Police In Ferguson Back To Threatening And Arresting Reporters: Tells Them To 'Get The Fuck Out Of Here'
from the wonder-what-they-say-to-protestors dept
The situation in Ferguson seemed briefly like it was getting better last Thursday, but that didn't last long. Over the weekend, the militarized and threatening police fired tear gas at protestors and continued to escalate the situation, rather than de-escalate it. The governor declared a state of emergency and instituted a curfew -- which created some more problems, and resulted in continued protests, but also some looting. In the last few hours, however, things have gone from bad to worse again. Police went back to arresting journalists, including Robert Klemko from Sports Illustrated and Rob Crilly from the Telegraph (who, believe it or not, is the "Pakistan and Afghanistan correspondent" for that paper -- now reporting live from... Ferguson, Missouri). While both were quickly released, police appear to be quite aggressive towards reporters. Chris Hayes, the MSNBC TV host reports that he was threatened with being maced:
Riot cop to me just a few minutes ago: "Get back! Or next time you're gonna be the one maced."
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 18, 2014
We are being told to leave the area and head back where we wouldn't be able to witness anything for ourselves.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 18, 2014
Biggest barrage of gas so far. Multiple flashbangs #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/EXJzmj3lKZ
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) August 18, 2014
The situation in #Ferguson has prompted us to send human rights teams. First time we've deployed inside the US. http://t.co/09HQClqy76
— Amnesty New Zealand (@AmnestyNZ) August 18, 2014
And then recognize that the press are almost certainly being treated significantly better than the residents who are protesting.
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Filed Under: ferguson, first amendment, free speech, michael brown, militarized police, missouri, police, police brutality, reporters
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That didn't last long
They know, they just don't care.
After all, so far no-one with the power to do so is interested in holding them accountable for their actions or reigning them in. At most, once the dust and tear-gas has settled, a few wrists may get slapped, and a few of the more obvious offenders captured on film may be put on paid leave for a week or two, nothing more, so why should they care if the world is watching?
'We are being told to leave the area and head back where we wouldn't be able to witness anything for ourselves.'
This line cannot get enough attention. 'where we wouldn't be able to witness anything for ourselves.
It's pretty obvious that as bad as things are already, they would be massively, enormously worse if the 'cops' in that area didn't have reporters, both official and unofficial, covering their actions.
If they didn't have to worry about what they were doing going public, and they could make up whatever they felt like it without any potential video evidence to the contrary, if things are this bad already, I shudder to think of how bad they would be then.
Quite clearly, the police are doing everything they can to drive out any reporters(you can only have so many 'accidentally' arrested reporters before the flimsy excuse is expose as such), anyone who could provide evidence contrary to what the police claim is happening, and that by itself is seriously worrying, since it implies pretty heavily they know that their actions are overboard, and yet rather than scale back those actions, they merely want to get rid of any 'pesky' oversight and contrary reports on what's happening, and continue on, same as before.
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Re: That didn't last long
The police are also out of control in that town and need to be given a wakeup call that "We are a land of laws. Those laws apply to you bastards as much as anyone else. DEAL WITH IT!"
My conservative West Virginia relatives who are racist have been horrified by what is going on in Ferguson.
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Re: Re: That didn't last long
'The governor declared a state of emergency'
Under a state of emergency, I believe that the governor can call for national guard troops to come and 'restore order', and while I'd like to hope they'd be fair and equal in their treatment of both cops and protestors, more interested in getting both sides to calm down than cracking skulls and 'making examples', I wouldn't bet on it.
If the governor, and other high ranking officials really believed the cops were going overboard here, they would have stepped in a while back and done something about the situation, even if it was only publicly condemning the actions of the police, and calling for them to stop. The fact that they haven't, does not bode well, as it implies not condemnation, but approval or indifference, even if they never say so out loud.
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Now to hope the military are less eager to use their 'toys' than the police I guess.
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If the Police Unions bitch, disband them.
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Because "treason" means "doing bad things I don't like".
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Re: Re: That didn't last long
1) The FBI has been instigating since last week
2) Sending in the National guard is under the auspices of the state governor not the POTUS.
