Ferguson

[Badfinger]

It's so frustrating that the re-escalation last night was essentially dick waving by the local police because they didn't like being pulled off the protest, being questioned, being criticized. If they had been in regular uniforms, 1) last night may not have happened and 2) if it had they may have been able to do their jobs.

[pkirkner]

Remember that bank robbery in LA years ago where the two guys were decked out in body armor from head to toe, and the police firearms couldn't do shit to them? That's when higher-grade weapons can be useful for the police.

 

Now. How many times does that sort of things actually happen? (This isn't a trick question, it's not often.)

 

Edit - I mean, common sense would dictate that you bring this equipment out as needed. But for some reason there's a strong belief that brandishing it over any incident will act as a deterrent. It's bonkers.

 

Even in that case, all police needed were a couple hunting rifles with which they could land an accurate head-shot from a distance and some quality time at the range (police fired about 650 shots during the North Hollywood Shootout and landed zero headshots - neither robber was wearing a helmet). Instead, police departments bought tons of AR-15's (at the time) and now M4s. There's basically no reasonable police application for an AR-15 that isn't better served by a semiautomatic hunting rifle and the only reasonable police application for an M4 would be for hostage rescue teams that need to storm buildings or vehicles (planes, trains, ships, etc.). Since our lawmakers have decided that no-knock warrants are a thing, that's another police application for M4s, however unreasonable I feel it is. I'm not sure whether the weapons choices are more a case of poor decision making on the part of police leadership or a case of the perverse incentives created by making AR-15s and M4s essentially free, but I suspect it's a bit of both. I would assume that police departments also have access to surplus military rifles more suitable for designated marksmen in a law enforcement context like the M-14 or the M1 Garand, the latter of which the US Government donates to a non-profit for sale to civilians. I just don't think police leadership wants to bother with dedicated marksmen to call on when there's a crazy North Hollywood Shootout-type problem. They'd rather their rank-and-file that can't shoot straight be armed like soldiers.

 

edit:

 

 

Governor just called 'state of emergency' and curfew in ferguson -- presumably due to the looting -- that is, the looting which the police, sanding around in riot gear, did nothing to stop, and which the peaceful protestors stopped themselves by standing in the way of local businesses so looters couldn't enter.

 

Given the rumored political machinations that resulted in the release of the surveillance footage yesterday and the removal of the state highway patrol, there's a chance this move was taken primarily to revoke the authority of county and local police and put the state police back in charge.

[Problem Machine]

Antonio French says the protestors are on-board with the curfew, and will help to clear the streets at midnight -- anyone who remains afterwards does not have the support of the community.

https://twitter.com/AntonioFrench/status/500764187489206273

https://twitter.com/AntonioFrench/status/500764187489206273

[Henroid]

A curfew is fair enough. What I want to see is what other things the police department will try to impose on the protesters, as a means of showing authority over them still. I'm still worried that retaliation from the local PD will cause an incident or two.

[agorman]

Following it on twitter it appears Antonio French and also Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter were just arrested for breaking curfew

[Problem Machine]

Reports of shootings, bullet casings found. Police used tear gas, claimed it was smoke (despite it having all the symptoms of tear gas), and then admitted it was teargas. Reporters were ordered to stay in the designated reporter area or be arrested -- those who disobeyed had weapons pointed at them.

[Badfinger]

Following it on twitter it appears Antonio French and also Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter were just arrested for breaking curfew

 

I saw a tweet that French was NOT arrested, and he was on MSNBC after 1AM local time. I wish I could find the tweet, but someone in the journalism playpen said the police made contact with him and asked him to accompany them but he was not detained.

[Bjorn]

I was going to go to bed an hour ago, but watching #ferguson is...mesmerizing?  Horrifying?  Some combination of that. 

[JonCole]

Arrested, detained, escorted, confronted, it's all different right? They also fired a sonic weapon at journalists for the hell of it, but let's just call that "tickling". Can't get angry about tickling, right?

