Ferguson

[JonCole]

This would probably be a good issue to contact your state representatives about rather than your federal reps, as that's unfortunately where most change happens these days.

[coaxmetal]

This would probably be a good issue to contact your state representatives about rather than your federal reps, as that's unfortunately where most change happens these days.

 

Both make sense. As I said, I don't expect anything to change, but its low effort from me and might elicit a response. Congress did once order the DOJ to investigate police brutality & homicides, but the DOJ never complied. 

[clyde]

I want cameras on every cop and easy access to the feed.

[Roderick]

Hoatzin, Esq., thank you.

[itsamoose]

I think its a lot simpler than that, as Badfinger pointed out. It is a race issue. There is an incredible double standard wrt weapons based on race. Especially when many of the police are white in an area with a centuries long legacy of racism, but it is an issue all over the country.

 

Jon Stewart did a segment recently that shows the incredible disparity with which black and white people are treated by the police in the U.S. related to the case of Eric Gardner.

 

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/11cz5e/five-officers-and-a-gentleman---brandishing-blackness

[Henroid]

I dunno if anyone saw it but after the president spoke on the situation, the chief of police in Ferguson had his own press conference. It was more or less a disaster that wasn't helping him or his department.

 

On the issue of arresting and tear gassing the press, he said he "Didn't know" and also that they "weren't targets."

 

On the violence, he didn't talk about the police's actions, just that things were thrown at them. He also said they can't just walk into a crowd and arrest the specific individuals who do throw things and it's up to the non-violent people to get away from them. Because that's where the cops' bullets fly.

 

On freedom of speech being disrupted, he said the police were going to "facilitate" the protest from here on out.

 

On the murder, he refused to answer questions and walked away.

 

He also said nobody has been hurt or killed. Meanwhile, a black teen was killed by one of his officers. Also the cops turning on protesters. Asshat.

 

Edit - Oh I forgot the best part. During the questioning he was asked about the militarization of police and his response was, "That's SWAT out there, not military." And went on to say it was guys in blue and not camouflage. Wooooosh. Also those cops are totally in camouflage.

[Problem Machine]

Jon Stewart did a segment recently that shows the incredible disparity with which black and white people are treated by the police in the U.S. related to the case of Eric Gardner.

 

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/11cz5e/five-officers-and-a-gentleman---brandishing-blackness

I wonder to what degree it's just that the main job of cops now is to enforce class divisions, and separate the wealthy (usually white) people from anything that might make them feel threatened, whether that feeling is justified or not. There's a lot of ways to get into that 'wrong kind of person' box -- white people do find their way in from time to time, but being black means you start there by default and find it nearly impossible to end up anywhere else.

[itsamoose]

I wonder to what degree it's just that the main job of cops now is to enforce class divisions, and separate the wealthy (usually white) people from anything that might make them feel threatened, whether that feeling is justified or not.

 

On that note...

 

http://www.newsweek.com/new-york-city-approves-poor-door-luxury-apartment-building-260218

[Problem Machine]

On that note...

 

http://www.newsweek.com/new-york-city-approves-poor-door-luxury-apartment-building-260218

They can make the door but they can't make people use it. I think it's probably worth the extra walk to keep using the main entrance.

[BobbyBesar]

I wonder to what degree it's just that the main job of cops now is to enforce class divisions, and separate the wealthy (usually white) people from anything that might make them feel threatened, whether that feeling is justified or not. There's a lot of ways to get into that 'wrong kind of person' box -- white people do find their way in from time to time, but being black means you start there by default and find it nearly impossible to end up anywhere else.

Depending on your political philosophy? 100%

 

In other words:

[eot]

I want cameras on every cop and easy access to the feed.

And suddenly domestic problems involving police become completely public. You can't just give everyone access to that stuff without proper restrictions.

[zerofiftyone]

This video of an interview with St. Louis Alderman Antonio French (recently released from jail) says so much about how the media are choosing to handle the situation.

 

http://bcdownload.gannett.edgesuite.net/ksdk-podcasts/sharded/35121359001/2014/08/35121359001_3729956378001_ANTONIO-FRENCH-INTERVIEW.mp4

 

In particular, the reporter asking questions at 03:40 seems to be an utter moron.  You can clearly tell he's attempting to spin the blame onto the civilians and at one point the guy being interviewed. What a world we live in.

[Brannigan]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/obama-ferguson-police-excessive-force-michael-brown

 

Local police have been relieved, state police have taken over the duties, immediately removed the military hardware and the guy in charge has been walking with protesters and talking to them apparently.

[Henroid]

I hate that it took the president to get the governor to realize he could do that. Or if he knew, be willing to.

 

BUT if it remains calm this way then good.

[Badfinger]

I hate that it took the president to get the governor to realize he could do that. Or if he knew, be willing to.

 

BUT if it remains calm this way then good.

 

Sadly, I don't think the president had anything to do with it. It was the most milquetoast response anyone could have asked for.

 

It's crazy that deciding to not literally point weapons and shoot things at citizens will do to deescalate a protest situation! I am relieved that the tension in the streets seems to have been alleviated, but the previous concerns remain. First and foremost that a man was shot and killed in the street with his hands in the air for not being on a sidewalk.

[Problem Machine]

I hate that it took the president to get the governor to realize he could do that. Or if he knew, be willing to.

 

BUT if it remains calm this way then good.

Having cops not shitting the protests up is nice, but unfortunately doesn't resolve the systemic problems that murdered Mike Brown.

 

Also, I guess there were mass arrests at the Ferguson protest in Times Square? Or several at least, I'm not sure.

[chummer]

Also, I guess there were mass arrests at the Ferguson protest in Times Square? Or several at least, I'm not sure.

