Mo. Teenager Shot by Police, Riots Ensue

[geo]

myk said:

I didn't say that is a policy and certainly don't think so. The policy issues would be in the way urban security and police interaction with the population are handled, as well as the incidence of economic policies that may stimulate conflicts between cops and poorer people. Even the state of the prison and jail systems is a factor in police violence, since you might as well fight back than surrender and be sent to the equivalent of hell or to a veritable torture facility.

St. Louis is notorious for its crime along with Detroit for the past 15 or so years. People need to have jobs. Even if Michael Brown stole cigars or didn't, what would be the reason he stole them rather than paid for them? Is it lack of money? Did the clerk say no, you're black I don't sell to blacks so he decided to take them?

Even if you give low taxes to attract businesses, and then they'll need employees, workers, management, security, drivers and so on. Then those people can afford to pay taxes or afford to buy stuff to be on the right side of the law. Plus with a job it would make people too tired to commit crimes. Granted that won't 100% stop crime.

Of course even with lower or no taxes, businesses and industry might not want to move into such a crime riddled area at the cost of needing security. I've said all of this with Detroit. Jobs moved out, crime moved in. Its not Nebraska, they have it worse than most of us.

[Clonehunter]

Glaice said:

Again, the riots are unnecessary. Stupid people. Have you not learned from the LA Riots?

Agreed. The last thing we need is another bad Billy Idol album.

[myk]

geo said:
Even if Michael Brown stole cigars or didn't, what would be the reason he stole them rather than paid for them? Is it lack of money?

Poverty, discrimination, repressive or indifferent authorities, a lack of general public spending and access to education or decent education, low-paying but strict jobs, and a society that enthrones getting richer than your neighbor.

If you ignore these factors, you start to narrow crime down to "individual choice" or "moral error". That erases the context and ignores social responsibilities, and breeds spaces for racism and fundamentalism. Not surprisingly, economic libertarians and religious conservatives tend to favor the same party, if any.

Of course even with lower or no taxes, businesses and industry might not want to move into such a crime riddled area at the cost of needing security.

Indeed, aside from not addressing the factors I noted above, the general tendency to lower taxes specifically means neglecting the poorer population, which encourages crime and thus the costs of security. You tend to create a police state where businesses will likely prefer to export their products to another state or country than face any costs entailed in watching the locals flourish.

If economic policy is mainly driven by private profit over the immediate welfare of the local population, lobbies won't stop at lowering taxes. They'll also push for initiatives that make it easier to fire people and to pay them as little as possible. Why work in a low paying job with the constant threat of being fired when theft or drug trafficking would pay off much better? If businesses aim to avoid contributing to society by not paying taxes or by not being bound by labor laws they find costly, why wouldn't poorer people be encouraged to follow their example by flaunting the law or losing respect for their neighbors?

[DeathevokatioN]

This is good to see.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/16/ferguson-protesters-guard-stores_n_5684042.html

[myk]

The cops holding back reminds me of what I mentioned earlier that happened here last year. To a point it's possibly good because if they did something they'd probably screw it up, yet it also means cops not doing what they're paid for. The protesters protecting the shops shows their clear understanding of how the looting can work against them.

[geo]

DeathevokatioN said:

This is good to see.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/16/ferguson-protesters-guard-stores_n_5684042.html

Yeah I'm happy to see it too. The news said that citizens were guarding the store that Brown robbed. Wonder if the mafia would do the same thing for protection money.

[geekmarine]

geo said:

Yeah I'm happy to see it too. The news said that citizens were guarding the store that Brown robbed. Wonder if the mafia would do the same thing for protection money.

Yes geo, there are no complexities in the real world. All of the citizens are one united front. They're either all good guys or all criminals. Black and white. You can judge the actions of an entire community based on one individual.

Just, WTF man? A few people take advantage of a bad situation, you blame everyone. A few people stand up and do the right thing, you compare them to the mafia. Just what the hell is going through your head, man?

Oh, and I'm still flippin' baffled by your crime comment. Ferguson actually has a very low crime rate compared to St. Louis, but nope, doesn't fit your narrative, so let's ignore that.

[geo]

geekmarine said:

Yes geo, there are no complexities in the real world. All of the citizens are one united front. They're either all good guys or all criminals. Black and white. You can judge the actions of an entire community based on one individual.

