. says

    Thanks everybody for the links on this issue (es. Inaji and Pteryxx). When Czech media finally caught up this morning and tried (and failed) to give overview of the situation, I could thanks to you to correct as many of the wrongs as I could on my blog. It will be read by about five to ten people, but I think it is worth it anyway.

    I dedicated it to “Pharyngula commenters” in general due time constraints I could not link to individual comments. I hope nobody feels bad because I did not name them specifically.

  118. says

  119. says

    Antonio French @AntonioFrench · 17s
    “You must keep moving!” a police officer instructs people and cars on W. Florissant in #Ferguson.

    A Beautiful Pattern ‏@MzKittysays 59s
    So they move folks away from the quick trip but wait there is a group in front of new station protesting in support of killer cop #Ferguson

    #BREAKING: Gov. Nixon, in statement, says there will NOT be a curfew tonight in #Ferguson. (But people aren’t being allowed to gather, so…)

  120. says

    For the past three days, people of Ferguson have been using the QT site for distributing food, having a voting registration, and protesting. The national guard is now fencing and blocking it off.

  121. says

    Justin Collins ‏@BListPundit 10m
    18-year-old kid had traces of marijuana in his system in the middle of the summer. Just like millions of white kids. #ferguson #mikebrown

    Becky Mollenkamp ‏@beckymollenkamp 15m
    So @donlemon just called everyone but @CNN “non-essential media.” Guess what…the local media are ESSENTIAL in #Ferguson. YOU aren’t.

    Ashley Ciandella ن ‏@AshleyCiandella 16m
    If marijuana was in his system, will it be used as evidence of non-aggression? #Ferguson #tcot

    MF Zealous ‏@kobe42085 16m
    He smoked weed and listened to rap music. Does that mean the cops are gonna shoot me 6 times too? #Ferguson

    DSMLiberal ‏@DSMLiberal 17m
    “I have yet to hear anything about #Ferguson from Miley, Bieber,Katy, Everyone wants to be black until it’s time to be black”

    Michael Brown autopsy: No signs of struggle in fatal shooting

  122. Pteryxx says

    on MSNBC right now – Chris Hayes, still on the ground in Ferguson, listing off the different police agencies all operating now. Neighboring towns, Ferguson police, St Louis Metro police, St Louis County police, state patrol, and for a while there he was giving a sight guide by color of uniform shirt. “All of the above.”

    There’s no curfew tonight but police have already blocked off the QT where protesters had been staging, and are permitting no gathering of people – “keep moving” – anywhere inside what looks like a mile-wide (?) restricted area. Hayes says the police also ordered *all* news vans out of the area.

    President Obama is apparently being briefed on the situation right now by AG Holder.

    I also overheard another professional of some sort saying it’s normal for autopsy results not to be released for several weeks until toxicology could be completed. And that of course is why the news was broadcasting detailed results from Robin Williams’ physical autopsy one day after his death.

  123. Morgan!? Militant Pacifist says

    Kill Switch is horrid legislation. Ostensibly to be used in case a phone is stolen, it makes phones available to be shut down by the authorities. This is bad, bad, bad.

  124. Morgan!? Militant Pacifist says

    Inaji, are you doing okay? The Ferguson siege has my rage and depression turned up to 11, and I’m not even following Twitter. Please, take care of yourself.

  125. says

    Morgan, thanks, fully rested here, and doing okay. Not happy about events in Ferguson, but no thinking person is, so…

  126. dianne says

    But people aren’t being allowed to gather, so…

    Um, hello, the US constitution? Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Last time I checked, it applied even in Missouri.

  127. says

    ABC World News ‏@ABCWorldNews 3m

    ALERT: Pres. Obama expected to speak on the situations in #Ferguson and Iraq around 4 p.m. ET –

  128. says

    The right’s “race lobby” trash: Why WSJ’s Ferguson explanation is absurd

    Jessa Forrester ‏@jessaforrester 1h
    my twitter feed is full of real-time reporting from the streets of #ferguson. my FB feed is full of people dumping ice water on their heads.

    Munk ‏@Felonious_munk 1h
    if i have a work related accident, i have to submit to a drug test. if an officer kills a kid…the kid is drug tested. #Ferguson

    Sakita Holley ‏@MissSuccess 2h
    Stories about what #MikeBrown *may* have had in his body? Let’s talk about what he DEFINITELY had in his body: At least 6 bullets #Ferguson

    Jennifer Hayden ‏@Scout_Finch 2h
    You know who else had marijuana in his system? Michael Phelps, who has 22 Olympic medals. #Ferguson

  129. says

    August 18, 2014
    Stark Racial Divisions in Reactions to Ferguson Police Shooting

    The new national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Aug. 14-17 among 1,000 adults, finds that the public overall is divided over whether Brown’s shooting raises important issues about race or whether the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves: 44% think the case does raise important issues about race that require discussion, while 40% say the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves.

    By about four-to-one (80% to 18%), African Americans say the shooting in Ferguson raises important issues about race that merit discussion. By contrast, whites, by 47% to 37%, say the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves.

  130. says

    T.J. Holmes ‏@tjholmes 39s
    Obama: it’s clear that vast majority of protesters are peaceful. Small majority are not. #MikeBrown #Ferguson

    KSDK NewsChannel 5 ‏@ksdknews 1m
    Obama: AG Holder will be in #Ferguson on Wednesday

  131. says

    I’ve been away for 10 days, and trying to catch up with the nightmarish news from Ferguson, Missouri is rage-inducing. I’ve decided that the only possible solution is to declare martial law, call in the National Guard, and let the tanks roll in…to shut down and arrest the police force. These trigger-happy militarized goons need to be stopped, and not just in one town in Missouri, but all across the country: no more drones, armored personnel vehicles, SWAT teams, and thugs playing soldier — those aren’t the police. We need something in between open-carry idiots deputizing themselves to enforce the peace, and these paramilitary pseudo-soldiers who believe their job is to suppress people they don’t like.

    Martial Law… Yep you may get what you want. But it’s gonna take congressional approval before full fledged martial law en-stated. (FYI Martial law doesn’t always remove the governor from power and it’s use in the past has been only to keep the peace not punish bad law enforcement, but it functions the same for the people caught up in it.) Which if anyone had take the time to read what it really is would have noticed the elephant in the room.

    The martial law concept in the United States is closely tied with the right of habeas corpus, which is in essence the right to a hearing on lawful imprisonment, or more broadly, the supervision of law enforcement by the judiciary. The ability to suspend habeas corpus is often equated with martial law.[citation needed] Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution states, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

    Now the people of Ferguson can be treated to military law under the competent guidance of their governor and the National Guard. Maybe if the town isn’t a crater, they can get back to normal (notice: where they fenced off the community)…

    What the hell do you think martial law is? I said it at the start and will stand by that decision. This is only going to hurt those you want protected. (Fuck it’s not even worth an I told you so.) This is why I asked, are you sure this is what you mean? All that happens is the city is going to be oppressed without right to fair trial or any other civil rights for that matter, if it goes through.

    Do you really think for even a moment a bunch of backwater cops are gonna want a war with the U.S. Military? They’re going to happily hand over their mess and say “Sorry bout the mess. Sure you good ol boys can get a handle on it.” The chief will receive no criminal prosecution and will happily move on not wanting anything to do with the giant turd he left behind. And given that there probably won’t be enough evidence to prosecute the cops abusing their authority, it’s gonna take a mammoth sized closet for this skeleton. As for Darren Wilson I do hope there is some semblance of justice he needs to serve hard time, but I won’t delude myself into thinking it will happen. He will get a country club version of prison (for his personal safety), if he is convicted and I’m pretty sure we can guess what color the jury of his peers will be.

    I’m gonna step away for a bit so I can get a handle on this. The jets are still active and It really takes a lot of patience to not get overwhelmed by everything.

    One last thing, those McDonald’s employees and anyone still going to work in the danger zone for minimum wage deserves a fucking medal. No Joke, that’s gotta be stressful as all hell and I could only imagine the fear of being there.

