The people in charge of a large American community are systematically shredding the United States Constitution tonight. It is nothing less than a police coup. The tear gas was practically still in the air in the fall of 1968 when the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence -- yes, that was a thing -- formed a working group to probe the civil disorder that had just occurred at that year's Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It was there, some will recall, that police in baby blue helmets clubbed and dragged bloodied anti-war protesters through the streets, while TV viewers looked on and crowds chanted, "The whole world is watching." To describe the incomprehensible scenes, the so-called Walker Commission coined a new term. They called it a "police riot."
There's been no police riot in Ferguson, Mo. -- not yet anyway (and hopefully never). But what is happening in the working class suburb just outside of St. Louis is, in some ways, far worse. A tense situation in the aftermath of Saturday's fatal shooting by a police officer of an unarmed college-bound 18-year-old named Mike Brown has been made much more tense, night after night, by brutal, bone-headed policing that makes one wonder if Birmingham's brutal Bull Connor has been re-animated.
I thought I was losing my capacity to be shocked -- but events in Missouri over just the last couple of hours have crossed a frightening line, one that makes me pray that this assault on fundamental American values is just the aberration of one rudderless Heartland community, and not the first symptoms of nation gone mad with high-tech weaponry to keep its own citizens in line.
This afternoon, several hundred citizens who gathered on a public street, in broad daylight, to air their grievances over Brown's killing were met with a massive SWAT team, an armored personnel carrier, and men in camouflage pointing heavy artillery at the crowd. Two prominent credentialed journalists who tried to report on the event were arrested for a time, and there was a report that a state senator who questioned authorities about tear gas earlier was also in custody. All this as authorities continue to cover up the most basic information about what happened on the night Mike Brown was murdered.
Raw: Protesters in Ferguson Run From Tear Gas
AP
Police used tear gas and smoke bombs to repel crowds who threw Molotovcocktails during..
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The people in charge of a large American community are systematically shredding the United States Constitution tonight. It is nothing less than a police coup.
The Bill of Rights guarantees that all citizens have the right to assemble peacefully. And yet residents of Ferguson who gathered to protest under the bright August sun were met with a mid-sized Army of militarized cops, ordered off the public right-of-way, and ordered to go home, under the glare of a rifle mounted on a tripod. In a move that even George Orwell would not have believed, cops with loudspeakers insisted to the crowd, "You have the right to peacefully assemble - from 25 feet away.”
The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech -- but over these successive nights citizens who've tried to speak out of have had tear gas fired at them (in at least one case at a private citizen on his own lawn), then rubber bullets, as well as wooden pellets fired from guns.
The Bill of Rights protects the right of a free press -- but apparently not in Ferguson, Mo., not tonight.
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That so called future college student flashes gang signs and was previously arrested on felony burgulary for which he had a scheduled hearing date.
ReplyDeleteThe Officer involved was taken to the hospital with his own injuries in trying to make the arrest. Why dont you report that fact?
See: Cincinnati Is A Dump wordpress site, for these details which you egregiously leave out. Theres no media war, what there is a violence being committed be non working blacks who have rendered a verdict and acting like spoiled children. No protest after 4 other blacks were killed by OTHER Blacks that same weekend.
This is a shopping spree, nothing else.
Agreed with above. This "victim" already had 5 felonies.
ReplyDeleteThe QT store which was burned was because the"victim"
stole an item and the police were called. Near the premium
gas sign, someone placed an hand written sign which said
"snitch". Was the cop very angry after the assault? You betcha.