 

This continues to sicken me. And the best/worst part of it is, I imagine the protesters just won't stop until that police officer has charges brought against him. And if protesters are on the streets, Ferguson PD simply cannot resist trampling on their basic human rights and American civil liberties. They're not going to be able to sweep this under a table when all is done.

[Merus]

I think, at the point they arrested journalists, that they gave up any hope of being able to sweep this under the rug. There's too much attention, and the tactics they're using only work if no-one digs too much. But journalists, ever looking for a new angle on the story, have started talking to residents and finding witnesses and it seems clearer that the police are straight-up lying.

[pkirkner]

I'm somewhat encouraged that the FBI has devoted 40 agents to canvas the area and conduct interviews with witnesses to the shooting. With a week having passed since the shooting, the local authorities have still given zero sign that they're interested in either opening a murder investigation or telling the public why they believe the shooting may have been justified given the circumstances. Their press conference in which they named the shooter and then proceeded to respond to media requests for police reports about the shooting with this packet of information that barely even mentions the shooting was a huge red flag regarding their intentions and priorities. Hopefully the Feds can have a positive impact on the situation.

[agorman]

I saw a tweet that French was NOT arrested, and he was on MSNBC after 1AM local time. I wish I could find the tweet, but someone in the journalism playpen said the police made contact with him and asked him to accompany them but he was not detained.

Yeah I was jumping to conclusions.

[Henroid]

Reports of shootings, bullet casings found. Police used tear gas, claimed it was smoke (despite it having all the symptoms of tear gas), and then admitted it was teargas. Reporters were ordered to stay in the designated reporter area or be arrested -- those who disobeyed had weapons pointed at them.

Wait this happened like last night or something?

[Bjorn]

Wait this happened like last night or something?

 

There was a designated "reporter" zone in a parking lot that journalists weren't allowed to leave once the curfew time hit.  I didn't see anything about weapons being pointed at them though. 

[Henroid]

There was a designated "reporter" zone in a parking lot that journalists weren't allowed to leave once the curfew time hit.  I didn't see anything about weapons being pointed at them though. 

Isn't that a violation of free speech and freedom of the press? The containment of the press?

[itsamoose]

Isn't that a violation of free speech and freedom of the press? The containment of the press?

 

Unfortunately Free Speech Zones have become a pretty common thing in the U.S. in recent years, some set up temporarily and others permanent.  It is an absolute violation of the first amendment in my opinion, but no one in government seems to want to make waves about it.  Typically these are used to make protests happen where they are less likely to be heard, or give the police a legitimate excuse to disperse an otherwise lawful gathering.  There is no set rule as to how to set up a free speech zone so really the establishment of these zones can sometimes serve as carte blanche for the authorities to do what they please.

[MrHoatzin]

It confuses me a little that the emerging consensus in this thread is that structural problems at play here would all disappear if only police were trained a shade better—like the military!—with its sterling record of legitimate use of force. What is legitimate use of force, when you've been shipped somewhere out there to trample all over some other state's sovereignty? I'll grant you that trying not to piss off people unnecessarily is an effective way to maintain control, but should we really draw parallels between an occupation and policing? Also US Government is a quasi-non-colonial rigid vertical hierarchy, why does the buck always stop at the point where the bureaucracy touches the shit (i.e. police, bureaucrats with guns—or individual soldiers, or sometimes the cia when it fucks up really badly, or whatever)?

 

The point of the war on drugs and war on crime is to demonize uppity poor people, mostly minorities, to keep them in their place. It was invented after the civil rights movement proved to be effective, as a kind of plausibly-deniable, color-blind apartheid which can easily be exported. That is it. As actual statistics on crime have shown it to be dropping since the '70s, the whole structure of power that thumps wars on drugs and crime as a reason for inflating police departments is culpable. Stay tough on that crime, America!