  132. says

    Early & Often ‏@CSTearlyoften 14m
    Obama: “Let’s listen and not just shout. That’s how we’re going to move forward together.” LIVE: http://sun-tim.es/1ldIA0K #Ferguson

    Tara L. Conley ‏@taralconley 14m
    Obama sounding like he done checked out. #Ferguson

    Gotta agree here, what in the fuck was the point of Obama speaking? You know what would have helped? “Wilson taken in for questioning.” That would have helped.

  133. says

    Elon James White ‏@elonjames 13m
    Mr. President a city is under siege. A kid was murdered & his killer is on paid vacation. This situation calls for more than this. #Ferguson

    Brittney Cooper ‏@ProfessorCrunk 21m
    “There are Black men who commit crimes,” Yes, POTUS. But there are also POLICE who murder Black men in the street! Talk abt that. #Ferguson

    T.J. Holmes ‏@tjholmes 34m
    Obama says he will be watching closely to see if National Guard is “helping rather than hindering” what’s happening in #Ferguson. #MikeBrown

    Brittney Cooper ‏@ProfessorCrunk 39m
    Oh Mr. President please stop shaking your damn finger at protestors!!! Those folks are being attacked by police not the converse. #Ferguson

  134. chimera says

    In trying to figure out why Obama doesn’t take a stand in favor of civil rights, the right to assembly and so on, all I can think of is all the racism that is leveled at him constantly. People would say he was saying it “just because he is black”, is being a divisive president, not the president of the whole nation and yadda yadda. So that if he was white it might be easier for the President to take a stand. On the other hand, if he was white then he’d get the contemporary version of n-word lover, you know, “liberal” and elitist and out-of-touch and abandoning the white everyday Joes in favor of people of color and all that. I really don’t know what the case is with Obama. I continued to defend him for so many years after everyone I knew had begun to criticize him. I find it hard to even look at a photo of him now without a feeling of aversion or despair.

  135. Esteleth is Groot says

    I saw a suggestion that Joe Biden go in front of some cameras/microphones and lay down some (carefully scripted, of course, but spontaneous-sounding) truth.

    This will allow Obama a “safe” way of allowing things that need saying to be said while also leaving the racists powerless to whine about the (so white it’s funny) Biden. Obama is also free to roll his eyes and go, “Oh, you know Joe, guys!” if any aspect of it lands awkwardly.

  136. says

    The Mike Brown Killing: It’s Much Too Late for Angry Words by Kobie Colemon

    When a sentence begins “The unarmed black man was” and ends with “at least six times”, the verb in the middle is usually not “hugged”.

    Brian Gluckman ‏@bgluckman 25m
    Someone on an @JoeMyGod thread called #ferguson “boring.” Such is the casual racism of #WhitePrivilege.

    Justice for Michael Brown Rests Almost Entirely in the Hands of This One Man:

    Bob McCulloch is the prosecutor for St. Louis County and has held the position for 23 years. McCulloch has stated that he will present the evidence of Michael Brown’s killing to a grand jury, but members of the African-American community have expressed concern about his ability to be fair. There is always such a concern in cases involving the investigation of police officers. Police officers don’t technically work for prosecutors, but they are definitely part of the prosecution team. They investigate the cases, gather the evidence, and testify as witnesses for the state. Without police officers, prosecutors can’t bring cases or secure convictions. So prosecutors have an inherent conflict of interest when they are considering charges against police officers.

    The conflict seems particularly deep-seated in this case. Bob McCulloch’s father was a police officer who was killed in the line of duty when McCulloch was a child. And McCulloch was very critical of Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s decision to place the Missouri State Troopers in charge of security after complaints about the St. Louis police department’s violent attacks on peaceful protestors and journalists. McCulloch called the governor’s decision “shameful” and accused him of “denigrat[ing] the men and women of the county police department.”

  137. yazikus says

    Just read Holder’s statement.

    Those who have been peacefully demonstrating should join with law enforcement in condemning the actions of looters and others seeking to inflame tensions

    Um. I’m pretty sure the peaceful protesters have been trying to stop the looting, and the police are the ones seeking to inflame tensions. Makes me wonder where he gets his intel.

  138. yazikus says

    Also, whoever decided to use the acronym COPS for the Community Oriented Policing Services could have done better. Wasn’t that the term for the Committee of Public Safety that loved sending people to the guillotine?

  139. says

    Gameapp Maker Co. ‏@GameappMakerCo 55m
    Michael Brown could have been a serial rapist that impaled kittens on flagpoles. It still wouldn’t excuse how the #Ferguson PD has acted.

    Life is Good ‏@nychometown 57m
    “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder.” -Former Chicago Mayor Daley 1968 #Ferguson

    Chris Tedfield ‏@KingTeddie 58m
    Good thing the National Guard is here to protect the police. The tanks, sound cannons and automatic weapons weren’t doing enough. #Ferguson

    Aღanda ‏@AC_BOwen 40m
    I’m not holding out hope Wilson will be charged. #EricGarner ‘s death ruled a homicide & still no arrest of cop who killed him. #Ferguson

    Police create “organized protest zone”

    Susan McPherson ‏@susanmcp1 48m
    Why is it whites “commit crimes” but blacks “are criminals”? @sallykohn for @CNN on #Ferguson & implicit racial bias http://ln.is/www.cnn.com/2014/08/JJGxc

    Why Black on Black Crime is not the issue in Michael Brown Tragedy Part 2: When was there ever value? (TRIGGER WARNING, GRAPHIC VIOLENCE DEPICTED.)

    zellie ‏@zellieimani 57m
    Discussing race in America isn’t inciting anger, the anger is already there. And it builds because real experiences are silenced. #Ferguson

  140. Pteryxx says

    Live coverage rolling on MSNBC of Ferguson streets, where people just walking (some with signs and flags) are being pointedly nudged along by cops in different colored shirts. Just saw two cops grab a kid with a backpack out of a scattered stream of people crossing the street and push him along by his backpack straps. His hands went up almost immediately, of course.

    The dozen or so cops on that street corner were NOT directing traffic by standing and directing traffic with their arms like cops do. They hung out in a bunch, watching the crowd, and these two broke away and went diagonally across the street, stopping to tell a car to go on and move *while* pedestrians were still crossing in front of the car. The car stopped, of course, and only then did the police go and verbally move the pedestrians along while grabbing this one kid out from among them.

    As far as I can tell, the police are *yelling* from the opposite corner, or the middle of the street, to the twenty or thirty pedestrians on the near corner, many of whom are just waiting to cross the street. It looks like the police don’t want to get too close in case a civilian breathes on them or something

    This cannot possibly go well.

  141. Pteryxx says

    Also to point out. There are no marked crosswalks along that main street of Ferguson. As noted previously by Antonio French and others, there are no working streetlights (haven’t been for months or years) and people who live there don’t like having to walk along dark streets. There was no trash pickup last week because of the unrest. Missed trash pickups, unrepaired street lights, and unrepaired/unmaintained streets are all ways in which less-favored districts of a region can be punished by city officials, now that formal red-lining is illegal.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_shrinkage

  142. yazikus says

    It looks like the police don’t want to get too close in case a civilian breathes on them or something

    I would guess they have totally othered the protesters in their minds- how else could they, in any just world, be okay with snipers aiming and peaceful protests? If they got too close they might be reminded that the other side are just humans. And that would not allow them to keep acting at they are acting.

  143. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Hah. Hedy Epstein?

    Sure I know her work in the US. But do you know Hedy Epstein? Seems just a tad relevant.

  144. says

    Christie Wilcox ‏@NerdyChristie 3m
    What is up with this “can’t stop moving” rule by #Ferguson Police? There’s no caveat against sit-ins in the First Amendment!

    Klan heading to Ferguson to ‘guard white businesses,’ back shooting of ‘n*gger criminal’

    Tschaka ‏@iamtschaka 19m
    Just watched the news: They talked like 7 minutes about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge & max. 2 minutes about what’s happening in #Ferguson

    Melissa Jamrock ‏@jamrockstar 3m
    Freedom of the press/media is one hallmarks of democracy. But it, like many other rights, seem to be disregarded in #ferguson.

