Brief calm in the streets of Ferguson appears to be over with the imposition of a new curfew across the city over the weekend, and crackdowns by militarized police appear once again to be escalating, with overnight reports of them firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds of demonstrators. Smoke grenades and sound cannons were also used..
Earlier in the evening, police began firing on the crowds, and demanding that the media leave the scene, with video emerging of police threatening to shoot one cameraman filming the demonstration, and later accosting an MSNBC reporter, threatening to mace him if he didn’t leave. Several other journalists were reported briefly arrested, and told to avoid covering the streets where the main protest was going on.
Several injuries have been reported from the rubber bullets being fired into the crowd, and ambulances took at least three of the shot to the hospital. Unconfirmed reports also suggest one of the demonstrators may have been killed by taking rubber bullet fire at close range.
After taking the militarized local police of the street briefly deescalated the situation, the imposition of curfews and the return of armored vehicles seems to have put the situation back to square one, with police clearly not having learned the lesson of the past week, and continuing to believe they can manage the narrative if they rough up and arrest enough reporters, and crack down violently enough on the demonstrators. Clearly, that is not working.
Governor Jay Nixon, who ordered the curfew, offered mild criticism for the brutality of the police, saying there were times when they were “a little aggressive.”
Many in Congress were a lot more critical of the crackdown, with Rep. Lacy Clay (D – MO), the local representative, saying having “a military police force facing down innocent protesters with sniper rifles and machine guns is totally unacceptable in America.”
Which the true Congressional person who is going to make himself a leader on this issue? As I see it, it would be a smart political move for someone with presidential ambitions to represent the side of the abused and bullies and killed by the police, and represent it all the way to the White House.
In riot zones, police should have standing orders: Shoot to kill looters, arsonists & thugs running amok.
Thugs running amok? Oh, so the police should be shooting the police! I'll go along with that.
I blame much of this on the media. Its becoming ever more clear that the "gentle giant" was anything but.
He certainly was no angel, but nothing he allegedly did or has been accused of was a capital offense, and he posed no threat to the police or anybody else when he was shot dead. Hit multiple times with his hands up, the final bullet entered the top of his head. Was he already on the ground when hit with that coup de grace? One of the witnesses (not his companion, but a young woman who was nearby) sounded like that might have been what she saw.
USA from "democracy" moving toward a militarized system which everyone will feel the presence of the police/military forces sooner they they can imagine. USG/pentagon is part of the police state and militarization of the USA is the ideal system.