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Ferguson, Missouri
08-14-2014, 06:31 PM
Is it just me, or are the police in Ferguson, Missouri doing everything they can to make sure they get perceived as jackbooted thugs who are less concerned about protecting the people of the city and more concerned about protecting their image?
I mean, when they initially stonewalled on any attempt to ID the white officer who killed an unarmed black teen, my first response was, "even if it's well-intentioned that's so not a good move". As they kept refusing to release his identity over the last few days, my reactions shifted to, "they've probably know of or found something in his personal life that will just blow up horribly in their faces, like some kind of White Supremacist affiliation, and are desperately treading water while trying to find a way out of looking like complete monsters".
And then there are the events of last night. Between an officer who refused to identify himself physically assaulting and arresting a pair of journalists, a riot squad teargassing a TV news crew and then pointing the abandoned camera away from their actions, and other police even arresting a local politician who was streaming live video of the incident to the Web, you've got to wonder what they're trying to hide. Especially with the Ferguson police chief quoted as being unable to identify any officers who did anything to anyone, because "We had a lot of different agencies out there."
Bull. For thirty years or more there have been cops, both civilian and military, among my friends and from them I learned that one thing is a constant among well-run police forces: everything is documented. If it's not, the cops are either incompetent or hiding something. Although at least one CNN article today points at "incompetent" (Riding around on top of an APC? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the armor?), it's definitely looking like "hiding something" is a major factor.
Edit: Relevant link -- http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/13/justice/m ... ?hpt=hp_t1 Are you telling me the Ferguson police chief can't identify the officer whose face takes up a quarter of the screen? Seriously?
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
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Yeah.... That's just the culmination of a problem that seems to be infecting police forces in America these days. Warrior cops, who treat policework like a theatre of war, shoot first then shoot second then stonewall any questions behind the blue wall.
Stories like these make me glad that the first people the flegling State disarmed over here were the Police.
In a Free Country
The KGB at least had the decency to bundle people into the backs of cars and hold a show trial before shooting them.
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08-14-2014, 10:44 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-17-2017, 05:38 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
I think it might be a good idea to grab copies of all the videos in the CNN article and keep them on a local drive in case the Ferguson police try some kind of dick move to get them pulled off YouTube and other outlets, so we can Streisand Effect them as necessary...
-- Bob
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The first day - I was inclined to side with the police. Considering the rioting and looting, I was biased. (Also had not heard about them not releasing the officers name - or it was VERY "below the radar" compared to the other stuff going on.) I still think the looting and rioting was idiotic and stupid.
But that was only the first day - since then - it's been peaceful protesting. Some jackholes like the Black Panthers making demands and threats, sure. But the people on the street have been PEACEFUL since then. And the utterly ridiculously over-militarized police response is completely over the top and out of line. Making the whole town a NO-FLY ZONE? WTF? APCs? Lines of ARMORED police training their guns - NOT tear gas dispensers - Automatic weapons(!!!) - DIRECTLY at masses of people who are clearly unarmed and NOT looting? (Okay - they're not using standard bullets. But they're not using rubber bullets either, from what I've heard - apparently they're using wooden bullets!)
Manhandling reporters in restaurants and arresting them illegally - and not charging them with anything (other than the unspoken "contempt of Cop")? Okay - so it was Huffpo and Washington Post reporter - I don't respect their organizations or consider Huffpo "real" news - but that DOESN'T goddamn matter! They are reporters doing nothing but their jobs protected by the 1st amendment!
NO. This MUST NOT STAND.
And just in case you think it's only me - and not the majority of conservatives out there who think the same way - I assure you, many on the conservative side have been ALARMED at the militarization of the police in this country for years now. There are plenty of blogs and opinion posts I could find over the last half-decade and more talking about this.
So this is not a conservative/liberal issue. This is a clear sign of tyranny. This is a test to see how far the government can push things before we resist and fight back.
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Didn't they just arrest a member of the city government for 'unlawful assembly?'
It'll stand for the same reason it always does. People'll lose interest very, very quickly. It'll blow over and be forgotten about.
The question that has to be asked is, how do you resist something like this? Shoot a few cops and you immediately 'justify' everything they're doing. Try and be the politician who speaks out against it, and you're immediately 'weak on crime and the reason babies are being molested and toddlers shooting up playschools'. Stand in the street and people get bored because they have jobs to go to and mortgages to pay and homes to not get thrown out of. Oh, and there is the current definition of terrorism as 'any action designed to influence the government'.
At least the British army in Belfast were professional soldiers - and not just a bunch of yahoos in tactical gear playing CoD with the innocent civilians. Rubber bullets can, and have killed. They're more than capable of removing people's sight and leaving lasting injuries. The PIRA were partially a response to similar abuses of police power in Northern Ireland (Though maybe without the summary executions) - and everyone knows what the result of that was. How long before they go rip up a protest at full-auto? All it takes is one fucknut to spot a 'gun' in the crowd and then you've got a disaster.
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The Governor of Missouri has ordered the state Highway Patrol to take over from the Ferguson police.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/j ... ts-actions
It's a baby step - but let's hope it's a step in the right direction.
