Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

43 comments

  3. JanF

    Gov. Jay Nixon (D), early this morning

       “The worsening situation in Ferguson is deeply troubling, and does not represent who we are as Missourians or as Americans. While we all respect the solemn responsibility of our law enforcement officers to protect the public, we must also safeguard the rights of Missourians to peaceably assemble and the rights of the press to report on matters of public concern.

       “I have been closely monitoring the situation and will continue to be in communication with local leaders, and I will be in north St. Louis County tomorrow. As Governor, I am committed to ensuring the pain of last weekend’s tragedy does not continue to be compounded by this ongoing crisis. Once again, I ask that members of the community demonstrate patience and calm while the investigation continues, and I urge law enforcement agencies to keep the peace and respect the rights of residents and the press during this difficult time.

    What we see with our own eyes in Ferguson “does not represent who we are as Missourians or as Americans”? Prove it. Release the autopsy results and the name and work history* of the cop who killed Michael Brown. If you let it fester it will simply boil over again when the information is released. And for crying out loud, get those militarized cops the hell out of there!!! The city government needs to get control of the situation again. They need to start a conversation with leaders in the black community. You can’t tell me there is no one there who has the respect of the community, a pastor, a respected educator, a politician.

    He finally made a statement when the reporters were arrested. Coward.

    *Call me cynical, but I think that they are keeping it quiet because this is a guy who has a history of this sort of thing and who should have been fired a long time ago.  

  5. JanF

    Some Tweets (not embedded. fits more):

    @DaveSFoley Americans have the right to assemble, even if it is dark, even if they are black, even if they are angry. #Ferguson

    ~

    @allanbrauer: .@GovJayNixon Place the cop who shot #MikeBrown under arrest. He’ll be safe in police custody.”

    ~

    @UniteBlue Conservatives who are terrified that big government will take away their rights seem to think the police state in #Ferguson is totally cool.

    ~

    @wccubbison Tanks, snipers, shields, assault rifles, random arrests. But the 1 guy who throws a bottle means entire protest “isn’t peaceful”

    ~

    @jbarro Shouldn’t Gov. Jay Nixon be instructing police to follow the law, rather than “urging” them to do so

    ~

    @theonlyadult Every day I’m grateful that SCOTUS ended racism, because otherwise I’d very confused. #Ferguson

    ~

  7. JanF

    Wesley Lowery

    As I sat there, many armed officers came in – some who were dressed as normal officers, others who were dressed with more gear.

    Initially, both Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post and I were asked for identification. I was wearing my lanyard, but Ryan asked why he had to show his ID. They didn’t press the point, but one added that if we called 911, no one would answer.

    Then they walked away. Moments later, the police reemerged, telling us that we had to leave. I pulled my phone out and began recording video.

    An officer with a large weapon came up to me and said, “Stop recording.”

    I said, “Officer, do I not have the right to record you?”

    He backed off but told me to hurry up. So I gathered my notebook and pens with one hand while recording him with the other hand.

    As I exited, I saw Ryan to my left, having a similar argument with two officers. I recorded him, too, and that angered the officer. As I made my way toward the door, the officers gave me conflicting information.

    One instructed me to exit to my left. As I turned left, another officer emerged, blocking my path.[…]

    As I turned, my backpack, which was slung over one shoulder, began to slip. I said, “Officers, let me just gather my bag.” As I did, one of them said, “Okay, let’s take him.”

    Multiple officers grabbed me. I tried to turn my back to them to assist them in arresting me. I dropped the things from my hands.

    “My hands are behind my back,” I said. “I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting.” At which point one officer said: “You’re resisting. Stop resisting.”

    That was when I was most afraid – more afraid than of the tear gas and rubber bullets.

    There’s more. They were arrested for “trespassing in a McDonalds”.

    When I was watching the Twitter stream last night, someone reported (LA Times reporter?) that they had called the Police Chief and told him that two reporters had been arrested. The police chief said “they did WHAT?”. Apparently he did not know they had done it and then called the jail to have them released. Think things are out of control?

  8. DeniseVelez

    it elsewhere

    Al Jazeera journalists teargassed by security forces – in Ferguson, Missouri, USA

    http://www.vox.com/2014/8/13/6…

    Here is a sentence that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has ever followed even a little news out of the Middle East:

    Journalists from the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera were attacked by state security forces today and blanketed in tear gas, as they attempted to film an ongoing protest; this is the latest in a string of attacks on journalists by security forces.

    Now see if you can guess the country. It’s not Egypt. Not Tunisia.

    Nope: this happened, exactly as described, in the United States of America on Wednesday night, in the Missouri town of Ferguson. Here is the video of Al Jazeera America journalists in Ferguson being clearly targeted with tear gas by Ferguson police (apologies for the poor quality):

  10. Portlaw

    East.

    The only hope I can find is that this might start the beginning of change in the brutal targeting of some of our citizens. That may be optimistic. I felt after Sandy Hook things would change.

    Right now, am waiting to hear more politicians denounce this and see some sort of control of these out of control so=called law officers.

    Forgot to say, good for Howard students!