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2) POTUS can federalize the Guard, as was done in the sixties
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Secondly, the National Guard is a military force, not a police force. They are neither trained, nor equipped to handle civil protests. Most of the protests can be traced to the local police using military tactics to solve a civil problem, the National Guard wouldn't change anything.
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Re: Re: That didn't last long
The police are also out of control in that town and need to be given a wakeup call that "We are a land of laws. Those laws apply to you bastards as much as anyone else. DEAL WITH IT!"
You're missing one thing; This is exactly how the government wants local police to deal with civil unrest. Why else do you thing the government has been throwing money and surplus military hardware at local police departments?
It's specifically for putting down civil unrest. When this country reaches the tipping point and the people revolt, the government wants its new domestic army, AKA local police forces, to be able to handle large scale protests. And by "handle" I mean, to squash any dissent and teach the lowly peons their place in the dirt.
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Re: Re: That didn't last long
> Post reports...
I don't put much stock in anything this guy says. He's the guy who found some orange foamy earplugs on the ground and breathlessly tweeted out that they were rubber bullets.
And he's also the guy who goes to the site of the counter-protesters and starts taking photos of their vehicles and their license tags and posting them online as a way of intimidating people with whom he disagrees. Not exactly something one finds in the job description of "reporter". He's not really a reporter, he's an obviously biased activist who makes himself the story more often than not.
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Re: That didn't last long
our superiors and donut eaters may reign over us, but -like runaway horses- they need to be reined in...
not that i want to rain on your homophone parade...
hhh
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Re: That didn't last long
I think your first point just needs to be modified to say their level of abusive behavior corresponds with how little accountability they have. With all the people going on about doing "whatever it takes" to keep [white] people safe, accountability for anything less than mass murder is minimal, even with all eyes on them.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 18th, 2014 @ 12:29am
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Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 18th, 2014 @ 12:29am
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Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 18th, 2014 @ 12:29am
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Whats the legality of 'curfews' imposed on a whole town(ship) within any American State? If the curfew is legal what elements are actually needed to create it as a legal order and has that criteria been met in this instance? or is it an untested area of Constitutional (State or Federal) law that is highly ambiguous?
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The curfew doesn't appear to cover the entire town (that actually isn't clear; I'm not even sure if the media know what the boundaries for the curfew are). It seems to be mainly the street most of the protests have been going on, which I think is the street the original shooting that kicked this off happened. They protesters have taken to gathering at the burned down QuickTrip that some looters totaled earlier in the rioting.
It certainly doesn't cover the next town over's border, where a convenience mart was looted by armed looters (there was evidence of gunfire at the building). The 1st night of the curfew, there was an attempt to organize a march to that border, had the cops forced everyone to disperse due to the curfew, but it never materialized (though, 40 or so mins. into the curfew, the cops did start forcing people out, ultimately w/ tear gas, which the Police had promised not to use).
But one of the necessary criteria appears to be the Governor declaring a State of Emergency, which he has.
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As to the adjacent towns, lets see, Dellwood and Jennings both rely on St Louis County who's helping out in Ferguson, Berkley last i heard was struggling to afford a PD, Kinloch kinda has a PD, and Cool Valley's policing is done by Normandy. If this expands outside of Ferguson, its going to get real ugly.
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Coincidentally these funny shaped areas are primarily black, draw you own conclusions.
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Re: law and order... Or lawn odor
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This is the core of the problem. It's what makes the police an armed and organized gang. The average cop has far more loyalty to his union, his chain of command and his fellows than he does to the public or to the law. He only feels accountable to other cops, not to civilian officials.
Police know that they will not be held accountable for their actions because local civil authorities are too scared to cross the police union. Until police unions are banned and police become answerable to control by elected civilian officials nothing will change.
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The situation in a town where 70% of the population is "black" and 96% of the cops are "white" is inevitably going to incur suspicion of racism when something like this happens. I just hope the truth about the motives from the cop will be made clear as to avoid the racism card. So far the cops statements seem questionable at best.
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This is why police need to wear bodycameras
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But this is a podunk little PD.
I work IT for one of the 50 biggest cities in the US and WE can't afford the hardware(cameras, infrastructure, and training) for all our officers to go with all the in car cameras(which are mandated by the state here) and other items. We simply don't have it in our budget.
So until we get our federal government to stop spending billions on building ICBMs and failed F35s and start investing into us, it will never happen across the nation.