Just, WTF man? A few people take advantage of a bad situation, you blame everyone. A few people stand up and do the right thing, you compare them to the mafia. Just what the hell is going through your head, man?

Oh, and I'm still flippin' baffled by your crime comment. Ferguson actually has a very low crime rate compared to St. Louis, but nope, doesn't fit your narrative, so let's ignore that.

True dat we're all one dimensional pawns that never change our minds and rob the places we're defending. There's always an exception to every rule and that exception doesn't make the norm. Like wow there are a Europeans on this forum... Yet not all of us are.

You also realize that yesterday I made reference to citizens defending the store that was robbed. They wore masks too.

One individual. It takes more than one person to riot or loot. Only one person needs to kill another, but a lot of others can cover it up.

Sorry, I just stir the pot.

[geekmarine]

The pot has had plenty of stirring already, thank you very much. It's like - on the one hand you've got rioters, on the other hand you've got a police force seemingly doing their best to encourage rioting. On the one hand you've got news reporting on the story one way to push an agenda - on the other hand, you've got other news reporting in such a way as to push the opposite agenda. We've got a kid being painted as an innocent saint and as a violent criminal. A town portrayed as lawlessness and chaos, but the kid's death has been the first killing that occurred in this town all year. He allegedly robbed a convenience store (for some cheap cigars) - but the cop had no clue about his connection to the robbery. Some call him a violent thug meeting a violent end, others say he threw up his hands and surrendered before he was shot. It's all just a mess.

[Snakes]

Autopsy's out. Pretty much vindicates my private feeling that cops in MO generally fall into the friendly or psycho category, and the psychos far outweigh the friendlies. Jay Nixon's super-solution of calling in the HP to enforce a curfew is such a goddamn joke and this is only going to escalate things. There's pretty much no way this situation calms down without the National Guard getting involved.

Say what you will about the looters and the violence, there's plenty reason for anger to exist. This tidbit of news is only re-launching that.

[myk]

Snakes said:
Jay Nixon's super-solution of calling in the HP to enforce a curfew is such a goddamn joke and this is only going to escalate things.

In our 2001 protests,* the president enforced a curfew (actually a more strict "state of siege") and that reignited a protest that led to the president fleeing in a helicopter.

* This is not a very good article, as it ignores the supermarket lootings from december 16 and that it was a reaction by both the lower and middle classes, each in their way, and not "mainly the middle class". The one in Spanish is better.

[geo]

Snakes said:

Autopsy's out. Pretty much vindicates my private feeling that cops in MO generally fall into the friendly or psycho category, and the psychos far outweigh the friendlies. Jay Nixon's super-solution of calling in the HP to enforce a curfew is such a goddamn joke and this is only going to escalate things. There's pretty much no way this situation calms down without the National Guard getting involved.

Say what you will about the looters and the violence, there's plenty reason for anger to exist. This tidbit of news is only re-launching that.

Just saw the news with the autopsy. Shot 6 times, once in the face. Then riots ensued. National guard called in by the governor. National guard rarely gets called out.

Went to Pizza Hut yesterday. Had to wait 5 minutes. They had a TV on covering the news on the situation. The 3 black employees looked up and saw the coverage. I was totally curious what they'd think.

The first guy said, real weird how no one riots when a gang shoots up a kid. Another guy said something like riots are just a way to make sure its not swept under the rug, they don't mean no harm.

Edit: Twitter map of tweets concerning Michael Brown: http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/16/a-map-of-how-the-news-of-ferguson-spread-through-twitter/

[Clonehunter]

I'm betting that with the National Guard thrown in, the xenomorphs will jump in and kill them all, forcing the government to launch a nuclear bomb on the city to quell the riots.

[geo]

Clonehunter said:

I'm betting that with the National Guard thrown in, the xenomorphs will jump in and kill them all, forcing the government to launch a nuclear bomb on the city to quell the riots.

Why hasn't the government given the rioters guns like the kurds so they can rise up and overthrow the oppression. To balance things out and even the playing field?

Xenomorphs would be better.

[Bucket]

As always, John Oliver says all that needs be said on the subject.

[Clonehunter]

Also, I guess I wasn't paying attention, but is this more of a Black vs White issue or a Dickish Militarized Police issue? Or both?