  11. JanF

    Bob Cesca, Daily Beast

    1) The Bundy Ranch: On one hand, a large group of armed white men marched in a line of battle while at least one civilian rifleman in a sniper’s perch trained his weapon at Bureau of Land Management officials. In reaction, the government didn’t fire a single round or canister of tear gas, and eventually retreated, conceding the disputed ground to the Bundy militias. It’s important to note that the protesters turned out in support of a man who refused to pay his taxes and grazed his cattle without paying the accompanying fees. This man, Cliven Bundy, and his supporters threatened secession and armed revolt against the United States government.

    2) Ferguson, Missouri: On the other hand, unarmed African American protesters in Ferguson, enraged and grieving from the death of an (again) unarmed black man named Michael Brown who was shot in the back by a police officer, have been confronted for several days now by police in full military regalia. This time, the rifleman in the sniper’s perch is a police officer – his scope trained on the protesters.

    I read that Fox News’ Sean Hannity is just fine with the aggressive police presence in Ferguson … the polar opposite of his reaction to the BLM officers confronting armed WHITE ranchers in Utah.

  12. JanF

    The militarization of our police forces. Smartypants speaks to this and also shares this story:

    Back in the early 1990’s a Deputy Chief told me something that has stuck with me for a long time […] He said that the police department would be where it needs to be when over half the officers are women. That’s because police work is mostly about negotiation and women tend to be better at that.

    I was reminded of that a few days ago while I was listening to a program about changing careers on public radio. One of the people who called in was a cop who said he should have become a farmer like his dad because police work was such a disappointment. He went on to talk about how he expected to be chasing “bad guys,” but instead found he spent most of his time mediating and negotiating community conflicts.

    To me, that gets to the heart of our problem with law enforcement. We envision it as “good guys vs bad guys” and then recruit people for the job who want to stick it to the “bad guys.” Racial sensitivity training is never going to cut it when the problem goes much deeper. Until we get to the place where we see law enforcement as a service working for/with the community and recruit folks who are good at doing that, we won’t be able to fix this mess.  

  13. JanF

    That particular hashtag seems to have done its job.

    I noticed a few offensive counter-tweets to that but mostly it was positive.

    Another one is #IGotTheTalk:

    #IGotTheTalk, elevat[ed] the conversation surrounding Brown’s death to how people of color are taught to handle themselves when confronted by the police and racial profiling. Users shared experiences from when parents or role models took them aside and explained that the color of their skin dictated whether they would get stopped by police and that those confrontations frequently resulted in violence or death.

  14. JanF

    The True Stereotypes Behind Michael Brown’s Death

    What too few realize is that the main reason so many people think of racism as the core of being black in modern America is the cops: the relationship between police forces and young black men, and how often the former kill the latter under suspicious circumstances.

    I am the last person to jump in with overheated rhetoric that America is engaged in a “war against black men.” There is no evidence of anything so deliberate. However, when more temperately minded people say that black lives are valued less in the clinch than white ones, jump in I must, because it’s true.

    The Two Americas theme again:

    A few weeks ago, white 18-year-old Steve Lohner could tote a gun around in Aurora, Colorado (where in 2012 James Holmes gunned 12 people to death and injured 70 others), practically taunting law enforcement  to mess with him, in a quest to make a showy point about gun rights. Who among us can pretend that if a black kid was doing the same thing he wouldn’t be much more likely to wind up killed? Those inclined to pretend might note that meanwhile, black 22-year-old John Crawford was killed two weeks later for holding a toy gun at a Wal-Mart in Ohio.

    This kind of thing sits in black American minds and creates a sense of alienation.

    He goes on to discuss how the black community needs to discuss the perceptions created by what he calls The Violence.

    Be clear: Michael Brown’s murder was grievously unjustified regardless. And forget the tired canard that the black community doesn’t care about black-on-black murder, which could only be leveled by someone who doesn’t know much about black people. Stop the Violence events are a staple in black neighborhoods.

    Yet, I wonder if the black community could step it up some on this. We need to devote some more energy to figuring out what we can do about The Violence, because among all else that it destroys, it feeds a perception bias that ends up killing innocents like Michael Brown.

    He suggests that it is not fair to expect white America to understand that The Violence probably comes from discrimination and the institutionalized racism that leads to wildly skewed unemployment rates. Perhaps not, but it is, in my mind, up to white America to end the discrimination and give every American economic opportunity. It is not like this is a surprise in 2014: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was talking about this same issue in 1964.

  15. princesspat

    Ferguson’s Police Got Free Military Gear Straight From The Pentagon


    The images coming out of Ferguson could be critical in instigating the debate. Dansky and others have noted that police militarization dates back to the 1980s. But the prevalence of social media and its ability to share the kind of images that caused TPM’s Josh Marshall to ask “Ferguson or Fallujah” have made the issue more difficult to ignore.

    “It has become increasingly difficult – if not impossible – to distinguish between law enforcement officers on the ground,” Dansky said, “and soldiers fighting overseas.”

    Turning Policemen Into Soldiers, the Culmination of a Long Trend

    The images from Missouri of stormtrooper-looking police confronting their citizens naturally raises the question: how the hell did we get to this point? When did the normal cops become Navy SEALs? What country is this, anyway?