EDIT: Looks like it is.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/michael-br ... -1.2736049
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
For some background on where this sort of thing comes from, I recommend "Rise of the Warrior Cop" by Radley Balko.
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Strange, same protesters but different police and suddenly the issues go away. I'm sure this is a sign that points to where the troubles were coming from but it's just too subtle for me to figure it out.
I rather like the quoted tweet from Kelsey Atherton at Veterans on Ferguson, "The general consensus here: if this is militarization, it's the shittiest, least-trained, least professional military in the world, using weapons far beyond what they need, or what the military would use when doing crowd control."
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I am not that surprised. Los Angeles PD during the Parker years resembled an occupying army than a police force. An all white force making sure that the city is safe for whites, but not for everyone else.
I got stopped recently by a cop when I was driving out of the driveway and it looked like he was looking for an excuse to haul me in. I think he was confused by my asian appearance. He finally growled at me and let me go on my merry way. I think the police tactical vest I had on the driver's seat made me think I was law enforcement.
The cops are getting more paranoid. They're afraid everyone is out to get them. Only partially true. A few folks are out to get them. But they're lumping every one else that they're not comfortable with.
The LA riots was the result of the LAPD abdicating their duty to maintain order. Furgerson is the opposite end of the spectrum. But then again, for 60k a year, can you hire people who can make intelligent decisions?
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I'm seeing commentary on the 'net that the Ferguson PD's Chief has been to training seminars run with trainers from the Israeli Defense Force and that the methods being used are from their playbook. Other commentary is apparently by USMil vets & current is that all of what's happening is full of RoE violations and that all the PO's are acting worse than a fresh butterbar.
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Quote:Rod H wrote:
...the Ferguson PD's Chief has been to training seminars run with trainers from the Israeli Defense Force and that the methods being used are from their playbook.
*disgusted snort* Well there's your problem there. Isreali Defense Forces are becoming little more than jackbooted thugs these days - to give you an idea of how bad it is, they got young men in Isreal committing suicide over how they're being ordered to treat Palestinians.
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Quote:ordnance11 wrote:
The LA riots was the result of the LAPD abdicating their duty to maintain order. Furgerson is the opposite end of the spectrum. But then again, for 60k a year, can you hire people who can make intelligent decisions?
At the turn of the century a failed discrimination lawsuit revealed that police forces make a point of NOT hiring intelligent people.I doubt that policy has changed in the last decade. ( http://www.mintpressnews.com/can-someon ... op/192106/)
I'm glad that at least the Governor (or somebody in his staff more likely) had enough sense to see a trainwreck coming and take steps to stop it.
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If the reactions reported on CBS radio news last night as I drove home are any indication, the whole Ferguson mishegas has inspired full-bore debates on the local, state and federal levels about the wisdom of handing military surplus equipment free to police departments over the past decade+ as part of the post-9/11 "terrorists are under every rock" thing. Hopefully those debates will keep going and get somewhere productive.
Oh, and according to CBS radio this morning, the Ferguson police chief will be releasing the name of the officer in about half an hour. I suspect the Governor of Missouri leaned pretty heavily on him about that, too... Quote:And just in case you think it's only me - and not the majority of conservatives out there who think the same way - I assure you, many on the conservative side have been ALARMED at the militarization of the police in this country for years now. There are plenty of blogs and opinion posts I could find over the last half-decade and more talking about this.
So this is not a conservative/liberal issue.
Chill, Logan, you're the only one who brought up left-right polarization. I think we all realize this isn't a conservative-liberal thing, but a "bully cops on a power trip" thing.
-- Bob
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Talking about dick moves by the Ferguson P.D., what do you think of them releasing a video that purports to show the shooting victim robbing a convenience store, allegedly recorded some months ago? "See, see, he was a criminal, so we were right to shoot him!" is of course the implicit message here. You can tell from the sound bites on the radio that the governor and the chief of the state police are so clearly pissed at the Ferguson police chief for pulling this, but are trying not sound like it.
All this does is make it clear Ferguson's police are just playing CYA. Have they been spending the past four-five days doing nothing but playing soldier and trying to find a justification?
-- Bob
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Is there any law out there that allows the Governer to go "You're Fired! All of You!" ?
Or otherwise strip them of law enforcement powers?
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Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
Talking about dick moves by the Ferguson P.D., what do you think of them releasing a video that purports to show the shooting victim robbing a convenience store, allegedly recorded some months ago? "See, see, he was a criminal, so we were right to shoot him!" is of course the implicit message here. You can tell from the sound bites on the radio that the governor and the chief of the state police are so clearly pissed at the Ferguson police chief for pulling this, but are trying not sound like it.
All this does is make it clear Ferguson's police are just playing CYA. Have they been spending the past four-five days doing nothing but playing soldier and trying to find a justification?
It's standard practice when cops kill someone for them to put out whatever they can find to make the dead guy look bad. Kind of like how they killed that guy in New York for breaking up a fight, and then announced that he'd previously been arrested for the heinous crime of selling untaxed cigarettes. Pretty soon, the media had forgotten about the fight entirely and was claiming he was being arrested for selling cigarettes when he died.