[geekmarine]

It's kinda both... the original incident was a Black vs. White issue, it wasn't that the cop was overpowered, rather he just made the bad call of firing on an unarmed black kid. Now though, it's become a Dickish Militarized Police issue, with the police being way too hostile in attempting to deal with the protests/riots (and, in the opinion of many, intentionally trying to provoke the protests into riots).

[Cupboard]

Yeah it started as a racial incident but now it it morphed into a police state-type action response to civil unrest. We see police officers pointing weapons at unarmed civilians. That goes completly against military discipline. Military units never points weapons at civilians unless it is an active combat zone.

What we are seeing here is the militarization of the US police force that has been going on for 3 decades. Local and State SWAT departments are allowed to carry weapons of war in civilian zones without any kind of regimented bootcamp or advanced firearms handling courses. It is disgusting to see the police allowed to carry war weapons anywhere on US streets, especially considering this strength is mainly to fight the "War on Drugs", which is a complete farce, through and through. This kind of weaponry is tactically unnecessary, counterproductive, and outright dangerous in a civil society.

[Fulgrim]

TheCupboard said:

Yeah it started as a racial incident but now it it morphed into a police state-type action response to civil unrest. We see police officers pointing weapons at unarmed civilians. That goes completly against military discipline. Military units never points weapons at civilians unless it is an active combat zone.

One of the first things you learn in any kind of firearm training is that you never, ever point your firearm at anything in less you intend to shoot. There is not excuse for the officers point their guns at anything that moves. They are attempting to put fear into people and baiting them into reacting.

[dew]

TheCupboard said:

This kind of weaponry is tactically unnecessary, counterproductive, and outright dangerous in a civil society.

Can't wait for the first maniac in tactical gear to finally snap under pressure and open fire into a pack of protesters from his Killpowa Limbripper Assault Rifle. They're the garbage the Army didn't want, so there's a guy somewhere out there fighting off resentment, inferiority complex and zealous overcompensation every time he points the death stick at that protester scum. It will probably take shredded Murcan babies live on TV for true action against the militarization creep.

[geo]

His stealing cigars is irrelevant. It would be more tragic if he had just saved a clerk from a robbery then the cop thought he robbed the place and shot him because black people = look alike.

There's now a flight restriction over Furgesson so the cops can have 100% access.

Our local NBC reporter is now a CNN reporter that was being pushed back by a cop.

[geekmarine]

geo said:

His stealing cigars is irrelevant. It would be more tragic if he had just saved a clerk from a robbery then the cop thought he robbed the place and shot him because black people = look alike.

Say if instead of stealing cigars he had foiled a robbery... doesn't matter to the outcome of the case, because the cop didn't know about it. This would be more interesting if, say, the cop had stopped the kid because of the robbery, but even then it doesn't give him the right to unload his weapon on the kid. The amazing part to it all is, now it's being seen as some sort of karmic retribution. Doesn't matter that the cop didn't know, the kid got what he deserved for stealing some cigars.

[Maes]

The militarization of police forces is a non-reversible worldwide trend, as the focus of militaries shifted from the nation-vs-nation "total wars" of the XX, to smaller-scale proxy wars, then to smaller yet "peacekeeping missions", then against "terror" and, finally, towards the "internal enemy", as the distinction between police and military is blurred when you start reaching that point.

Notice the trend to pick vs an ever weaker, smaller and badly armed opponent as time goes on (or even an unarmed opponent as part of a "preemptive action"), but the official term for that is "asymmetrical warfare".

If you notice how the average Western nation's army is set up today, you 'll have a hard time telling it apart from a large-scale police force, as their targets are increasingly "hostile civilians" or "illegal combatants", rather than members of an opposing nation's military. The same doctrines transfer easily to internal affairs, especially since there's a worldwide trend for forms of government to move towards a limited form of democracy (which is hard to tell apart from a permissive dictatorship).

[Quasar]

Everybody still operating under the assumption that all this militarization and escalation isn't perfectly planned and going exactly the way it's wanted to go, it all amuses me.

How much meticulous planning and execution has to be done by the NSA, DHS, and DOD toward making these things happen before people notice that, hey, we have a federally established standing army on our streets and its purpose is expressly to maintain control of the populace through whatever means necessary, including summary execution.

Making it a racial issue is great, too. Distracts completely from the real problem. Are more blacks shot than whites? Yes. Is that a problem in its own right? Of course. Does that mean that the way the police are now organized into Schutzstaffel death squads isn't the real problem here to begin with? No. The racial angle on this is just divide and conquer and I wish people would start to see past it.

