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| Ferguson, MO |
These are the people who keep the peace. They patrol our neighborhoods, and come from our communities. We have friends or relatives on the force and the tradition is a proud one in America as being part of the great enterprise that is our democracy. Lurking behind these ideals is another more practical reason; These are the people responsible for our safety from crime, anarchy, and the loss of our property and even our lives.
If we can't trust them, the world becomes a very scary place.
But to presume them to be infallible executors of our safety is to become willfully blind to the corruption, poor judgment, and willful abuse that tend to lurk like a misty smoke around the accumulation of power over other people. The police have a lot of that power, and because of that they are a group from which we should be willing to demand a much higher level of accountability and be much more willing to look beyond that smoke for possible fire when the flickers begin to show.
Power corrupts.
Total power... well... You know.
Some Facts to Know
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| 8/18/14 - ABC News |
Protestors have been told that they must keep moving or be arrested for 'unlawful assembly'. (CNN)
Tear gas and stun grenades have been used to corral protesters and break up gatherings without any inciting threat to property or person. (MSNBC, Fox, ABC)
Amnesty International has, for the first time ever, put human rights observers on US soil to observe a police/civilian conflict. (Washington Post)
Any alarm bells ringing yet?
For the last twelve years or so, we've been fighting an anti-insurgent war overseas.
How is it that we have been spending billions upon billions of dollars and year after year in wars overseas managing the interface between local populations enraged by conflict and infused with insurgents and we still can't manage to constructively handle a local town grieving and protesting the killing of one of their children? Have we learned nothing?
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| 8/18/14 - Photo, ABC news. |
Short of the insightful community outreach and apology by Capt. Ron Johnson, the actions taken by local police in Ferguson have done little more than stoke the flames in Ferguson. The police officer who killed the teenager in question is not in custody, is still being paid by the taxes collected from the parents of the boy he killed. To make matters worse, he has apparently left the state.
The military equipment, badly misused and overpowered for the situation, has frightened, aggravated, and elevated the emotions involved while drawing in violent anti-government opportunists from all over the country. Instead of outreach, the police have been focusing on containment and repression of the demonstrations, treating the citizens like children and in effect denying through their actions that the people have a right to be angry and upset.
The police shot a an unarmed boy and are effectively punishing the community for it.
Think about that.
The worst of the worst in this are the apologists; Those blind progressives, libertarians-in-name-only and 'small government'-when-its-convenient conservatives that sift through the events of the last week to find a looter, a burning item, or a broken street sign and yell "See! See! Tanks and tear gas and machine guns and snipers are TOTALLY justified because someone stole a box of Ho-Ho's from the local supermarket while the police were busy playing soldier."
Ferguson is a tragedy.
It's a tragedy because of the loss of a young life to police gunfire.
It's a tragedy because instead of helping the community grieve, the police chose to lock them up.
Its' a tragedy because apparently we've learned nothing for all the money and lives we've spent handling exactly these kinds of issues abroad.
It's a tragedy because people are, despite all the evidence to the contrary, willing not just to give the Ferguson police the benefit of the doubt, but to ignore the long and torrid history of police aggression against its African American population in favor of nitpicking until they find a reason for it to be okay to treat residents like animals.
In 2009, the Ferguson police arrested the wrong black man, Henry Davis, and beat him repeatedly in his cell. When it was found out he was the wrong man, they claimed their video equipped jail had no video of the assault, and charged him with four counts of destroying police property.
Because he bled on their uniforms.
How much has changed in 5 years, do you think? What will it take for Americans to shrug off the justifications and hold this police department accountable for its incompetence?
Will you?
Ferguson is a symptom of what the wars and conflicts of the last ten years have done to us. It's a sign that the conflicts haven't just taken lives and money from our people, they're starting to take our collective soul. It's time to say enough is enough, and begin back-tracking the vast power we've given the government to chase our enemies from 911, real and imagined, before our country becomes the next source of 'anti-democratic' conflict and our civilians the next insurgents to be rooted out and pacified.
Andre, I have been following the situation in Ferguson closely mostly on NPR, a source that I trust. I have been listening to hear the circumstances surrounding the shooting and have not yet hear about the details. I expect that they will come sometime after the investigation. I appreciate the comments you make about holding the police to a higher standard than "normal" citizens. I understand that police are human and some officers take liberty with the position of power that they hold. I also believe that many blacks are "profiled" by police. I also believe that a person is to be afforded a fair judgement on their actions. As with most situations the initial reaction is not always the correct reaction and many times people take advantage of situations to promote their own agenda or just to "do stuff". As a person that lived thru the unrest of the 60's I am not so quick to place all the blame on the police. I agree that it is our right to protest and perceived injustice and so times that includes civil disobedience, however those that protest have to share in the consequence of their actions as well as the officials attempting to calm the situation. I applaud those leaders and citizens that are promoting constructive civil protest. I only hope is that those responsible conduct a fair investigation and that a trust judgement and consequence is provided to the appropriate people involved in the initial and ongoing situation in Ferguson. I also hope that the underlying circumstances surrounding the entire situation are dealt with in an effective manner. Sometimes this actually occurs, but unfortunate history tells us that this is not always the case.
ReplyDeleteA reasonable and understandable position to take for the killing, Doug.
DeleteBut the primary issue I address in Ferguson isn't the slaying of Michael Brown. It's the militarized reaction to the pain and outrage of the community they serve met by military insurgent tactics designed to contain, control, and repress those people.
When Trayvon Martin was shot, my position was close to the one you describe: Wait for the details, the the courts sort it out, get the facts. The police there were still questionable in their behavior with the population, but with Ferguson, they were utterly incompetent.
You don't need any more information from the situation to see how badly managed and wildly escalated the relationship with the community got. Police decided that neighborhood was the enemy and needed to be occupied by force instead of stepping into that community and being a part of the grieving and investigating process. It was us v. them instead of all of us v. an unfortunate event.
It is this growing tendency to 'send in the troops' against protesters, minorities, and communities that I feel is the deadly turn our police mentality has reached and needs immediate and national attention.