Ferguson on Fire Again

[asianobserve]

Ferguson police officer won't be charged in shooting death of Michael Brown | US news | The Guardian

The police officer who shot dead an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, leading to weeks of unrest and reviving a national debate about law enforcement and race in America, will not face state criminal charges, it was announced on Monday.

A grand jury in St Louis County declined to indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown on 9 August, following an altercation after the officer stopped him and a friend for jaywalking. Wilson is also under investigation by federal authorities, which could bring civil rights charges.

The ugly side of domestic America.

 

[thethinker]

Looks like a war zone.

Michael Brown Shooting Witness Admitted Racism In Journal Entry

No fly zone over Ferguson activated. Reports of heavy gun fire too.

 

[Illusive]

Tamir Rice: US police kill boy, 12, carrying replica gun

Why dont these guys use tasers, which is non lethal, if they have to fire their arms.

 

[asianobserve]

Tamir Rice: US police kill boy, 12, carrying replica gun

Why dont these guys use tasers, which is non lethal, if they have to fire their arms.

I think the US is simply awash with handguns that POlice officers are too concerned about their own safety. Every one is a potential shooter. The US should seriously rethink its gun culture.

 

[Kshatriya87]

Tamir Rice: US police kill boy, 12, carrying replica gun

Why dont these guys use tasers, which is non lethal, if they have to fire their arms.

Maybe the kid was far away? Range plays a part there.

 

[Illusive]

Maybe the kid was far away? Range plays a part there.

Its not that there aren't long range tasers, and they could have stalled him and let him come in range,he was a kid afterall. The problem is like asianobserve said, concerned for their own safety. There has to be some standards maintained and accountability too.

 

[Razor]

Those "peaceful protesters" in the US, are going to need some cookies and cakes (and $ 5 billion).

 

[pmaitra]

@asianobserve, @jouni, why is Victoria Nuland not there?

Do you see the pictures? This is democracy, liberty, and what not.

 

[AVERAGE INDIAN]

PHOTO: A worker cleans up glass at a building that was damaged during a demonstration on Nov. 25, 2014 in Dellwood, Mo.

One of the buildings burned to the ground during protests after a grand jurt decided not to indict a police officer in the killing of an unarmed teenager, Nov. 25, 2014, Dellwood, Mo

Property manager Terri Willits looks over a gas station she manages that was set on fire when rioting erupted following the grand jury announcement in the Michael Brown case, Nov. 25, 2014 in Dellword, Mo.

Cars which were set on fire when rioting erupted following the grand jury announcement in the Michael Brown case sit on a lot, Nov. 25, 2014 in Dellword Mo

 

[AVERAGE INDIAN]

more pictures
This Is What Ferguson Looks Like The Day After Riots - Business Insider

 

[jouni]

@asianobserve, @jouni, why is Victoria Nuland not there?

Do you see the pictures? This is democracy, liberty, and what not.

NSA kept her out...this is the dark side of America.

 

[asianobserve]

@asianobserve, @jouni, why is Victoria Nuland not there?

Do you see the pictures? This is democracy, liberty, and what not.

That's the other side of democracy. I think you were the one who torched the supermarket....

 

[pmaitra]

That's the other side of democracy. I think you were the one who torched the supermarket....

Well, if that is what you believe, please ask Victoria Nuland to send me some cookies ASAP. Apparently, she loves feeding arsonists, and I am hungry.

 

[hit&run]

A year ago one guy was preaching me about poor riot management in India. The topic was Gujarat riots. People get fooled by internal politics of India and media reporting, our police with the kind of resources they have does the best they can. Having said that I am glad there is no lose of life in USA; but then it depends on how much enraged the mob is.

I think their protest has been registered, now calm should prevail. Those trigger happy cops must be taken to the task as well.

 

[Nicky G]

Unfortunately this is nothing new for the US. Things should cool down for Thanksgivings though.

However I must note that I cannot fathom why these officers are not trained to take down suspects in a non-lethal manner. Even if you are going to shoot, why take a lethal shot? Blow the guy's knee-cap for instance. How is that not sufficient?

 

[Energon]

I think the US is simply awash with handguns that POlice officers are too concerned about their own safety. Every one is a potential shooter. The US should seriously rethink its gun culture.