 

With the privatization of prisons, there is now a hefty prison industrial complex that is lobbying like crazy for more punitive criminal laws and rounding up of illegal immigrants because it is good for business. Here's a heart-warming story of a PA judge who sentenced CHILDREN to harsher sentences for kickbacks from the private prison industry. Cash-strapped municipalities across the nation are super happy when a new prison opens in their hood (or casinos, a similarly parasitic industry) because that means jobs and extra revenue, with a bunch of black kids (or with casinos, schmucks with poor understanding of probability) getting to play the role of collateral damage in balancing that budget. US imprisons more of its people than any other place on earth, and prisoners are disproportionately minorities because the system works!

 

Nothing WRONG happened in Ferguson if you look at the situation from the perspective of the bureaucracy. Obscene use of force against black people is just par for the course. MAYBE a lone bad egg fucked up—but that is really not conceivable at this point because the police always retains the right to define a situation and the situation has been well defined. Conceding that the public is able to question how police define situations is a legal/power shitstorm never worth entertaining. The REAL problem in Ferguson is that people are angry and getting angrier. So let's put all this government-issue mustard gas to some use!

 

War on drugs and crime is a very good war—much better than, say, war on poverty, which is a spiritual issue—because proliferation of drugs, property theft, kidnapping-for-ransom and such come very much from within the capitalist worldview. They are perfectly rational business ventures that can only exist due to the impersonal nature of money, which is enforced by the state. If states were serious about solving the problem of crazy psychopaths turning chunks of South and Central America, Afghanistan, LA or whatever into fiefdoms ruled by violence and terror, they would eliminate impersonal money and the incentives to hustle to survive—they don't because that would crumble the states' own hegemony over people and their labor. States themselves are essentially no different than these petty warlords, they've just gone to great lengths to shroud themselves in legitimacy with compelling origin stories and by providing services. All property is theft of the commons. Some theft just happened long ago and has since been sanctified.

 

Drugs scare people and criminals are bad, so a manichean middle class electorate supports arming police to deal with drugs, spending public money on the private arms industrial complex. US has a spectacularly vast arms industry and guns flow south like no one's business. The more drug unrest, the more of a market for guns on both sides. And the people buying said guns are good wholesome capitalists so there is no chance of some populist uprising getting a voice through those arms—and after you throw that gasoline on the fire, you can manufacture more better gasoline to fight it with. Capitalism is so super efficient at producing things, it needs to get rid of the old shit to sell the new, and weapons that explode and bullets that get used up are a great commodity.

 

The whole thing is corrupted from the ground up. Or really, from the top down. So many things are so thoroughly fucked and intertwined with everything else on this gay earth that patchwork reform in the margins is time-consuming and futile. Liberalism has failed to deliver us a benevolent state. Managerial classes need to be gutted and the reigning ideology of market capitalism revisited. It's almost easier to go that route. And when the plebs start getting angry about everything everywhere, as they have been, that is when darth-vaderized police will come in handy for the powers that be. There is no way in hell the state would willingly demilitarize the police, especially after OWS was so effective in shifting the global discourse from balancing budgets and more austerity to wealth inequality.

[Twig]

I don't know if this has been linked before, because there's a lot of information in this thread.

 

But anyway here's another perspective. To sum: police lack accountability. To be honest, I don't feel like I have much right to comment on things, despite piping in a couple times. It's all disgusting to me, and I'm just absorbing it all. But I felt this worth sharing.

[itsamoose]

why does the buck always stop at the point where the bureaucracy touches the shit (i.e. police, bureaucrats with guns—or individual soldiers, or sometimes the cia when it fucks up really badly, or whatever)?

 

Mainly because bureaucracy, as terrible as it can be some times, has in the past been a means of social change.  You used to be able to own people in America, only white men were allowed to vote, etc, and bureaucracy changed that.  We tend to focus on legal or bureaucratic changes because those are the mechanics by which the government functions.  I'll admit in recent years this system has been failing, however that is the result of a coordinated effort by a minority in congress.  I can't find it at the moment, but there was an article recently that described how a relatively small group can more or less prevent the whole thing from functioning.  I'll keep looking and add a link here if I can come across it.