    Steve Dowdy ‏@Steverocks35 6m
    What is this, the Trail of Tears? Nobody can stop walking now without being arrested? #Ferguson

    National guard troops deployed on roofs #ferguson

  145. The Mellow Monkey says

    TIME: The Difference Between ALS an Ferguson Is That One Ill Can Be Cured

    For both social media movements, sharing implies responsibility. We are complicit, by our inaction, in the lack of a working cure. But the tacit acknowledgment that there is blame to be shared and apportioned in Ferguson cuts much deeper and stops right at a telling, crucial boundary. We can’t call our friends to action on a target that remains simultaneously the plainest and most disputed evil in America, a target that many people refuse to believe exists. We’re not tagging three friends in each picture we see of a black woman whose “looter” friends broke into McDonalds to pour milk on her tear-gassed face. We’re not indicting our aunts and nephews and forcing them to acknowledge the millions of lives lost to racist policing.

    It would be gauche to “challenge” our friends to deal with police-sanctioned murder, particularly when so many of our “friends” may believe what many cops have believed before us: that black bodies insinuate a crime.

  146. says

    Pteryxx:

    This cannot possibly go well.

    No. It’s another really bad sign that photojournalists are being arrested, and NG are posted on rooftops.

  147. says

    Josh Rosenau ‏@JoshRosenau 26m
    If you are going to teargas, shoot, arrest, corral, or harass people whose taxes pay you, they deserve to know your name. #ferguson

    Camille Coleman ‏@Ms_Camilly 27m
    You can walk & protest but you can’t stand & protest or you’ll be arrested?

    YoungGifted&Ratchet ‏@Anti_Intellect 30m
    RT @DrTMG: Don Lemon just had a “I really am Black” moment on national television #Ferguson. You could see the melanin washing over him.

    Another journalist arrested in #Ferguson. http://www.cnn.com/cnnx @CNN

    But why? #Ferguson

  148. The Mellow Monkey says

    ProfB ‏@AntheaButler 10m
    RT @Karnythia: Cops are using stopping as an excuse to arrest because they know that no one can keep walking for hours. This is obscene…

    Neetzan Zimmerman ‏@neetzan 42m
    Getty photog Scott Olson, who snapped this incredible photo, was just arrested in #Ferguson https://t.co/3hfVn5oFaO

    Trevor Timm ‏@trevortimm 46m
    Journalists in #Ferguson: If you get arrested or are in trouble, call @RCFP’s hotline for press freedom legal assistance. (800) 336-4243.

  149. Pteryxx says

    Another thought. Why do the police keep changing the rules every night? People live and work there who don’t necessarily spend their lives glued to a smartphone. I don’t expect anyone official is taking responsibility for, say, posting information or telling the residents what the next round of rules is going to be. How are they supposed to know where to park or what streets are going to be blocked off or when? Much less that they’re supposed to keep moving today? A lot of those people are going to get arrested just for doing what worked yesterday without knowing the rules changed again.

    Is there an organizational meeting in some police headquarters where they’re going “Okay, here’s how we’ll troll them tonight…”

  150. chimera says

    So what happens? @234

    Endless loopholes in the agreement is what happens:
    Rob Crilly ‏@robcrilly 1h
    Getty Images snapper arrested for not getting out the way fast enough when ordered #ferguson

  151. says

    Pteryxx @ 235:

    This was on Antonio French’s feed:

    Retweeted by Antonio French
    Chief Sam Dotson @ChiefSLMPD · 18m
    Roll Call in Ferguson. Talking tonight’s policing strategy with @stlcountypd and MSHP before the start of the watch.

    That talk must be going really well. sarcasm

  152. says

    #Ferguson MT @chrislhayes If U walk abt 100 ft from OK’ed press area U find yourself lit up by spotlight &squad of police on hair trigger

    Jessica Pieklo ‏@Hegemommy 2m
    So plenty of arrests in #Ferguson except Darren Wilson

    Zeke Johnson ‏@ZekeJohnson
    Military or nat guard watching from rooftop as we wind through police check points & closed roads into #Ferguson

    mazzie (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ ‏@mazzie 3m
    why isn’t someone from the ACLU getting an emergency order from a judge saying the police in #ferguson can’t compel people to keep moving?

    Shervyn ‏@Shervyn 5m
    #Ferguson hey MO police it’s a frightening world you’ve created where a holocaust survivor can’t teach you to act like human beings.

    This officer threatened to arrest me if I didn’t move off the public sidewalk. #Ferguson

  153. anteprepro says

    I literally cannot believe that this is still going. Cannot. Believe. And fucking Obama and the fucking governor just mutter sternly, mostly wagging their finger at the civilians. Stop these fucking abusive asshole police, you fucks!

  154. says

    I’m shaking so bad right now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to hang in tonight. When in the fuck are people going to pay attention to what’s going on? We aren’t safe. No one is safe. And I’m terrified more people are going to die tonight.

  155. Morgan!? Militant Pacifist! - Occupy Ferguson! says

    I do not believe that the official reaction to the protests is about anything other than raw power. Emphasis on the raw. This will not end well. If the authorities were to simply vanish, the protests would dwindle.

  156. Pteryxx says

    Inaji, for what it’s worth MSNBC has had coverage on the ground constantly since early this morning. They’re getting herded into press-only zones but at least they know this is BS and they’re taking info, footage, and even tweets from folks who *are* walking in the lockdown zone. Internet word is still spreading. I might be able to do more relaying late at night.

  157. says

    Pteryxx:

    I might be able to do more relaying late at night.

    Glad to hear it, because I’m going to have to sign off tonight, pain levels are high and I’ve had the fun of sciatica during all this, making sitting a…well, pain. Fuck, this night has me terrified. This is a terrible thing we’re witnessing. Stay safe.

  158. Pteryxx says

    Maddow on MSNBC is now covering the suspiciously selective releases of information from the Ferguson and STL County PD. Shot six times? Disclosed by the family’s own autopsy and press release. Unrelated robbery footage and something about marijuana? That gets leaked from the supposed authorities.

  159. Pteryxx says

    via Maddow – showed Captain Johnson last night saying a few people were injured last night by shooting, they were people on the street and had nothing to do with police, no officers were injured, and the National Guard would NOT be called out. That was 1:15 AM.

    2 AM, the governor announced the National Guard would be moving in to protect the police command center.

    -_-

    She’s doing what looks to me like a very good summary of the weekend and last night.

  160. Esteleth is Groot says

    Either one, Captain Johnson is being used, or two, he’s in on a good cop/bad cop thing.

    Not entirely sure which is worse.

  161. Pteryxx says

    Live footage on a split screen shows the community protest turned into a march. Looks like the press put up some stationary cameras before being herded into their restricted press zone. Scores or hundreds of people are marching steadily past, holding signs and one waving an upside-down US flag.

    Meanwhile Maddow is interviewing one of the St Louis representatives (didn’t catch the office) who is calling for Bob McCulloch to be removed from prosecuting the officer.

    Police are blocking all private vehicles out of the area.

  162. Pteryxx says

    Maddow hat-tipping to Chris Hayes who has been reporting from Ferguson since last week (and will be doing more live coverage tonight at 11 Eastern). Replayed footage from last night of Hayes reporting from the street, then the voice of a screaming cop breaking into the broadcast threatening to mace him.

  163. Pteryxx says

    Now showing the protesters who stood in front of stores to protect them from looters, and interviewing a community reporter about brand new leadership and organizing actions that are, for example, registering young people to vote.

    On the live feed, protesters are marching steadily down the (closed to vehicles) main street, ten across and hundreds deep, in the glare of fixed lights and unattended stationary cameras.

  164. says

    For those of you unfamiliar with military action.

    First rule is containment. Try to contain conflict to a small area.

    It gets worse after this. Next is neutralize any threat within the containment area. Photographers arrested and protests shut down, though bad are nothing compared to an area of military operation without supervision. If you cannot take pictures or photos of their operation what laws do they have to follow? How does anyone prove their rights are being violated. That’s the point! No credible witnesses! What part of military law did you miss? No civil rights! The national guard is doing exactly what it is supposed to, they are a military operation and acting as such.