I don't think the issue at hand has much to do with gun violence. What went down in Ferguson has more to do with one of America's other perennial problems: the dysfunctional relationship between police forces and poor minorities in downtrodden neighborhoods. The tumultuous relationship between legal authorities and Blacks in America goes quite far back I'm afraid; in fact all the way back to the inception of the nation itself. Ever since 1619 when African slaves first set foot in America (albeit their feet were shackled at the time), legal authorities have been charged with keeping all Blacks "in their place". From slave patrols, to slave retrievals, to the Jim Crow laws, Blacks and the police have forever been bitter adversaries. Michael Brown and Darren Wilson were merely another set of players in this never ending saga.

 

[jouni]

Europe has also minorities, but no police shooting. This is the dark, dark side of America. No need to try to whitewash it.

 

[blueblood]

Police militarization and lack of gun control are some of the root causes for this sort of thing. I would be jumpy too if the probability of a small town cop in US being shot at is similar to that of a cop in Afghanistan.

This is what police in my city looks like. Shabbily dressed and you can barely call them trained or maybe not. But the reason they are holding lathis instead of tacticool assault kit is non proliferation of automatic and semi automatic weapons. And it would be my assumption that number of serious crimes in my city would be much lower than an equivalent American city.

 

[pmaitra]

Why It's Impossible to Indict a Cop

It's not just Ferguson—here's how the system protects police.

How to police the police is a question as old as civilization, now given special urgency by a St. Louis County grand jury's return of a "no bill" of indictment for Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson in his fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown. The result is shocking to many, depressingly predictable to more than a few.

Can the cops be controlled? It's never been easy: according to one old sociological chestnut, the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence is what defines modern government, and this monopoly is jealously protected against the second-guessing of puny civilians.

Homicides committed by on-duty law enforcement make up 3 percent of the 14,196 homicides committed in the United States in 2013.

The first step to controlling the police is to get rid of the fantasy, once and for all, that the law is on our side. The law is firmly on the side of police who open fire on unarmed civilians.

The reality is, it is extremely difficult to get law enforcement to police itself, and self-regulation is here, just as it is in poultry processing or coal mining, a sick joke.

Kuby maintains that civil remedies will always fall short and thinks only criminal prosecution has a prayer of changing police behavior. "Prosecution works well with people who are not fundamentally criminal and have enough stake in the system to respond! Any response below that is an insult." But he admits that the political will to make the criminal justice system restrain and regulate its own members and enforcers is consistently lacking—and has been as long as he's been practicing law.

Such Scandinavian-style lenity is quite different from the mind-numbing severity of sentences inflicted on non-cops. Consider the sixty years that potentially face Marissa Alexander for firing a warning shot at an abusive ex. Or the life sentences without possibility of parole that more than 3,000 Americans are serving for nonviolent crimes.

There really is no courtroom miracle or lawsuit solution, no matter how clever the litigator, no matter how deep-dish the foundation grant, that is going to discipline the police and break them of their trigger-happy habits.

The militarized police response to the mostly nonviolent demonstrations in Ferguson and elsewhere has appalled not only progressives but many conservatives as well.

Citations and fines for petty offenses are profligately inflicted on residents, particularly black residents. According to a blockbuster report issued by St. Louis's ArchCity Defenders advocacy group, over 20 percent of city revenue comes from municipal courts (making them the city's second-largest source of revenue), which issued enough warrants last year to slap three warrants, $312 worth, on every household in the town.

(Terrified by the Ferguson unrest, the city of St. Louis decided to eliminate 220,000 open arrest warrants for traffic violations last month.) The feeling of being under occupation by an armed force that cares more about meeting revenue quotas than public security corrodes all trust in law enforcement, and is the sort of environment in which police are more likely to open fire.

In the meantime, the constant stream of news reports of unarmed, mostly black and Latino civilians killed by police demands bigger, bolder approaches. They are the only available paths to getting the police under control.

 

[Razor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=serhXCQbFfU

Interesting video.

Looks like some people have this tendency of not sticking to facts. Facts are just too inconvenient, as Ronald Reagan said in 1988: "Facts are stupid things."

Anyway this tendency of people protesting against government, without understanding the situation, like mad men, is becoming a worldwide thing.

It happens in the US and outside. Only difference is the US has the capability and money to hijack such protests or foment it in other countries (like they do in Ukraine) while others countries can't reciprocate the favor to the US.