 

Edit: This isn't the article I was referencing, but shows that the problem is essentially either that a bill gets filibustered, or bogged down in committee as various interests attempt to add amendments to the bill that can be unrelated to it.  In recent months, this has been trying to add more sanctions to Iran in an attempt to torpedo the nuclear negotiations.

[pkirkner]

The whole thing is corrupted from the ground up. Or really, from the top down. So many things are so thoroughly fucked and intertwined with everything else on this gay earth that patchwork reform in the margins is time-consuming and futile.

 

I disagree. Patchwork reform that keeps police from shooting people with impunity is worthwhile. Holding police officers that murder people accountable doesn't solve every systemic problem in society but it should save innocent lives and is a worthwhile, reasonably achievable step towards further reform. Everything can't be fixed at once through the political process, but that's no reason not to fix what we can when we can.

[clyde]

I very much share the sentiment and frustration with MrHoatzin, but I also make sure to acknowlegde the humanitarian boons of a mixed-economy. Our society has become so technological that a fall of the systems of power and methods of production would do far too much humanitarian damage. Regulation has become absolutely necessary now that we have so many weapons and chemicals and dams and other things that would be massive problems without central oversight.

Our mixed-economy religious plutarchy is incredibly violent, but I think we will make more progress by creating new systems that will one day make it obsolete. In other words, respect everyone, join a credit-union and if you employ anyone, form a co-op.

[tegan]

I seriously can't wait until potentially racist, potentially violent cops are replaced with cold, unfeeling bigdogs.

[Vorlonesque]

Even in that case, all police needed were a couple hunting rifles with which they could land an accurate head-shot from a distance and some quality time at the range (police fired about 650 shots during the North Hollywood Shootout and landed zero headshots - neither robber was wearing a helmet). Instead, police departments bought tons of AR-15's (at the time) and now M4s. There's basically no reasonable police application for an AR-15 that isn't better served by a semiautomatic hunting rifle and the only reasonable police application for an M4 would be for hostage rescue teams that need to storm buildings or vehicles (planes, trains, ships, etc.). Since our lawmakers have decided that no-knock warrants are a thing, that's another police application for M4s, however unreasonable I feel it is. I'm not sure whether the weapons choices are more a case of poor decision making on the part of police leadership or a case of the perverse incentives created by making AR-15s and M4s essentially free, but I suspect it's a bit of both. I would assume that police departments also have access to surplus military rifles more suitable for designated marksmen in a law enforcement context like the M-14 or the M1 Garand, the latter of which the US Government donates to a non-profit for sale to civilians. I just don't think police leadership wants to bother with dedicated marksmen to call on when there's a crazy North Hollywood Shootout-type problem. They'd rather their rank-and-file that can't shoot straight be armed like soldiers.

 

In the case of AR-15s it depends on whether police departments buy full-automatic or semi-automatic versions...if they were buying semi-auto versions then its actually arguably less effective for most things I would imagine, given its less powerful cartridge compared to your average hunting rifle (and for most police applications I wouldn't imagine that full-auto is really that useful).

[Problem Machine]

Pro-Darren Wilson protests are happening

“An officer doesn’t have xray vision,” wrote Jennifer Hall, of Robertsville, Missouri. “He can’t tell if you have weapon or not until searched. So you act in a suspicious manner, we know what the consequences are."

Somehow I doubt this woman would be in favor of her own children being summarily executed for 'act[ing] in a suspicious manner'.

[Gormongous]

Pro-Darren Wilson protests are happening

Somehow I doubt this woman would be in favor of her own children being summarily executed for 'act[ing] in a suspicious manner'.

 

I'd love for her to read this article. Maybe your child is pulled over for an unrelated reason, the officer feels his holster snag on something, he assumes someone's going for his gun, and he has his partner hold your child down while he puts a gun to their temple and fires.

 

Jesus, the absolute faith some people have in legal authorities...