The fact that it took them six days to announce that he "matched the description of a suspect" (for our foreign readers, that's a common US police euphemism for "black") pretty strongly suggests that he had a spotless record and they were completely unable to dig up any dirt on him.
Quote:Dartz wrote:
Is there any law out there that allows the Governer to go "You're Fired! All of You!" ?
Or otherwise strip them of law enforcement powers?
The governor wouldn't have that power. The city's mayor or city council would in theory (exactly who does depends on the local government). However, in practice it's incredibly hard to get rid of cops. Keep in mind that city cops are the enforcers for the local politicians, so you have to replace those first. Then, you have to get past the incredibly powerful unions that protect cops--it would cost a fortune in legal fees and whatever penalty clauses they have in their contracts. And then they'd just get jobs with other police departments in the state.
I've heard of this happening occasionally with really tiny towns (with populations in the hundreds), where the politicians aren't significantly more wealthy and powerful than anyone else and there are fewer than half a dozen cops. The only case I know of where a town of over 10,000 managed to replace their police force required violence: the Battle of Athens, in 1946.
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Just did a bit of research on that. Interesting to note: Battle of Athens happened because the Sheriff's department had seized the ballots after the election for County Sheriff and a few other important government seats. The 'battle' itself was a siege on the Sheriff's office by veteran GI's to take back the ballots so they could be counted. Once they did get it back (after having to dynamite the doors open), the election results came out and pretty much every seat of power in the county had shifted.
So yeah... it was by legal means that people were replaced in Athens... but it required enforcement of Second Amendment Rights to help it along, unfortunately. (And by 'unfortunate' I mean that it's unfortunate that it had to be that way - not that the Second Amendment itself is unfortunate.)
Scott Greenfield's blog Simple Justice has a post on the police smear tactics. Mr. Greenfield is a criminal defense lawyer, and his blog is a good source of information on how the US legal system works (as opposed to the propaganda version seen on US television shows).
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Logan Darklighter Wrote:Making the whole town a NO-FLY ZONE? WTF?
I coulda sworn I heard this part was because someone had actually taken a potshot at a helicopter, but I could be mixing this up with another story.
-Morgan.
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Interesting..the poor guy is going to be autopsied a 3rd time. Does that mean the local and state autopsies are suspect?
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Quote:Morganite wrote:
Quote:Logan Darklighter wrote:
Making the whole town a NO-FLY ZONE? WTF?
I coulda sworn I heard this part was because someone had actually taken a potshot at a helicopter, but I could be mixing this up with another story.
That it just coincidentally made it impossible for news copters with inconvenient cameras to watch things going down I'm sure never occurred to anyone in the Ferguson PD.
By the way, did the FPD actually release the officer's name on Friday morning like they said they would? I got a bit disconnected from the news between Friday morning and about noon today, and I haven't heard anything either way.
Though I did hear the FBI and the NAACP are working together to find witnesses to the shooting, and that there are 40+ FBI agents on the ground in Ferguson. Good show there!
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
By the way, did the FPD actually release the officer's name on Friday morning like they said they would? I got a bit disconnected from the news between Friday morning and about noon today, and I haven't heard anything either way.
Yes, his name is Darren Wilson. The cops were pretty successful at burying that information with their smear the victim campaign, though.
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:That it just coincidentally made it impossible for news copters with inconvenient cameras to watch things going down I'm sure never occurred to anyone in the Ferguson PD.
Wasn't even their call to make though, was it? The PD may have requested it (though it's not actually clear to me from what I'm reading whether that was actually the case or not), but it's the FAA that made the decision.
On witnesses, I heard on the radio... Saturday night, I think (but it may have been a rebroadcast) that they already had three people with some pretty damning testimony. They also mentioned some ballistic testing that was being done, which sounds like it could be pretty significant. If what they claimed happened in the car can be proven not to have happened, it's going to pretty much kill any credibility the Ferguson PD have left.*
*I realize a lot of people will not find this a high bar to clear.
-Morgan.
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Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
Quote:Morganite wrote:
Quote:Logan Darklighter wrote:
Making the whole town a NO-FLY ZONE? WTF?
I coulda sworn I heard this part was because someone had actually taken a potshot at a helicopter, but I could be mixing this up with another story.
That it just coincidentally made it impossible for news copters with inconvenient cameras to watch things going down I'm sure never occurred to anyone in the Ferguson PD.
By the way, did the FPD actually release the officer's name on Friday morning like they said they would? I got a bit disconnected from the news between Friday morning and about noon today, and I haven't heard anything either way.
Though I did hear the FBI and the NAACP are working together to find witnesses to the shooting, and that there are 40+ FBI agents on the ground in Ferguson. Good show there!
It is an unusual response. DOJ most often would wait for the locals to investigate first. But it is appropriate since there are well-founded fears that an impartial investigation by the local authorities cannot be conducted. The delay in releasing the officer name and the "dick" move by the FPD in naming the victim as a suspect in a robbery. Even if the surveillance video is not clear. on that. The last thing you want is this situation to become a Rodney King type scenario.
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