They're tear gassing peaceful protesters and arresting journalists in Ferguson tonight.

Not looters, mind you. Just protesters and journalists.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/reporters-ryan-reilly-and-wesley-lowery-arrested-ferguson#

What will it be, Wordforge? Outrage or apathy?

I'm mad as hell but let's face it: there's just nothing I can do about it.

This is exactly why small towns shouldn't even have "riot gear".

Peaceful? Where?

In a town that's 67% black with a 93% white police force, is it any surprise that the city is rioting after the police killed an unarmed young black male? I can't blame them one bit.

Boy, these pigs better calm down, or people are going to start taking a baseball bat to their faces.

Putting aside the shooting how is the police responding to rioting and looting = tear gassing innocent protesters? (the journalist part I'll give you but I don't blame all the police just the dumb ones on the scene)

A highly questionable shooting that has national attention - so the follow up mentality of way to many "mourners" "What do you say we go out and loot and pillage our neighborhood, I could use a LED TV - that will show whitey we care about our fallen brother"

Thank you! I agree in a majority black town they need more black cops. That said - you can't FORCE blacks to become cops.
Also the standards for employment shouldn't be lowered.

Where is your evidence that that is what occurred?

Government. Let's give the dimmest bulbs in high school military hardware, what could go wrong?

Another view on the arrests of journalists.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html?tid=HP_lede

No one here seems concerned about the initial incident because the shooter was a cop, otherwise there would already be a multipage thread about it.

Maybe it's time big government supporters started policing their own?

I'm still not sure what the original incident was. All I've heard is white cop shot black teen. Not why.

Why the fuck would standards need to be lowered in order to hire black cops?

Also if the cops they do have are skittish enough to need to shoot unarmed teenagers and dumb enough to arrest members of the press without cause how much lower could standards possibly get?

I'm not on board with those saying Obama should be all over this, there is a chain of command, the governor of Missouri should be first in line for a response.

However, a good federal response would be to suspend all programs that are transferring military hardware to municipal and local law enforcement agencies. Acknowledge the problem, otherwise we're left thinking that this is what the feds have in mind as they passive aggressively militarize lower levels of law enforcement.

It's worse than that, even. There is a 2:1 population ratio, but consider the following:

• traffic stops, 7:1
• searches, 12:1
• 1 in 3 whites searched has drugs or other contraband
• 1 in 5 blacks searched has drugs or other contraband

So the predominately white police force disproportionately stops blacks, even though the incidence of stop worthy activity is higher among whites. In the other thread, Packard suggested that blacks might have reason to feel that the social contract is broken. These are some of the reasons.

Are you really that naive?
You think the police force being 95% white is a coincidence and happened because "blacks don't want to become cops"?
And why would standards need to be lowered to employ blacks?

I wish you were less naive, I wish you were less stupid, and most of all I wish you'd stop being such a disgusting racist. You don't think it would be easy to find blacks who are more qualified, more intelligent and less hateful than a random white racist fuckhead like... say... oldfella?

I have no idea how common places like Ferguson are. I'm going to guess that they're probably more numerous that I'd like to imagine.

I'm speaking particularly of places where white people get to run rampant over the black population and abuse them with impunity, as appears to have happened (and be happening) here.

9/11 changed everything.

So this is all about race and not the militarization of police? Telling.

This isn't about one thing. Militarization of the police force sure is a factor. You can criticize one thing and still be aware of other problems. The world is complex. Deal with it.

No, it's not. Power corrupts. Limit power. It's that simple.

Some of us have been on that beat long before you logged your dual, but you knew that already.

The two are intimately linked.

Nothing is ever that simple. Come to the real world--it's complicated, but more interesting.

Wow, so you've finally managed to read The Lord of the Rings (or watched the movies I guess) and now you think you know everything about the world. Power corrupts and that's that. No complexity whatsoever.

Keep reading, Frodo.

The truth is still to be determined, but I've heard a variety of rumors.

• First off, please note that the teen was unarmed.
• He was questioned by police either
  
  • a) because he and some friends were out late at night/causing a disturbance, or
    
  • b) he was a suspect in a robbery case, or
    
  • c) other rumor I haven't heard yet.
• According to witnesses, at some point there was a struggle for the cop's weapon (he went for the gun)
  • by some accounts, a shot was fired during that struggle
  • that alleged shot may have hit the black teen
• After the struggle for the weapon, the teen started to flee
  • most accounts agree that he was shot while fleeing

Rioting and looting DID occur. It's been well documented in both regular and social media. Go to Youtube and search for "Ferguson Quiktrip looting" and you'll find video evidence. That same QT was later burned to the ground.

"Small town" is a misnomer and is highly misleading in this context. Ferguson has roughly 21,000 residents, and is a suburban town closely surrounded by many other cities/towns/villages in the greater St. