Has anyone been following the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri?
Wuthering
Posts: 1,071 Forum Member
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I've been catching up with this story over the last few days and if things are to be taken at face value then I think the behaviour of the Ferguson police throughout the last several days has been horrifying. This seems very different from the London riots, where I always thought people were being thugs for the sake of it and looting out of greed and bravado while using Mark Duggan's death as a very weak excuse.
What's happening in Ferguson makes it seem like civil rights for black people in America really hasn't advanced as much as one would have hoped. It's shocking. To illustrate, this post on Twitter sums things up:
https://twitter.com/jackfrombkln/status/499531968229683200/photo/1
For those unfamilar with the ins and outs of this story, a useful timeline is here:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/michael-brown-ferguson-missouri-timeline/14051827/
I hope the Brown family get justice, because on the surface it does seem like Michael Brown was murdered in cold blood.
What's happening in Ferguson makes it seem like civil rights for black people in America really hasn't advanced as much as one would have hoped. It's shocking. To illustrate, this post on Twitter sums things up:
https://twitter.com/jackfrombkln/status/499531968229683200/photo/1
For those unfamilar with the ins and outs of this story, a useful timeline is here:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/michael-brown-ferguson-missouri-timeline/14051827/
I hope the Brown family get justice, because on the surface it does seem like Michael Brown was murdered in cold blood.
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I too hope Brown's family get justice.
The behaviour of the police still seems abhorrent though, apparently they been egging the rioters on so they can have an excuse to use brute force.
All I can say is, I hope that Michael Brown's family get the justice that they deserve.
All seems remarkably similar to the Duggan affair to me, unless I'm missing something.
That's certainly the story being put about by the police but two eyewitnesses contradict that version of events one of whom is not connected to the deceased. Link. Both witnesses say that when the fatal shots were fired Brown was standing still facing the police officer with his hands in the air.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40zMrcEzVH0
These people are just animals and should be treated as such!
Well, that certainly sheds a new light on things.
"In an interview with msnbc’s Lawrence O’Donnell, Tiffany Mitchell described hearing tires squeak and seeing “Michael and the officer wrestling through the [car] window.” Brown, she says, was struggling to get away while the officer continued to try to pull him closer."
.....
"Mitchell says she did not see Brown or anyone else assault the officer. Brown’s body stayed out of the police vehicle the entire time, Mitchell said."
It sounds, to me, like the "eyewitness" accounts are, erm, in flux.
I don't see how those two statements are problematic.
It seems unlikely that anybody could successfully "wrestle" with another person in order to get away from them without assaulting them.
And, let's face it, when the person you're "wrestling" with is a cop, you're probably asking for trouble.
But the "wrestling" on Brown's part according to Mitchell was him trying to get away whilst the cop continued to grab on and pull him in closer to the car.
And I'm not sure 'asking for trouble' includes getting shot 5 or 6 times whilst unarmed with your hands in the air.
That's the trouble with hindsight. It doesn't fix bullet holes.
Seems like a significant number of people, these days, think it's okay to tussle with the police and the problem, there, is once you do that you give the police reasonable suspicion that you're up to no good.
But if the eyewitnesses are to be believed it was the police that started the tussle in the first place.
And it's still unclear how attempting to pull away from a police officer justifies 5 or 6 bullets particularly after you've attempted to surrender.
the eyewitness stuff..id like to hear what the police say as well before i decide who to believe
Completely agree here.
all the low skill jobs have been off shored to china or replaced by computers
so the underclass who used to do those jobs have had to been kept quiet by free money
That is when the protesters lose the support of people.
It shouldn't be any great shock that the police initiated the incident. I mean, that's kinda what policemen do. They stop people who come to their attention for one reason or another.
It only becomes a "tussle", however, when the other person decides not to cooperate.
Attempting to pull away from a police officer gives the police officer reason to believe that you're a person who's seeking to avoid interaction with the police and the police officer has know way of knowing if that's simply because you're a bolshie malcontent, because you've got pockets full of drugs and a gun stuck down your trousers or because they've interrupted you in the middle of a spree killing.
Also, when the person in question "attempts to surrender" after wrestling with a cop and then running off down the street, it's rather difficult to take that point seriously.
There have been many, many peaceful protests. They've been holding them every day. It was only the first night or two that it got violent. Support for the protestors has actually been increasing amongst the general population.
But at the end of the day, if the person submits, puts up their hands and says "I surrender" then the reaction to that by the cop should not be to shoot the person 5 or 6 times and kill them.
Your point is quite clear. You think that if you tussle with the police in the way this man did then the police may shoot you dead and this is acceptable. Obviously what me and the protestors are saying it that this is not acceptable and is an over reaction on the part of the police. They have tasers, gas and all kinds of things they can do before they kill someone.
At the end of the day they guys was stood in the middle of the street with his hands up saying that he submits and don't shoot him and they shot and killed him. Bad policing.
If that is what he was doing, because not every single witness account backs that up.
(Just for the record, I know very little about this and I'm not defending anybody, but thought it's worth pointing out that there are very different accounts about what happened here.)
Oh, don't get me wrong; I am perfectly aware that this is one of those "when your favourite tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail" situations and I have no idea if the shooting was justified or not.
I just think the whole "but he was only...." thing is a bit of a fallacy because the cops have no way of knowing that "he was only...." at the time.
All they know is that a guy sought to escape their attention and they dealt with it in the way that they often prefer.
I just don't understand why a law-abiding citizen might deliberately tussle with an armed cop.
It seems like a course of action that's only ever going to go bad and the only question is how bad it goes.
I mean, even if we assume that the cops are racist, nazi, arseholes. They're still armed racist, nazi, arseholes so why would anybody pick that opportunity to try and "stick it to the man"?
At best you're going to get into trouble and at worst you're going to get dead.