    “OK Jethro the national guard is here our job is done.” (To sum up what the cops are doing. I feel sorry for Johnson, he was really trying to make things better.) Do you really think that when the AG gets there on Wednesday he is going to find evidence of abuse? These two days are to secure the area and the citizens of Ferguson are the threat. Look at any military action on US soil and this is what you get. And for those of you doubting any of this, crack open a book all the way back to the heat of civil rights movement. In any of these cases where national guard was on hand did they ever arrest a police officer or a politician? This is about as close to martial law as you can get without a congressional approval.

    One last thing I would like to add. Being where I live and knowing many men of service as I have, there’s one sacred cow. You never want martial law! It isn’t designed for governing people it is designed to shut down threats (civil unrest) with extreme prejudice.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/us/national-guard-in-texas-could-get-arrest-power.html
    Nixon is in charge of the Nation Guard in Missouri, are you scared yet? Because I’m fucking terrified for the people of Ferguson.

  165. A. Noyd says

    Inaji (#206)

    City of #Ferguson just hired a PR firm.Their entire team appears to be white:

    Someone should start a fundraiser to buy those stupid fuckers a clue.

  166. Ichthyic says

    I remember in the 70s, seeing the escalation of police response would have engendered a HUGE protest movement to go there in support of the rights of the citizens of Ferguson (like thousands at least).

    Now, I’m too old and I guess most Americans have decided that it works better to Twitter the events instead.

    seriously, if you live near Ferguson, you should be showing your support for civil rights with your body on the streets.

  167. anteprepro says

    The City of Ferguson just hired a PR firm. I was unaware that was how Fox News was billing itself nowadays, but maybe it just more lucrative to be honest about it at this point.

  168. Pteryxx says

    Learned a new word from the extensive discussion of what can be learned from the different phases and components of an autopsy: Ballistician. (If that’s not a real word, it should be now.)

    MSNBC keeps running live footage from their stationary cameras as a backdrop, and it’s starting to disturb me. Those cameras won’t catch anything questionable happening unless it goes on right in front of them. They probably can’t be zoomed in or refocused from what I can tell; these don’t seem to be the kind of remote cameras that have operators. They can’t interview anyone on the street. They can’t interact at all. Every once in a while we viewers see a cop step out of the police’s little standing-around groups and talk at or latch onto a protester, or protesters talking with each other as they walk – some smiling, some angry, some determined. None are looking AT the cameras. There could be a hundred stories happening right under our noses and we’d never know. Violence? we don’t know. Protecting businesses? we don’t know. How people feel about what’s happening? No idea. “Looks pretty quiet out there tonight.” “We’ll keep you informed.” “We’ll check back if anything happens. We’ll be right back after the break.”

    Then I realized what we’re looking at. Live security camera footage. Observing the Black American in their natural habitat. While the media are restricted to talking-head interviews on the same nondescript stretch of what looks like a hotel yard, with nothing in the background but a few tufts of decorative tallgrass.

    It’s the second most disgusting and dehumanizing spectacle I’ve seen today, after the descriptions (frequently re-iterated) of the bullet wounds inflicted upon Mike Brown.

  169. Pteryxx says

    As I said that, cameras on the street (among crowds mostly standing and milling about) are showing the SWAT line of cops has reappeared, with riot shields and gas masks but no body armor or harnesses of spare weapons that I can see. Vehicles arrayed behind them and there was the sound of the LRAD over the crowd.

    Live – Near the McDonalds the cops are lined up. The LRAD (sonic weapon) is very audible. Protesters have hands up, some on their knees. 200 or so on the street. The crowd *has* thinned from an hour ago. Reporter: This was a peaceful protest, chanting, signs. Video is very choppy. Police have been saying move back, move back.

    MNSBC says it got tense five minutes ago.

  170. Pteryxx says

    MSNBC – People walking were told by police “things have gotten bad”.

    Switched to Chris Hayes live show from the ground, though he and his crew are on the lit-up side of a metal fence with the walkers and street on the other side.

    There was an arrest or two earlier… people are now running down the street, and sirens (regular police cars) just sped past. On another livestream, folks are walking down the street arm in arm as police lights flash behind them.

    The van with the LRAD and riot-geared cops on the roof just drove past, following the train of a dozen police cars.

  171. says

    Ichthyic:

    seriously, if you live near Ferguson, you should be showing your support for civil rights with your body on the streets.

    That may not work for everyone. Not everyone has the temperment, time, or energy to be out on the streets. Marching also isn’t the only way to support protesters. Some people would show their support in other ways. Today, with social media being what it is, people can be involved in protesting and supporting civil rights in a wide range of ways.

  172. Pteryxx says

    White dude in a mask threw a couple of small rocks at Chris Hayes. Shouts of “Tell the true story!” He and the other said “We’re trying to.” He’s trying to talk across the fence to find out what’s going on.

    – HIs witness says, they told us to disperse. What set it off? Nothing. ‘They treat us like animals.’

  173. Pteryxx says

    The marchers can’t stay to talk to Hayes because they have to keep moving. On THEIR side of the fence, in the dark and the street with the cops. The reporters are clinging to the fence, pressing into it, trying to talk to people as they walk by.

  174. Pteryxx says

    Some passersby are talking through the fence, hands held up. They said no violence, no arrests that they saw, maybe one guy at the front got a bit close to the cops with a sign and the rest of the crowd pulled him back.

    But I’m afraid of what will happen to anyone who stops to talk through the fence. Did the media get placed there as bait?

  175. lakitha tolbert says

    There will never be justice.
    Wilson will never even be arrested.
    The people of Ferguson will be made to pay even worse for all this.
    It will be another mild hiccup in the lives of racist White America or just not remembered at all.

    Fuck.

  176. Pteryxx says

    Showing a line of shirt sleeved police (many colors of shirts) with helmets, face shields, gas masks on their faces, some with shotguns in hands, some with billy clubs and long sticks in hands, all in a row. Some appear to have ballistic vests on, some shirts only.

    Well some of them have badges showing. That’s nice I suppose.

  177. Ichthyic says

    That may not work for everyone. Not everyone has the temperment, time, or energy to be out on the streets. Marching also isn’t the only way to support protesters.

    think of the twitter feeds that have become news.

    were those from people just randomly tweeting?

    nope, those were bodies on the streets in Ferguson.

  178. Pteryxx says

    Crowd of 50 or so protesters approached the car-lit blockade (there are two, one on foot, one with vehicles, I think) and instead of marching by, swirled around for a bit, then the voices of calm in the crowd appeared to take over and the entire group is walking away from the cops, some backwards and yelling angrily – but retreating.

    On the other line of cops, clear riot shields were just distributed.

  179. Pteryxx says

    One camera followed who I think was Captain Johnson, still in blue shirtsleeves only, walking with two others along (away?) from the riot cop line. To my eyes his face looks terribly sad.

  180. Pteryxx says

    “This is not the America anyone envisioned. Nobody envisioned this” “The Ferguson people paid for these streets. We can’t stand on these streets?”

    Vehicles driving up and down at a decent speed, protesters retreating to the sidewalks and all watching it go by. LRAD noise heard briefly.

    “Had not the media been here, maybe the world wouldn’t have known about us.” when Chris Hayes asked if the media presence was adding fuel to the fire. (Few more rocks.)

    Report coming in – Crowd is forming human chains, with arms linked, to keep back the protesters among them who want to fight.

  181. Pteryxx says

    Riot police over megaphone – Clear the street immediately, you’re unlawfully assembled.

    I no longer see a single displayed badge among the riot police.

  182. Pteryxx says

    Community and faith leaders with megaphones walking back and forth across the face of the crowd, riot police lined up at their backs, urging the crowd to stay calm. Voiceover of Chris Hayes with an impassioned few sentences about the injustice this crowd feels, that every single person they speak to has cited, that this could happen in America, that a young man could be gunned down on the street without even the dignity of having his dead body treated with respect.

    A scattering of riot police, just a few in a line six to ten feet apart from each other, are walking forward to clear the crowd back from an intersection. The community leaders are walking close to the crowd, just in front of them. The crowd backing up sees three layers – the leaders, the few cops just out of reach behind them, the mass of cops some thirty feet beyond.