So I was watching a bit of this Livestream from Times Square as it ended. What seems to have happened is that the cops stopped the spontaneous march that grew out of the #NMOS14 vigil and arrested 4 or 5 people. They then managed to cut the march's steam by releasing people in small groups, keeping them from crowding up again and continuing the march. I heard one of the marchers talk about meeting up again at Union Square and starting another march, but I'm not sure if it happened or not.

 

Checking out #NMOS14 on various social media sites, it's apparent that multiple major cities participated in the event and I'd recommend looking at it.

 

I've been watching this whole thing from afar on and have been disturbed by police action, but watching these people's vigils across the country was the thing that kind of emotionally shook my cynicism.

 

 

Having cops not shitting the protests up is nice, but unfortunately doesn't resolve the systemic problems that murdered Mike Brown.

 

Yup. I wonder if this will get across to the people who are willing to listen.

[Gormongous]

Yup. I wonder if this will get across to the people who are willing to listen.

 

This is going to sound incredibly cynical, but no one in power has to listen. All they have to do is hang fire for two or three more weeks, in which time a major company will make some shitty PR choice or another celebrity will die, and their problem will go away. There's less effort and less risk for them to wait and see, so that's almost certainly what they'll do.

[Badfinger]

There was a brief press conference about 20 minutes ago. They released the name of the officer who shot Mike and an incident report that suggests he and his friend had an altercation and possibly shoplifted. No information on the interaction between Brown and the officer outside of 12:01 the incident occurred and at 12:04 the second officer arrived and Mike Brown was dead. No use of force report from the police or write up from Wilson. Packet ONLY had robbery information.

 

I highly recommend following Wesley Lowery, who is a reporter for the Washington Post, on twitter if you want to keep up with the situation. I basically got all of that info from his twitter feed. @WesleyLowery

[Henroid]

It really just seems like the Ferguson PD is trying to run a smear campaign against their murder victim. A $40 box of cigars is not worth killing someone over.

 

Edit - The KKK are trying to raise money to reward the police officer that murdered Brown. Pro tip: If the KKK is trying to reward you for something you're probably a racist douchebag.

[pkirkner]

Seems like they're mainly trying to deflect attention from the shooting. I'm sure the media will take the bait and quickly become distracted. Theft isn't a capital offense and police aren't judge, jury, and executioner. None of that is up for debate, but I'm sure media "experts" will waste everyone's time with that "debate" nonetheless.

[JonCole]

All of the "evidence" is ridiculously foggy. First off, Brown didn't match the description of the shoplifter as reported by the shopowner. Also, the released police report is timestamped for a minute before the actual crime was supposed to have taken place. Does that not seem crazy suspicious? Also also, all initial statements from Ferguson PD indicated that Brown was not stopped for being suspected of a crime, which they summarily backtracked on today.

[tabacco]

This is going to sound incredibly cynical, but no one in power has to listen. All they have to do is hang fire for two or three more weeks, in which time a major company will make some shitty PR choice or another celebrity will die, and their problem will go away. There's less effort and less risk for them to wait and see, so that's almost certainly what they'll do.

 

Timely: http://thememorypalace.us/2014/07/weve-forgotten-james-powell/ 

[chummer]

This is going to sound incredibly cynical, but no one in power has to listen. All they have to do is hang fire for two or three more weeks, in which time a major company will make some shitty PR choice or another celebrity will die, and their problem will go away. There's less effort and less risk for them to wait and see, so that's almost certainly what they'll do.

 

True. What I didn't clarify was that I hope it would get across to those people who aren't entrenched and invested in keeping the status quo. Just every-day people who are disgusted w/ the police behavior but haven't thought about the behavior in terms of race relations.

 

That said: https://twitter.com/parabasis/status/500297642573045761

[pkirkner]

All of the "evidence" is ridiculously foggy. First off, Brown didn't match the description of the shoplifter as reported by the shopowner. Also, the released police report is timestamped for a minute before the actual crime was supposed to have taken place. Does that not seem crazy suspicious? Also also, all initial statements from Ferguson PD indicated that Brown was not stopped for being suspected of a crime, which they summarily backtracked on today.

 

Stuff gets confused in the moment, so I'm not sure conflicting reports should be suspicious. If it turns out that the Ferguson PD is fabricating nonsense, hopefully the Justice Department sniffs that out during their investigation. But operating under the assumption that what they've said is true, it still changes nothing. Whether or not a misdemeanor was committed prior to the shooting, and whether the victim of the shooting committed that act or matched the description of the person who did, does nothing to make lethal force appropriate for that situation.

 

I spent eight years on active duty in the US military and spent many, many hours standing armed guard duty. Our training relentlessly beat into us that our role was to deescalate every situation to the greatest extent possible, to draw a weapon (to include nonlethal stuff like pepper spray or a baton) only when absolutely necessary and that to point a firearm at someone, let alone fire it, was a huge deal to be done only in response to the threat of death or serious bodily harm and other similarly narrow criteria specific to the mission, such as to prevent the theft of highly sensitive material like nuclear weapons. In eight years, across four deployments and countless hours of guard duty stateside, I pointed a gun at someone exactly once and never fired a shot outside of training.

 

From the footage of the initial police response to protesters, it's abundantly clear that the local and county police are perfectly happy to point their guns at someone for no reason whatsoever. That's a huge red flag, as leveling a firearm at someone is an explicit threat of lethal force that vastly escalates any situation where that threat is not already present. That stuff needs to be reigned in immediately. The nonchalance with which police in this country threaten (and employ) lethal force is completely unacceptable and needs to be eradicated. I hope this issue is one where the Rand Paul wing of the Republican party and the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic party can actually come together to change things from the federal level, because it sure seems to be too entrenched at the local level to change.