Ferguson

[Sovereign]

https://twitter.com/alanblinder/status/501257789646602241

Please delete the other thread.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Deployed for whose benefit? The police or the people? I'm guessing the latter since Nixon has been pretty ok throughout this situation.

 

[Sovereign]

Can't believe this is happening.

 

[Niklas]

Hacktivist group Anonymous has decided to get involved. LINKITY LINK

 

[Kaeb]

Is this the dumbest ****ing police force on the planet?

Every single action is an obvious attempt of them trying to cover up their previous actions.

 

[Bee]

"John Prager is an unfortunate Liberal soul who lives uncomfortably in the middle of a Conservative hellscape and likes to refer to himself as an "island of reason in a sea of insanity." lol. lol. lol. lol.

On a serious note, the whole situation is unfortunate. I can't imagine what it must be like to be considered not a person by the people running the city/state/country you live in.

 

[TWD26]

I support the police.

 

[Rune]

I support the police.

I think that's what worries me more than anything about this whole thing. There are people out there who see absolutely nothing wrong with what the police are doing. Not saying you're one of those people, TWD26, just that they are out there.

I mean, it's exactly like Kaeb said. They keep making things worse trying to cover up previous mistakes.

If they just followed procedure from the beginning, this probably wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it is now.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I support the police.

So you support the militarization of police? You think that shooting someone 6 times is an acceptable way of dealing with what basically amounted to a minor traffic dispute, and you think using high powered weapons, grenade launchers, tanks, and body armor is the way to deal with the aftermath?

Supporting the police in this situation is truly despicable.

And Rune, part of the problem is that, by and large, this is procedure.

 

[Rune]

I agree Brandon. At least for this particular police department, it seems that their mentality is "Shoot first, ask question later".

Not to mention they were preventing news crews from entering the town as well as tear gassing news crews and then destroying their equipment after they ran from the gas.

It's like something out of a bad popcorn movie. You look at it and go "Is this really happening?"

 

[Brandon Rhea]

It goes beyond this specific police department. Ferguson is just the current flashpoint. Local police departments have been given billions of dollars in military-style equipment by the Department of Homeland Security since 9/11, not to mention actual leftover military assets from Iraq and Afghanistan. When you're given the weapons and tools of war, then situations are going to be treated as a war.

Plus, when it comes to the actual shooting of Michael Brown, police departments are trained more these days to protect themselves. Their lives are meant to be secondary in the line of duty, yet police more and more seem concerned with protecting themselves.

And that doesn't even begin to cover the racism of the situation.

 

[TWD26]

I didn't support the actions of the shooting, but I support what the police is doing currently-keeping rioting away and hurting more lives. Though I do think that Mike Brown's death was unwarranted and a cruel and excessive use of force.

 

[Liam]

So I've been a little out of the loop regarding this whole situation. Did Michael Brown rob a store?

 

[TWD26]

So I've been a little out of the loop regarding this whole situation. Did Michael Brown rob a store?

They are saying he did, I don't know if it's been confirmed. A lot of people are saying that he was a criminal, but even if he was he didn't deserve to die that day. The police used excessive force which I don't agree with and there are serious questions that need to be raised across the country. I was on the side of the protests until they began to pillage their own town-in my eyes they lost all credibility. I think Peaceful Protests need to be presented.

I know teargas was shot yesterday because protestors began to march out of the protest zone-which I don't think was a smart choice because things could have escalated in the crowd. But, the situation is sort of boiling up, I support the Cops keeping some order though I feel they did do something wrong. I know I stated I support the Cops, but that is more in a limited scope. It's kind of hard to even support either side.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I didn't support the actions of the shooting, but I support what the police is doing currently-keeping rioting away and hurting more lives. Though I do think that Mike Brown's death was unwarranted and a cruel and excessive use of force.

The problem with the blanket statement of "I support what the police is doing currently keeping rioting away and hurting more lives" is that it values property over actual lives, and justifies insane police actions. Is stuff like looting right? No. But talk about looting is a way that the media and those in power deflect attention away from the police. It takes attention away from the unjustified actions of the police and attempts to turn it to "BLACK PEOPLE ARE SCARY!" It's an attempt to turn people against the protestors.

And by the way, many of the protestors are even stopping people from looting. They're standing in front of stores and telling the assholes to **** off. Don't buy into the police line that they need all of this force because of looting and molotov cocktails and such, because relatively speaking there's barely any of that happening.

Excessive police force caused these protests. Excessive police force will not end it. It will, and has, only escalate the situation.

So I've been a little out of the loop regarding this whole situation. Did Michael Brown rob a store?

Maybe? But it's irrelevant to the situation. The officer who shot him didn't even know he was allegedly a robbery suspect.

 

[Liam]

What was the officer's reasoning for shooting Brown?

 

[TWD26]

They haven't said, only that he "went" for the man's gun.

Though I do agree Brandon, but not all cops are bad, but I feel that some people paint a picture that they are.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

What was the officer's reasoning for shooting Brown?

It's not really clear, but most witness testimony points towards the fact that Brown and Dorian Johnson were walking in the street, the police officer told them to leave (or, in one testimony, immediately said "get the **** on the sidewalk" or something like that). Eventually Brown apparently ran, he was shot at, then he stopped and put his hands in the air, and the officer shot again and killed him.

The police say that Brown assaulted the officer. I believe the autopsy this morning suggested that there was no altercation, though. I only glanced at the news, though.

 

[TWD26]

I don't normally like getting into these kinds of things, but I do have to say I support what TWD26 is saying here.

When the response of the community [however few in number they were/are] was to begin smashing windows, looting stores and setting fire to businesses, it seems ludicrous to decry the police department for employing the assets they have been given specifically to deal with such civil unrest. Were the police heavy-handed and unjustified in their actions that sparked all of this nonsense? Undoubtedly. But the community at large must also be held accountable for their actions. Without the looting and vandalism taking place, there would be no need for the police to deploy such measures to maintain the peace.

This

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Though I do agree Brandon, but not all cops are bad, but I feel that some people paint a picture that they are.

Sure, but that's also a dangerous line because it assumes that these situations are caused by bad eggs, when really it's the system that's broken. Good people can be caught up in a bad system and do bad things as a result. The idea of bad egg cops also makes people more willing to accept that because police have risky jobs, excessive force is OK. That's not what you said, but it's what happens a lot.

I don't normally like getting into these kinds of things, but I do have to say I support what TWD26 is saying here.

When the response of the community [however few in number they were/are] was to begin smashing windows, looting stores and setting fire to businesses, it seems ludicrous to decry the police department for employing the assets they have been given specifically to deal with such civil unrest. Were the police heavy-handed and unjustified in their actions that sparked all of this nonsense? Undoubtedly. But the community at large must also be held accountable for their actions. Without the looting and vandalism taking place, there would be no need for the police to deploy such measures to maintain the peace.

This is nonsense. You're blaming the community for the actions of a few people - and as I said above, members of the community are trying to stop looters and the like. But bringing out military assets is not the way to deal with this situation. Excessive force is what caused this situation in the first place. There is no need, even with looting and vandalism (the extent of which has been totally overblown), to deploy military-style assets. None.