  183. Pteryxx says

    People are being told they can stay out, there is no curfew, but they must keep moving. At least one arrest, one person down with several cops cuffing them and a ring of seven or eight cops with rifles in a circle, facing outward, around them.

    Isolated standoffs between small lines of police and small groups of the few protesters determined to be violent.

    Rifles are being held low, pointed down at a 45-degree angle or so towards protesters’ feet if they’re close.

  184. Pteryxx says

    *correction, in a long pan shot across thirty or forty riot cops just now, I saw TWO still wearing their badges.

  185. Pteryxx says

    Phone to Hayes from USA Today – police are trying to separate media from protesters, while apparently one group of SWAT are ordering protesters to leave and they are refusing to go, near the QT.

    LRAD vehicle with cops hanging off it and on its roof continues to drive up and down the street.

    ‘Nother shot at a different point along the drive of a small group of community leaders and riot police talking together.

    People started running fast down (Canfield) past Hayes’ standpoint. According to the USA Today reporter they’re running from a loud noise, perhaps a fight in the crowd.

    So it looks to me like small events happening across an extremely tense situation, especially as people have had to deal with nine days of this.

    On the hour – smoking canisters and flashbangs just started flying from one of the riot lines. A dozen or so protesters of the acting-out variety are facing off, the vast majority of the crowd is fifty feet or more behind them and retreating further.

  186. Pteryxx says

    People at the *other* line are approaching the police on foot asking for medical help. The non-vehicle line of cops are looking at each other in confusion. Sight of Captain Johnson at the non-vehicle line, listening to reports from troopers.

    Chris Hayes says yep, that’s tear gas he can smell. Says they can’t blockade *all* the traffic because some people live and work here. He’s trying to find a mask so he can stay on scene.

  187. says

    Pteryxx:

    People are being told they can stay out, there is no curfew, but they must keep moving.

    I’m not understanding this. People can protest, but they can’t do it standing still?

  188. Pteryxx says

    The vehicle-side line of cops has some rifles up and leveled. The non-vehicle line are just standing ready, quite a bit of talking.

    LRAD (sound cannon) can be heard from various feeds – loud at Chris Hayes’ end, quieter at the staging/media end where the less armored police are.

  189. Pteryxx says

    the USA Today reporter – says people on her end, the tear-gassed end, are scattered and hiding behind buildings trying to get away from the gas, but they don’t want to stop protesting.

    Maddow has been asking if the protesters have space to keep moving IN while hemmed in by the tear gas and police blockades.

    The on-foot police line is letting vehicles through, after shining lights on them and inspecting the occupants through the windows.

  190. Pteryxx says

    MSNBC’s reporter says the street’s completely empty where she is. Residents made a chain, linking arms, and marched the crowd and violent elements down the street away from the police line.

    As she walks down the street there are tear gas canisters, small explosions going off, and a very small trash fire. She’s broadcasting from her cell phone with no crew, so that she isn’t targeted as media – on the advice of community leaders.

  191. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    I’ve been following along in horror all this time, unable to comment because what the fuck can I say? Words fail me.

    Thank you for all the news upkeep everyone, especially Inanj and Pteryxx. I truly appreciate it. I don’t know what else to say.

  192. Pteryxx says

    Group of yellow-shirted Amnesty International observers walking along the street, hands raised.

    The National Guard has stayed off the main lines. There’s a shot of a proper camo vehicle and a couple of soldier-looking folks at the command area, but there are no protesters or gas near there and they aren’t on either of the blockade lines at all.

  193. Pteryxx says

    Maddow fielding a report that there *is* a region of confrontation, somewhere in the middle of the street right now, but no media or eyes are close enough to determine what’s going on. That was Tremaine, I think, reporting from the media’s corner they’re not allowed to step off of, now getting driven away by tear gas.

  194. Pteryxx says

    Hayes – They keep trying different policing and every night ends up with abandoned streets stinking of tear gas and people’s unaddressed rage and pain. Every night winds up the same way.

    Police overheard – clear the street if you’re not credentialed media. Hayes wearily got ready to move and then remembered he is in fact credentialed media.

  195. Pteryxx says

    The police appear to have separated out the half dozen or so Amnesty International observers and are moving them off somewhere, hands still raised. Visuals only, no words as yet.

  196. Ichthyic says

    clear the street if you’re not credentialed media.

    ..and when it gets to where there are only a few dozen, confused, reporters walking around in the street…

    “MOVE BACK ONE BLOCK…”

    “Alright, that does it! Bring out the tear gas and rubber bullets boys!”

  197. says

    :checking in before meds eat my brain:

    Jesus fuckin’ jumped up Christ.

    Pteryxx, thank you so very much for the coverage, I know this is stressful for you.

  198. Pteryxx says

    The police line without the gas masks is moving forward, rifles leveled, to drive off a confrontational group that seems to be using a plastic porta-potty side as a makeshift shield. A few minutes later, even THAT situation seems to be defused – this police line retreats back to their original position.

    Report of an empty (previously looted) building being set on fire.

    Another report – a dozen or so people trying to get past police, asking to get by, to get to their homes on the other side of the tear gas.

    Scattered arrests. More announcements of all non-media being ordered to clear the streets or else be subject to arrest.

    The injured person earlier who walked up to the police line was allowed through and to an ambulance.

    So how much of an improvement is it if they only teargassed *half* the neighborhood this time? But there does seem to be some de-escalation happening (rifles go up, rifles go down) compared to the blanket aggressive police response where they just cleared everything indiscriminately.

  199. Pteryxx says

    Blech – the police analyst they just had on said how Captain Johnson listed off all the reasons they had to move in – the Molotov cocktails, the McDonald’s broken into (not very up on his fact checking, is he?) and how tear gas and LRADs are designed to make people want to leave an area without seriously injuring them. *snort*

    Maddow mentioning how the lack of news helicopters is directly affecting their ability to report this story as their reporters on the ground are driven away by either tear gas or police.

  200. Pteryxx says

    Thanks Inaji and chigau. I’m stopping for the night – so worn out that I’m catching myself making egregious meaning-changing typoes, and that’s going to be bad if I let one slip.

  201. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    I’m adding to the general thanks for Pteryxx and inaji.

    may you both get good rest.

  202. Menyambal says

    I was getting full-time Ferguson on three channels, here. Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.

    Fox had one studio reporter that actually seemed to be getting a clue, but Bill O’Rielly and Sean Hannity are still assholes. Fox’s on-site reporter was talking about the LRADs as if the police were only using them as sirens and loudspeakers, and the protesters are whiney babies — those fuckers will damage you forever when cranked up to 11.

    Chris Hayes was in a fence, getting a few rocks tossed at him, but doing a fair job talking to passers-by.

    The CNN guy was out showing the line of cops, not as heavily armored as some have
    been, and really making a point that there was absolutely no need for them.

    My point is that several people said on the national TV that this isn’t just about Mike Brown, this is about civil rights and the first amendment, and that the police are causing the tension and the trouble. And the cameras showed no looting, instead the community was policing its own behavior in a non-violent way. Some of the angriest folks were moved back by the rest, but it was clear that their anger at the police invasion was justified.

    That’s just the TV, but I thought it was a step up. Thanks to all for the internet info.

  203. Ichthyic says

    rifles go up, rifles go down

    second take:

    Does it depend on how excited the police are?

  204. Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm says

    Cornering people and shooting (teargas) into residential backyards.

    That seems to have been a running theme, doesn’t it? People clearly have no way to get out and the police go “welp, totes not dispersing fast enough” and start lobbing tear gas.

    Also, that Vine of the two news anchors. You can almost hear what he’s thinking.

  205. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    This.

    It’s all you need to know about how the media treats white suspects vs. black victims.

  206. rq says

    Ferguson in haiku.

    Good protester / Bad protester dynamics and why they are naht gooood.

    Cross-posting from the ‘Why would you’ thread: lawyers say autopsy shows MB was surrendering when shot. I presume those are lawyers with some experience in this kind of analysis.