    There will be more and more mainstream coverage of the modern militarization of the police, a phenomenon mainly of the post-9/11 years. For reference/aggregation purposes, here is a guide to further reading:

  16. JanF

    Word is that Gov. Nixon will be having Ferguson police stand down and have the state police take over the situation.

    Ed Kilgore: The Avoidable Ferguson Disaster

    Perhaps I’m being naive here, but the violence seems to have been avoidable, even after the initial violence of Michael Brown’s slaying. Consider this snippet from Cobb’s account:

       The people who live in Canfield Green, the apartment complex where Brown was shot while on his way to visit his grandmother, not only witnessed his death but were subjected to an undignified wake: his prone figure sprawled on the street for four hours in the unforgiving August sun, with blood on the asphalt-an indignity in sharp contrast with the quick departure of the officer from the scene. “This was brazen,” [Etefia] Umana said to me. “It was done out in the open.”

    It won’t be easy for Nixon and other interveners to turn back the clock and return everyone’s attention to the original “story” and secure accountability for what happened to Brown. But removing the alleged perpetrators from the scene instead of relying on them to keep the peace is a critical first step.

    Senator Claire McCaskill (D) from Ferguson:

    “We need to de-militarize this situation-this kind of response by the police has become the problem instead of the solution,” she said in a statement. “I obviously respect law enforcement’s work to provide public safety, but my constituents are allowed to have peaceful protests, and the police need to respect that right and protect that right. Today is going to be a new start, we can and need to do better.”

    McCaskill’s office announced that she will speak with Attorney General Eric Holder about the “unacceptable” situation in Ferguson.

    Even Ted Freaking Cruz: “Reporters should never be detained — a free press is too important — simply for doing their jobs,”

    But here is the mayor of Ferguson, with his head firmly up his nether regions:

    Ferguson, Mo., Mayor James Knowles defended local law enforcement amid growing criticism about their tactics during the protests sparked by the police shooting of an unarmed African-American teen.

    Knowles said Thursday on MSNBC that there is “a lot of unlawfulness going around these peaceful protests.” Two police officers have been shot at during the demonstrations, he said, which started on Sunday after the shooting of Michael Brown and have resulted in tear gas and rubber bullets being fired into the crowd.

    “That’s why we have to be vigilant and I can’t second-guess these officers. They are the professionals. They have learned from many years of dealing with these incidents across the nation,” Knowles said. “Now we’re just going to have to try our best to maintain order, and we ask the citizens to help us comply with that.”

    “I am confident that all the law enforcement agencies that are participating are professionals,” he said. “and if there is some videos that show someone losing their temper in a highly stressful situation, I’m sure they’re under a great deal of stress and though it does not make it okay, they are human and I can understand their frustrations as well. Just as the protesters are frustrated.”

    Er, mayor? It is your job to manage the activities of the people you have placed in positions of responsibility. You might call it “second guessing” but most people call it “holding them accountable”. How about that guy gets de-elected as the first order of business?  

  18. JanF

    Specifically, this guy: Captain Ronald Johnson.

    TPM gathered some tweets from Wesley Lowery, the WaPo reporter arrested Wednesday night.

    @WesleyLowery Cpt. Johnson of Highway Patrol hugging residents as they pass during march. “I grew up here!” he notes. #ferguson

    @WesleyLowery “When I see a young lady cry because of fear of this uniform, that’s a problem. We need to solve that” – Cpt. Johnson #ferguson

    This one:

    Closing it out …

    Matt Ford ‏@fordm

    Nothing could have proven the futility and stupidity of last night’s police escalation more than the tranquility in Ferguson tonight.

  20. JanF

    The Missouri governor indicated that he thought it was best to do that and not wait for the ACLU lawsuit to compel it.

    Looks like the St. Louis County prosecutor, McCullough, was not too happy with his boys losing their toys: Tweets.

  21. DeniseVelez

    Ferguson unrest prompts Lt. Gen. Russel Honore to repeat ‘weapons down!’

    Russel Honore, the Army lieutenant general, who brought some calm to the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is critical of the police response to protesters in Ferguson, Mo. People in the St. Louis suburb have been protesting the killing of Michael Brown, a teenager killed by a police officer there.  Ferguson authorities say that Brown had fought with the police officer. Witnesses say that he was running away with his hands in the air when that officer fired the shots that killed him.

    You may remember the footage of Honore in downtown New Orleans days after the city’s levees fell and there were reports of widespread looting.  When he saw the soldiers under his command with their guns raised, he yelled at them: “Weapons down, damn it!”

    It was an important moment. Honore made sure his soldiers understood that the people they were encountering on the streets of New Orleans were not their enemy, and they were not to treat them as such.

    Honore, who is retired now, expressed the same sentiment in a discussion on CNN Thursday morning.  He questioned the training that the police officers have had.  “Any time we have policemen pointing weapons at American citizens, they need to go through retraining,” Honore added. “And I think we are about 24 hours too late.”

    http://www.nola.com/opinions/i…

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