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Re: Re: This is why police need to wear bodycameras
They have the gear, they just haven't put any of it into use. Now, if, as you say, it's a matter of the budget not being big enough, then I'd expect other areas to be equally tight, yet they seem to have no trouble equipping their officers with military level gear, if the pictures are anything to go off of.
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Re: Re: Re: This is why police need to wear bodycameras
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-harwood/to-terrify-and-occupy_b_5678072.html
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Re: Re: Re: Re: This is why police need to wear bodycameras
The dash cam mount for an armored vehicle is TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars - just think, you need add a dash first!
How can we expect our local police departments be able to get this equipment on their tiny budgets?
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The budget isn't the problem in this case. It's the implementation.
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I figured saying they needed to add a dash to an armored vehicle for a dash cam to work made it unnecessary to add a sarcmark - my bad.
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Re: This is why police need to wear bodycameras
Obviously, the recording in private residences is an issue to deal with as a result, but in "public areas", there is no expectation of privacy for citizens and police officers. If they can't perform their duties under said recording, they need to be removed.
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Re: This is why police need to wear bodycameras
This would nix any 'he said/she said' arguments, in which the cops word has always been assumed to be correct, regardless of anything else. Taking away that assumption, means 1) they accept they cant be trusted, and 2) they cant just do what they want anymore.
No one in their right mind, who abuses their power would EVER want this..
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Re: Re: This is why police need to wear bodycameras
Actually there was a court that decided to take a police officer's word over contradictory video evidence, so it wouldn't necessarily.
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Oh, now i get it, that's why OCP thought the public would like the idea.
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2 tiered justice system in this country
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They have no access to government buildings or they would get to see a lot more action.
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this is nothing other than a complete police cover up and now they have rubbed salt into the wound by accusing him of stealing some cigars, they are wondering why there is all this upheaval and are trying to prevent it being reported. whoever is in charge from the police side need to consider carefully what is going on, why, and the seriousness of the action being taken.
what i see here though is real good evidence of what the USA is becoming. a nation where authority in the form of police or other security forces will do whatever they want, how they want and anyone disagreeing or standing against them will suffer the consequences. the question to ask, however, is who is behind this? it's not just in one area, it's all over the USA, so someone has gotten all these security heads together and brainwashed them or ensured that those of like attitude are employed in all areas. frightening!!
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The really story?
If you read the minor reports and the less controlled news - ACTUAL NEWS, NOT WANNABES - you read that most of the local "protestors" are peaceful.
What's happening now is nothing more than an excuse to loot and run amok by people OUTSIDE the community. This isn't about the shooting, it's about people wanting to get free stuff and just incite more tension.
Don't believe me? Ask yourself these questions:
1) How are the victim or the victim's family helped by looting?
2) If the intent of the protests are peaceful, why protest at night and not during the day - especially on a weekend?
3) How is the victim or his family helped by throwing rocks, moltov cocktails or shooting at the police?
As far as the actual shooting - I've a few "opinions" from I'm guessing people who have only seen firearms in the movies.
There is a tap that was released that caught a conversation between two people basically saying that the guy (297 lbs) kept coming after the cop fired.
Now, if I'm a cop and I just shot someone once and he kept coming... twice and he kept coming... then squeezed off two more shots and he kept coming (4 shots to the right side), I'm switching focus and aiming for the head. Now I fire a shot that hits him in the face and he starts to fall forward, but that could easily be mistaken for a lunge forward and so I fire one more shot... the one that hits him in the top of the head because he's leaning forward.
You see no shots to the back or the back of the head. Remember... this is a 297 guy who kept coming after multiple shots.
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Re: The really story?
First of all, I'd be interested to know just who is talking during that 'tape', and how much their discussion matches any available evidence, otherwise it's little more than hearsay.
Yeah, unless they are 'walking pharmacy'-level filled with drugs, something that would have been mentioned by now, a person is not going to continue running at someone shooting at them from a distance.
Also, as for the 'lunge' to explain the second, higher head shot, the autopsy found no gunpowder residue on the body, so even for the last shot he was still at range, making any 'lunge' completely harmless to the shooter.