    Ergh, I had a tweet where #Ferguson thanked #Palestine for the advice to use milk on teargas, instead of water. Lost it now, but it was… wow.
    (Also what dianne said on the other thread about Palestinians even having the time and energy to notice what’s happening in Ferguson…)

  207. rq says

    Joel Anderson in Ferguson.

    Damn, I lost another tweet (Firefox keeps crashing when I open Vines), but it was one of the reporters, saying how, when they were packing up to leave, a young woman grabbed his arm and begged them not to leave (I believe they were being kicked out) because she was afraid of what would happen, she wanted them to stay to make sure the world sees. He said it wasn’t the first time he’d heard the fear that, without the media present, a lot more violence would be unleashed.

  208. Pteryxx says

    Five AM and Trymaine Lee checked in from the ground – said it was an improvement that cops didn’t fire tear gas *immediately* when a bottle or two was thrown. AM anchors quote Captain Johnson saying police came under “heavy fire” during the night. (Seriously?) Also that there were 30 arrests due to violence, while showing footage of those dozen people pulled out of the truck bed who were just trying to find a way out of the area and get home.

    I’m disappointed in Trymaine this morning, in Captain Johnson, and by MSNBC’s morning news anchors. They’re laughing while the lone black man on their crew tries to explain Obama being accused of “Cosbyism”.

    Making sure I didn’t hear Trymaine wrong. I guess corralling the media away from the people trying to tell what’s happening had an effect.

    @trymainelee

    Couple minutes ago a few bottles were thrown at police. Nights ago that would’ve been followed by gas.
    8:16 PM – 18 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    @trymainelee

    Tear gas has wafted up the street. Everyone’s eyes are burning.
    9:36 PM – 18 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    @trymainelee

    Cops demanding anyone not media to leave immediately. Media forced to designated area.
    9:48 PM – 18 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    To recap from above, the live coverage last night showed that tear gas WAS fired immediately when the few folks determined to be violent did anything more than yell, if that even. They just didn’t blanket the entire area with tear gas all at once. So they bottled up and gassed *fewer* people indiscriminately, and the people were allowed to “keep protesting” while being herded about and arrested?

    It’s still a residential neighborhood and that was day 9 of protests that started at noon with witnesses of Brown being shot and his body left lying in the street. How are these people and their kids ever supposed to get any sleep?

  209. rq says

    MSNBC’s recap. Whoa.

    Pteryxx
    I’m just wondering that for them, on the ground, maybe last night did seem like an improvement over the previous couple of nights. Not that it looks like it from where I am, plus it just seems like they (the police) have altered a few tactics (no blanket teargas, just individual backyards :P).

  210. says

    Adding my thanks to Pteryxx, Inaji, rq, and everybody else reporting on what’s happening and boosting the signal. It’s at the very least keeping me informed and aware of the situation, and quite probably a lot more who also might not have heard much beyond local news coverage.

    I may only be able to do little to carry on the stories and boost the signal myself, but I at the very least know about it now. Thank you.

  211. Thomathy, Such A 'Mo says

    Without everyone here who has been posting coverage about the events in Ferguson, I would have a very hard time getting informed information that I could trust. Thank you for doing the coverage round up and the minute-by-minute updates.

  212. Thomathy, Such A 'Mo says

    The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) really ate that one.

  213. Thomathy, Such A 'Mo says

    Also, CSIS is pretty Orwellian as a name. Surely the also considered calling themselves The Center for Manifest Destiny?

  214. rq says

    Thomathy
    Depends… how do you pronounce it? (I say ‘see-sis’. Related to ‘big bro’?)

  215. Thomathy, Such A 'Mo says

    Haha. Well, I didn’t mean the abbreviation, but that works too! I was thinking more along the lines that an American think-tank called ‘strategic’ and ‘international’ that tweets that American intervention internationally has saved lives is a clever(?) stand-in for ‘manifest destiny’.
    _____

    Those are some poignant photos.

  216. Pteryxx says

    Reports from this morning:

    Ryan J. Reilly ‏@ryanjreilly

    Lots of people out to clean up #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/h4HzKpRy1f
    7:34 AM – 19 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    Ryan Dean ‏@RyanDeanKSDK

    Jennings school district is closed today so the faculty is picking up trash in #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/etcCefyTIA
    7:05 AM – 19 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    Talking Points Memo ‏@TPM

    90-year-old Holocaust survivor arrested at #Ferguson-related protest http://bit.ly/VCQxRc pic.twitter.com/9zwvVyA2O8
    7:10 AM – 19 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    Article for that last: Hedy Epstein arrested at Ferguson protest

    The Nation spoke with Epstein as she was being escorted to a police van.

    “I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager,” Epstein said. “I didn’t think I would have to do it when I was 90. We need to stand up today so that people won’t have to do this when they’re 90.”

  217. rq says

    Pteryxx
    Heh, I saw photos of Hedy Epstein, and she looks pretty damn defiant for 90 years! Wow.

  218. Pteryxx says

    Twitter commentary:

    Sewell Chan ‏@sewellchan

    “You have the right to remain silent, underrepresented and poor.” @globecartoon on #Ferguson: pic.twitter.com/LgBANsLE2l
    6:42 AM – 19 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    Sally Kohn @sallykohn

    None of this would be happening if police had just apologized for tragedy and promised transparent, accountable investigation. #Ferguson
    7:32 AM – 19 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    David Sirota ‏@davidsirota

    The #Ferguson message seems to be: the white cop deserves due process, but Mike Brown deserved instant execution with no due process.
    7:15 AM – 19 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    Film Fatale ‏@FilmFatale_NYC

    Dear media, please keep your cameras on #Ferguson. You are keeping its residents alive
    10:31 PM – 18 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    …David Sirota is just unloading in his twitter feed. Warning for hateful racist crap.

    David Sirota ‏@davidsirota

    Saying “He went for the cop’s gun” but offering no actual proof = saying “he must have went for the cop’s gun because he is black”
    7:21 AM – 19 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

    David Sirota ‏@davidsirota

    In case u still had faith in humanity, see folks who created #deservedtodie hashtag cheering #ferguson teen’s death
    7:33 AM – 19 Aug 2014

    (twitter)

  219. Pteryxx says

    A bit from rq’s second Star article in #335:

    [Ferguson police chief] Jackson quickly recused himself and his department from the investigation, then handed it over to the St. Louis County Police Department, where he has close friends and allies.

    He has worked for the department for two decades, and retired from there before becoming Ferguson’s police chief four years ago. A family newsletter from the time included a picture of a cake from his retirement party that illustrated how seamless the transition was. It read: “Happy Retirement/Rehirement Tom!”

    “He came from there. I don’t think it surprised anybody when he did that,” Bynes said of the handoff to St. Louis County.

    Requests for an interview with Jackson were submitted to a public relations firm that has been hired to represent the department. Representatives from the firm did not respond to multiple requests.

  220. Pteryxx says

    (Warning for police brutality)

    Collection of tweets from the ground via Feminist Batwoman:

    [Image: a series of tweets by justified agitator (@Awkward_Duck) on August 19, 2014.

    1:23 AM: We literally laid in someone’s backyard for what seemed like an eternity while tanks rolled down the streets #Ferguson

    1:26 AM: I’m live tweeting because there’s a media blackout. #Ferguson

    1:33 AM: I’m so shaken. They’re literally just rolling around throwing tear gas into neighborhoods-not aggressive crowds. #Ferguson

    1:34 AM: I was pouring milk over one guys eyes when they came back around and threw another at us. #Ferguson

    1:51 AM: Let me repeat, THEY ARE GASSING NEIGHBORHOODS not crowds of protestors.There was only a few of us walking. there is no curfew, so why?]

  221. rq says

    Pteryxx @337
    Is that from the same series where they had trouble getting back to their car because of police blocking off streets? :/

    A message from Anonymous ( for what it’s worth, I’ve been getting a lot of info from their twitter feed).

    Some photos of racism at work: one, two. The second one has humour.

    Via BBC, Egypt gets a word in. Egypt!! <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28855811?ocid=socialflow_twitterThe article. Now for a word from Iran…

    Also, tips on how to livestream. Don’t know if the photo will show up, it’s a bit wonky for me though that could be my personal browser issues.