[geekmarine]

I fail to see how the militarization of the police could possibly be a deliberate action. I mean, just look at what's happening in Ferguson. The whole damn place is falling apart because the police are using tactics and equipment they were never trained for. If anything, the town is going to be a poster child for why the police shouldn't be so armed. They're not quietly and efficiently quelling a resistance. They're bumbling and creating an even bigger scene, and making people ask why we gave the police those toys in the first place.

Just... when I think brilliant and cunning plan to control the populace, I think manipulations so subtle that people don't even realize they're being manipulated, like the doublespeak in 1984, not more or less crashing through a brick wall Kool-Aid man style and making everyone realize you weren't fit to drive the tank in the first place.

[CorSair]

geekmarine said:

I fail to see how the militarization of the police could possibly be a deliberate action. I mean, just look at what's happening in Ferguson. The whole damn place is falling apart because the police are using tactics and equipment they were never trained for.

That's because the equipment is meant on for "War on Drugs" stuff.

[Blastfrog]

Control through fear and terror. What doesn't make sense about it?

[Maes]

People seem to forget that the de-militarization of the police was a relatively recent development in most countries, where police roles were taken by special army branches (e.g. gendarmeries, militias).

Some countries (like Greece) have both civilian and explicitly mlitarily-constituted police forces (e.g. the modern Greek police is a civilian force, but it was constituted by the merging of several older civilian and military law enforcement corps in the early 80s, such as rural police, cities' police, gendarmerie, forests' police, military police etc.), while the Hellenic Coast Guard is the only corps still being considered militarily constituted.

In commie Yurope, I think only the UK had a purely civilian metropolitan police force constituted ex novo, while all other Yuropean countries had gendarmeries, royal guards, militias etc.

[Quasar]

We forget about it here because collusion between law enforcement and the military is unconstitutional and illegal in the United States. Actions as of late by the DHS and DOD have been getting around that with shady loopholes in the law. Can't directly assist or command? Well, we'll just throw them a lot of money, excess equipment, and some of our used up broken vets to go with them, and then co-opt command by "advising" police chiefs, state governors, etc. on what to do.

What end is this all for? Just ask yourself, where can it possibly be meant to lead? To some bright and shining future where people have basic human rights, let alone civil ones?

[Fulgrim]

geekmarine said:

I fail to see how the militarization of the police could possibly be a deliberate action. I mean, just look at what's happening in Ferguson. The whole damn place is falling apart because the police are using tactics and equipment they were never trained for. If anything, the town is going to be a poster child for why the police shouldn't be so armed. They're not quietly and efficiently quelling a resistance. They're bumbling and creating an even bigger scene, and making people ask why we gave the police those toys in the first place.

Just... when I think brilliant and cunning plan to control the populace, I think manipulations so subtle that people don't even realize they're being manipulated, like the doublespeak in 1984, not more or less crashing through a brick wall Kool-Aid man style and making everyone realize you weren't fit to drive the tank in the first place.

It is deliberate and its being done through a program called Federal 1033 Program. Not only that it's been proven that elected officials that support the program are being given insane amounts of money in the form of "campaign contributions" by the manufacturers of the military grade kit being used by local police forces.

http://www.newsweek.com/how-americas-police-became-army-1033-program-264537
http://www.dps.mo.gov/dir/programs/cjle/dod.asp
http://news.yahoo.com/as-wars-wind-down--small-town-cops-inherit-armored-vehicles-233505138.html
http://maplight.org/content/73514


Again, the idea that the Police are not trained to use the equipment they are being give is a farce. As I said before, one of the very first things you are taught in any level of firearm training is that you NEVER, EVER point your firearm at something in less you are ready to shoot. This goes for hunter safety classes, 4H programs, military, police firearm training and alike. The fact that these officers are walking around pointing their gun at anything that moves does not show that they are untrained to use the equipment they are given. It shows that they are being told to scare people and bait people into reacting. The fact that the police force have quickly gathered at a peaceful protest and opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas with little warning also showing this as well.

I think one of the main problems in the US is that we have to many people who want to live their imaginary worlds and are refusing to admit to things like the militarization of Americas police force. Because in doing so they have to face the reality, they have been hiding from for years.