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However, the questions posed prove nothing. In the case of the question about "protesting at night", well, most of the people work or have other commitments during the day; their free time is at night, like everyone else's. Not only that, but darkness covers movement, so sneaking around is best done at night.
The other two questions describe criminality in general; one of the fundamental constants of criminality is lack of wisdom. Consider: A man is poor, so he robs a bank; then he gets caught, the money gets taken back; and now he's still poor and in prison for the next 25 years. How did robbing the bank improve his situation?
People, particularly people in mobs, frequently don't think things all the way through to the aftermath. Intelligence says, "I'm poor. If I rob the bank, then I'll have money." A yields B. Wisdom says, now think beyond that: What is the aftermath? A yields B, but A will also yield other consequences?
In general, criminals and mobs have some moderate intelligence but zero wisdom.
So to answer the questions:
1) How are the victim or the victim's family helped by looting? Looting seems like a good idea at the time: "I want a color TV. There's a color TV. The police are busy elsewhere. So I can take the TV and then I'll have a TV." No one thinks ahead to what it will mean to the community and their own family to loot a color TV. It's not like they dare have the TV set up and operating; or that they dare to sell it...should wisdom take hold, they'll probably wind up tossing their "prize" in the river.
2) If the intent of the protests are peaceful, why protest at night and not during the day - especially on a weekend? Daytime has other commitments; night is best for sneaking around. I concede these reasons apply equally to outsiders, but these do not prove outsiders.
3) How is the victim or his family helped by throwing rocks, moltov cocktails or shooting at the police? Dealing with the police is now; "We can beat these idiots." Same reasoning as any war: No one is thinking ahead to the aftermath. Mobs use some limited intelligence to win now; have zero wisdom.
All of this, of course, is why mobs and rioting are so dangerous.
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Talking from experience once the cops start shooting even when you (collectively speaking) raise your hands and clearly shout it's a peaceful movement then people will get angry and start reacting. I don't know exactly what is happening there but even the most peaceful crowd will defend themselves when threatened like this.
The looters are mere opportunistic people. Much like other pathogens use the immunodeficiency AIDS causes to actually cause the death those people are just using the opportunity to their advantage and they would do the same if any other fact gave them enough room. The police should be going after these people, not the protesters. Again from my experience if the police doesn't escalate the violence even those within the protest will help catching the looters.
If the intent of the protests are peaceful, why protest at night and not during the day - especially on a weekend?
Work. You can lose your job if you simply don't show. Weekends are a good option indeed but you can't just wait for the weekend till things have settled down, there's a momentum to be seized and used. Also, a good time to protest is when it causes most disruption to daily life such as when people get out of work. Makes things be noticed. You can't count on the mainstream media to help you here so you need to catch the attention somehow. I wonder if what you are calling night is actually the evening when people are leaving their jobs.
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Re: The really story?
As there have been attempts to impose a curfew, I support protesting in the curfew hours as a matter of general principle, independently of the original subject of the protest.
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Even if that's true, how does that make this police response a good idea? The dead guy could have been an armed crazy person on a murderous rampage and this would still not be the best way to respond to the protests.
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Re: The really story?
This is funny, coming in the middle of an absolutely citation-free post. Care to link to some actual evidence?
I assuming you're referring here to "conservative" outfits that are not part of the "Liberal Media Conspiracy?"
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Re: The really story?
It's about being fed up , nothing ever gets done unless a business is hurt , then the powers that be rush in.
2) If the intent of the protests are peaceful, why protest at night and not during the day - especially on a weekend?
They protest all day and night maybe .
3) How is the victim or his family helped by throwing rocks, moltov cocktails or shooting at the police?
How are the police helping matters , would anything have happened had this not taken place or would it have been swept under the rug once again .
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When will the feds be arrested the Ferguson cops?
At this point, they all need to be arrested, indicted with hundreds of counts of false arrest, excessive force, death threats, murder, assault, criminal negligence and treason.
Why treason you ask? They're violating the constitutional rights of the people to peacefully assemble (which the people do until the cops come out and instigate the riots), violating the freedom of speech and free press.
Since they are doing it in a military fashion, it's treason.
I'm so glad that we're currently in what the President's wife calls "wartime" so that these criminal officers will get their "just" punishment for the treason they are committing, death.