    How the US would cover it if Ferguson was elsewhere in the world. A bit of perspective. :P

    What the cops are thinking.

  222. Desert Son, OM says

    USA Today reports on support spreading for officer in Ferguson shooting.

    From the article:

    One donor, who identified herself as Nancy Lawson, pledged $20 and wrote, “Thank you, officer Wilson, for risking your life so we can live in a safe world. I am praying for you.”

    Except Michael Brown. He doesn’t get to live in a safe world. Or the people being tear-gassed. They don’t get to live in a safe world.

    On Facebook, a commenter who identified himself as Mike Allgire said, “As a retired police officer, I would have shot him also.” Allgire added, “The police are not out there to see who can wipe who, but to keep the peace. With a person the size of Mr. Brown, there is no doubt I would have taken the same action. Police officer’s have an old saying; ‘I would rather be judged by 12 than carried by six.’ “

    The room temperature in my apartment just plummeted.

    Still learning,

    Robert

  223. Pteryxx says

    rq – well that destroys one of my pet sarcasm theories, namely that the Ferguson and STL PDs brought out all that riot gear because they needed to use the ammo up before its shelf life expired.

  224. says

    [a griot’s tale] ‏@DamoneWilliams_ 3m
    Oh, you’re tired of all the tweets about #Ferguson, racism, & white privilege? Well I’m tired of racism and white privilege.

    This claim is now popping up all over #Ferguson:

    OFFICER’S WILSON’S EYE SOCKET “BLOWN OUT” BY MICHAEL BROWN PRIOR TO SHOOTING!

    [The only photos accompanying this claim are stills from the robbery video]

  225. says

    JustFYI, I’ve been teargassed four times.

    Twice in demonstrations, and twice in the Canadian army, which used (uses? don’t know, this was 1983) CS or tear gas as a demonstration vehicle for chemical warfare training. We had to put on our NBC ‘bunny suits’, with gas masks, then do calisthenics and running while wearing the full gear, before taking off our masks, and being required to attempt to sing ‘O Canada’ while being gassed. I did this twice: once in Basic, and again as refresher training when I was posted to the NATO base in West Germany.

    It’s extremely unpleasant, and the name doesn’t do it justice. It’s not tears but inability to breathe that is caused. Eyes and exposed mucosa burn painfully for hours, and if you’ve got any respiratory ailments, it can completely incapacitate and disable.

    It was less awful when I experienced it outdoors, as the concentration was much lower – sadism being endemic in military trainers, they often dangerously overdid the use of CS in gas huts – but it’s still a less-than-lethal (NOT non-lethal) form of chemical warfare, outlawed in war by the Geneva Conventions.

    That they’re using it on unarmed protesters is thoroughly outragepus, and should be completely illegal. But who’s going to stop the police from using it? Not other police, that much is sure, especially when the victims were foolish enough to Breathe While Black.

  226. The Mellow Monkey says

    Eyes and exposed mucosa burn painfully for hours, and if you’ve got any respiratory ailments, it can completely incapacitate and disable.

    CDC statistics on asthma in the USA.

    African Americans have the highest rate of asthma in the US, 11.9%. If the police don’t stop, it’s only a matter of time before the tear gas is killing people.

  227. says

    rq:

    Inaji
    People should listen to Antonio French more.

    Yeah, they should. I made sure to include the pic & link of the white agitator in today’s blog post.

  228. says

    Qwest Rolex ‏@QwestRolex 1h
    just saw that they’re saying marihuana made MB crazy. Idk about yall, but when I’m toked up the last thing on my mind is violence #ferguson

    I’m with him ^. So, someone is stoned. I’d buy their being aggressive…toward a package of oreos or a bag of doritos. A cop? Not so much.

  229. yazikus says

    I just learned recently about the history of why we call it marijuana and not hemp. It was an attempt to racialize it by calling it by its Spanish name- to associate it with people’s racist ideas about Mexico & Mexicans.

  230. says

    rq:

    More on that other shooting.

    Just talking with Mister about that. Why in the hell wasn’t he tased? A cop can fire a taser from a distance, wouldn’t be in danger from a knife. Mister says: it costs around $90 to fire a taser. Bullets are cheap.

    Fuck, I hate events that drive such god awful cynicism. I feel like it’s killing me.

  231. says

    Damn. A friend just passed this on to me at Facebook. It’s not directly related to the killing of Michael Brown, but it is definitely an example of the lack of oversight for police departments across the country. It’s also another case of parents losing a child due to the actions of police officers:

    I got the phone call at 2 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2004. It was my oldest daughter. She said you need to come to the hospital right away, Michael’s been shot by the police. My first gut reaction was, “Michael doesn’t do anything serious enough to get shot by a police officer.” I thought he’d gotten shot in the leg or whatever. When I arrived, I saw the district attorney huddled with about five police officers. The last time I saw my son alive he was on a gurney, with his head wrapped in a big towel and blood coming out of it. I learned that an officer had put his gun up directly to Michael’s right temple and misfired, then did it again, and shot him.

    From the beginning I cautioned patience, though Michael’s mother and sister were in an uproar. They had watched him get shot. But as an Air Force officer and pilot I knew the way safety investigations are conducted, and I was thinking that this was going to be conducted this way. Yet within 48 hours I got the message: The police had cleared themselves of all wrongdoing. In 48 hours! They hadn’t even taken statements from several eyewitnesses. Crime lab reports showed that my son’s DNA or fingerprints were not on any gun or holster, even though one of the police officers involved in Michael’s shooting had claimed that Michael had grabbed his gun.

    The officer who killed my son, Albert Gonzalez, is not only still on the force ten years later, he is also a licensed concealed-gun instructor across the state line in Illinois—and was identified by the Chicago Tribune in an Aug. 7 investigative story as one of “multiple instructors [who] are police officers with documented histories of making questionable decisions about when to use force.”
    From the beginning I allowed the investigation to proceed and didn’t know it was a sham until many of the facts were discovered. But before long I realized a cover-up was under way. I hadn’t understood at first how closely related the DA and the police were—during his election campaign for judge, the DA had been endorsed in writing by every police agency in the county. Now he was investigating them. It was a clear conflict of interest.

    The police claimed that one officer screamed that Michael grabbed his gun after they stopped him, for reasons that remain unclear though he was slightly intoxicated, and then Gonzalez shot him, sticking the gun so close against his temple that he left a muzzle imprint. Michael wasn’t even driving his own car. He’d been out with a designated driver, but the designated driver drank and was younger, and so my son made the decision to drive.
    […]
    It took six years to get our wrongful death lawsuit settled, and my family received $1.75 million. But I wasn’t satisfied by a long shot. I used my entire portion of that money and much more of my own to continue a campaign for more police accountability. I wanted to change things for everyone else, so no one else would ever have to go through what I did. We did our research: In 129 years since police and fire commissions were created in the state of Wisconsin, we could not find a single ruling by a police department, an inquest or a police commission that a shooting was unjustified. There was one shooting we found, in 2005, that was ruled justified by the department and an inquest, but additional evidence provided by citizens caused the DA to charge the officer. The city of Milwaukee settled with a confidentiality agreement and the facts of that sealed. The officer involved committed suicide.

    The problem over many decades, in other words, was a near-total lack of accountability for wrongdoing; and if police on duty believe they can get away with almost anything, they will act accordingly. As a military pilot, I knew that if law professionals investigated police-related deaths like, say, the way that the National Transportation Safety Board investigated aviation mishaps, police-related deaths would be at an all time low.

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/what-i-did-after-police-killed-my-son-110038_Page2.html#.U_OdZvldWeM

  232. says

    From Inaji’s link @373:

    In everything we’ve seen from Ferguson, MO, this week, take away this: Black people are not a plague on society. Black people are not an inscrutable waste of time, and black life isn’t negotiable or negligible, but it is endangered. It is at risk. It is in some instances predisposed to be marked for death. Now more than ever before in history, we have got to find a way to indicate to those who would seek to strike black life down, that we are people. We bleed, we die, we have families, we love, we grieve, we have children, we are children, we are men and women, we are here, we matter, we matter. We matter.

