When I saw the lede foto on the Times home page just now -- a bunch of heavily armed cops in front of a military Hummer on massive steroids -- I originally almost passed the story by because I thought it was another story about Iraq or Gaza. Nope. Small-town Murrica. The latest in Cops on Parade: In Ferguson, Missouri, as you probably well know, an unarmed 18-year-old black man, Mike Brown, two days from beginning college, was fatally shot by a cop with anywhere up to 10 bullets. The body was left lying in the street for hours. The police still refuse to release the alleged shooters name. The cops have shown up in full military gear at what were peaceable protests, ramping up the threat factor and trying to demonize the protesters in the public eye as some sorts of wild animals. (Note I said the protesters, not the nighttime looters -- theres no excuse for ripping apart the lives of innocent people in your community.) And they made thinly veiled threats to journalists, saying they couldnt guarantee their safety. And in the process of keeping the peace, theyve unleashed rubber bullets, tear gas and arrests -- because they can. The state senator representing the district was one of the dozens of people they gassed, and a St. Louis alderman was among the dozens they arrested. Wednesday, two reporters, one from The Washington Post and one from The Huffington Post, were arrested and roughed up at a McDonalds for the crime of taking a cops photo -- an action thats not only perfectly legal, but which has been upheld in courts dozens of times. Add to that the latest shooting -- of Ezell Ford in Los Angeles, by the LAPD, reportedly three times in the back as he lay in the street. Reportedly, he had some emotional problems, but the cops in his community knew that. Another unarmed black man. And the NYPDs killing of Eric Garner on Staten Island three weeks ago. A father and husband, in his early 40s -- another unarmed black man -- choked to death for all to see on a phone video. All for allegedly illegally selling untaxed cigarettes. The transformation of local police in America from donuts to military forces has been frightening in both its speed and its accumulation of enough gear to overrun a small country. To some degree since 9/11, but especially since Occupy. The NYPDs actions especially brought with them a sense of impunity -- if cops in New York could get away with treating the peaceable Occupy protesters the way they did, trampling due process and breaking laws they didnt like, guess its perfectly fine for every other force in the country, right? What small-town police force -- not department, but force -- needs the goddamned armory thats on display in Ferguson? If America is truly the Land of the Free (TM) that it proclaims to be -- so very loudly and with so many flags made by sweatshop labor in China -- then if were gonna excessively arm the police, the first thing we need to arm them with is a copy of the goddamned Constitution. Or whatever is left of it that hasnt been turned into toilet paper yet. A mandatory course in Constitutional law that needs to be passed before theyre even issued a gun. nytimes/2014/08/14/us/missouri-teenager-and-officer-scuffled-before-shooting-chief-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSum&module=photo-spot-region®ion=photo-spot&WT.nav=photo-spot&_r=0
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 05:54:36 +0000
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