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Re: When will the feds be arrested the Ferguson cops?
Why would the feds charge them for violating people's constitutional rights when the feds do that one a daily basis, and our president 6thinks he can suspend people's rights when it suits him?
That's like asking a wolf to stop the fox from raiding the chicken coop.
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Re: When will the feds be arrested the Ferguson cops?
That is not "treason" as defined by the Constitution.
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Re: When will the feds be arrested the Ferguson cops?
Treason is not reached here, but some racism charges would sting a lot too as the functions rely so heavily on trust.
But before we talk punishment, it would be good to see a fair judgement of what really happen. Even if the police officer robbed the kid of due process we as a society have to grant it to him. If for nothing else, to avoid escalation of vigilence.
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someone's done this before..
Those forces are less likely to give a flying shit when pointing a rifle at a 'fellow citizen'.
I know, it's beaten to a bloody pulp, but this is a play from hilter's playbook.
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Re: someone's done this before..
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Story Mode
The above quote is from this NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-time s.html?_r=0
Question:
The story from the police indicates that Mr. Brown was struggling for the officer's gun, and that a shot went off inside the cruiser.
Shouldn't they have found SOME gunpowder on Mr. Brown if this story is true? Granted, the examiner did not have access to the clothes, but the enclosed space of the inside of the car should lead to SOME gunpowder getting on his person, shouldn't it?
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Say it isn't so!
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Enjoy your dystopian tyrrannistic police state Amerika. We tried to warn you what was happening, but we got called crazy conspiracy theorists for saying America was turning into another tin pot dictatorship. Now you can openly enjoy your state sanctioned police brutality, the secret laws with secret courts and secret evidence the defence is never allowed to see. The laws passed that make it illegal to protest or dissent against those in charge. The NDDA where the government decides what defines a terrorist, coincidently distrusting your government makes you a terrorist these days.
You stopped being the land of the free on 9/11 much like how Germans lost their freedoms when the Reichstag burned down.
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Enjoy your dystopian tyrrannistic police state Amerika.
What's with changing c's to k's? There's a regular commenter who does it incessantly (kops, Amerika, korporations, etc) and I don't understand what it's supposed to convey.
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Apparently there was also a miniseries from 1987 called Amerika, about the aftermath of a Soviet takeover of the US.
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It's a meme meant to convery "Evil Empire". To most red-necked Americans, Evil == Communism == Russia. Russian language has no letter 'c'. For the hard consonant sound (like the 'c' in America), it uses the letter 'k' (or what looks like the letter 'k').
qed
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I was afraid it might be that.
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going, going, gone.
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It's funny
The initial autopsy report came out, showing that the guy got shot 6 times. Oh, and it appears that the shots didn't happen while running away, and that the "kill" shot was the last shot, not the first (ie, it wasn't overkill or shooting someone already on the ground). Few want to talk about the idea that the situation isn't quite as simple as initially reported.
I also tend to agree with many people who ask the questions about rioting and looting. I can understand protesting. I can understand a candlelight vigil. I can understand gatherings, I can understand angry words. I can't understand rioting and looting.
What is really at issue here is that the "good citizens" of this area are not working to distance themselves from the violence. They keep showing up every night to egg it on, to encourage it, to create the situations that lead to police having to take action.
The media seems to have already made a "police be bad" choice of a story angle and that is the only one being covered. Why is nobody looking at the situation that creates a tolerance for looting, rioting, and such? The media doesn't seem to want to address it, except as "police fired tear gas, then something got looted". Looting is NOT a valid response to anything.
The one sided coverage of this story is amusing. It's even more amusing to read a site like Techdirt and it's readers clapping and approving as the one sided story is repeated for their enjoyment.
Fox News for all?
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Re: It's funny
Why do you even log in if this is the sort of shit you end up posting anyway?
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Violence
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Re: Violence
This happens with pretty much every protest that the government dislikes. You'd think everyone would have caught on by now.
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Re: Re: Violence
The Troopers even say they can tell them apart. Why they don't treat them differently, if they can tell the difference, is beyond me.
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Re: Re: Violence
(a) not locals (it's a relatively small community, and they mostly know each other, or at least can spot strangers), and
(b) weren't even black (though some apparently were self-styled "Anarchists".
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silly people
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