    Hell yes. ↑This↑

  233. says

    What Happens When Police Officers Wear Body Cameras

    Sometimes, like the moments leading up to when a police officer decides to shoot someone, transparency is an unalloyed good. And especially lately, technology has progressed to a point that it makes this kind of transparency not just possible, but routine.

    So it is in Rialto, Calif., where an entire police force is wearing so-called body-mounted cameras, no bigger than pagers, that record everything that transpires between officers and citizens. In the first year after the cameras’ introduction, the use of force by officers declined 60%, and citizen complaints against police fell 88%.

  234. says

    Tony:

    Hell yes. ↑This↑

    Yeah, that. I included it in today’s blog post. Powerful words, but you know, they shouldn’t have to be said. That those words have to be said, in so many ways, by so many people, and that those words are ignored by substantial amounts of white people in 2014? Fuckin’ bad.

  235. says

    Hedy Epstein on Ferguson:

    “I’m deeply, deeply troubled by what’s going on in Ferguson,” says Epstein. “It’s a matter of racism and injustice, and it’s not only in Ferguson…. Racism is alive and well in the United States. The power structure looks at anyone who’s different as the other, as less worthy, and so you treat the other as someone who is less human and who needs to be controlled and who is not trusted.”

  236. says

    Zerlina Maxwell ‏@ZerlinaMaxwell 27m
    I mean dude. 1 guy with a knife. 2 cops with guns. And you *have* to shoot to kill? Maybe we need to teach these cops karate. #Ferguson

    zellie ‏@zellieimani 23m
    Are cops trained to take down suspects through non lethal measures? Or is everything shoot to kill? #Ferguson

    Zerlina Maxwell ‏@ZerlinaMaxwell 24m
    I’m just asking relevant questions b/c people’s lives are being ended. ENDED. like they don’t come back. ever. #Ferguson

    justified agitator ‏@Awkward_Duck 40m
    Fun fact: you can’t use tear gas in war, it’s banned internationally. But against your own people is apparently ok. #Ferguson

    Tony Messenger ‏@tonymess 44m
    We already know more in the past hour about a city of St. Louis police shooting than we do about one in #Ferguson 10 days ago.

    Furious crowd at scene of officer-involved shooting four miles from #Ferguson.

  237. Ichthyic says

    Oh, and forgot this one – the KKK denounces the KKK. Now what does that tell you?

    best comment there:

    “…the Traditionalist Knights are not “enemies of the colored and mongrel races”

    Wow, I’ve never felt so loved.

  238. rq says

    Around the world, US now a failed state (and yes, in Russia, ‘Afromaidan’ is now apparently a thing).

    Who called the human shields tweeters? PZ himself? Dang. What does he win?

    The Army and Civil Unrest, a primer.

    Funny, yet so not funny.

    Some questions about the kill-switch in phones. Verdict: unclear.

    More in a bit.

    Inaji
    Yeah, I linked to a BBC article about Egypt upthread (or in the other one?), pretty freaky stuff. Plus, apparently China is getting all smug about the situation here and US hypocrisy on human rights. This is going to be a tough one to forget, internationally speaking. :/

  239. Esteleth is Groot says

    So, in the last 24 hours:
    (1) Police in Ferguson tear gassed unarmed peaceful protestors, including children. Again.
    (2) Police in Ferguson driving a MRAP (because IEDs are a problem in suburbia?) played chicken with a group of people on foot.
    (3) Police in Ferguson fired teargas into people’s yards and houses. Again.
    (4) Police in Ferguson harassed/threatened media.
    (5) Police in St. Louis arrested a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor for standing in a doorway.
    (6) A CNN anchor wondered on air why the police in Ferguson weren’t using water cannons. She got an epic side-eye from her (black) co-anchor for this.

  240. Ichthyic says

    New video shows Mike Brown paying for his cigars.

    I’ve said it from the beginning; the Ferguson PD is entirely corrupt, and they’ve known it for at least a decade, tried to replace the police chief in 2010 to start curbing it, but that’s simply not good enough.

    the entire police department, ALONG WITH the county prosecutor’s office, needs a complete overhaul from the ground up.

    with federal monitoring for several years afterwards.

  241. says

    rq:

    This is going to be a tough one to forget, internationally speaking.

    Oh, I don’t think it will be forgotten. We’re gonna reap the whirlwind on this one.

  242. says

    Antonio French @AntonioFrench · 1m
    St. Louis City is not #Ferguson. Tensions are the same, but blacks in #Ferguson had no representation and their gov’t made them the enemy.

  243. says

    Jericho Brown ‏@jerichobrown 46m
    “@jamesallenhall: I’m sorry Robin Williams died. I’m sorry #MikeBrown barely lived. #ferguson”

    Jonathan Kite ‏@jbkite 50m
    Things that are bad for you: white sugar, white flour, white cops. #Ferguson

  244. Esteleth is Groot says

    I just saw a meme go by. Truly gorgeous.

    The image shows a burnt-out storefront, with a white man (identified as the owner) standing in front of it, with this text (identified as a quote from him):

    The people who did this, their rage is justified. Their actions are wrong and ill directed but their rage is justified. Not because one boy was murdered but because of centuries of injustice and social marginalization. This just pushed them overt he brink. I believe Dorian Johnson. Michael Brown did not deserve to be gunned down in the street. I didn’t post this photo to cast shame upon the people who set this fire. My people, white people pushed them to this. We took away their hope. Our leaders have systematically robbed them of education, wealth, opportunity and hope. This burnt building is a mirror of the lives that have been forced upon people of color. Our shame runs deep. We all set this fire.

    (a twitpic version of this image can be found here)

  245. Morgan!? Militant Pacifist! - Occupy Ferguson! says

    Good night, rq. So appreciative of all your work. No dreams.

  246. Ichthyic says

    The real looters in Ferguson, a summary of the financial situation.

    i’m glad to see the American media finally starting to look at the underlying issues.

    oh, wait.

  247. Ichthyic says

    my prediction:

    Wilson will not be convicted on felony charges in criminal court.

    He will be sued in civil court for violating Brown’s civil rights, and lose there instead.

    corollary: Initially at least, the Ferguson PD will be included in the civil suit. Also just as likely will settle out of court with victim’s family before it reaches full court.

  248. anteprepro says

    What I’m interested in is whether the entire PD can be brought to trial somehow for their ridiculous behavior during the protests for the past week. But that’s probably a pipe dream.

  249. rq says

    anteprepro
    They can probably be sued. Hey, maybe they’ll have to sell all that fancy equipment to settle!

  250. says

    A volunteer and a young girl play Sorry! at the Wellspring Church. They’re in need of games for older kids #Ferguson

    CNN anchor: National Guard in #Ferguson used the N-word (VIDEO) http://bit.ly/1oZC1K0 pic.twitter.com/lqwj96tXA5

    Laura Ingraham ‏@IngrahamAngle 57m
    On air today Rudy Giuliani said he’s not worried abt ‘militarization’ of #Ferguson: “What do you expect the police to wear? Bermuda shorts?”

    She gave out FREE water & other stuff to protestors & press only to get maced by police. #Ferguson

    Why are white people scared of black people’s rage at Mike Brown’s death?

    justified agitator ‏@Awkward_Duck 1h
    There’s been well over 100 arrests made in #Ferguson since protests began 11 days ago. None of them are Darren Wilson.

    White boy throws water bottle, police respond by drawing guns on Black activists.. http://bit.ly/1rXRlu4 #ferguson pic.twitter.com/R9WRMMrufL

  251. says

    justified agitator @Awkward_Duck · 32m
    Breaking now: #ferguson St. marks Missionary Church – home of medical triage and healing for community currently being raided by police.

    Shaun King ‏@ShaunKing 21m
    The police are raiding St. Marks Church in #Ferguson and taking all of the supplies like water & more. This place is a beautiful safe haven.

    Marvin Bing ‏@MarvinBing 41m
    St. Marks church is now being raided by the police in #Ferguson They are taking all of the communities supplies.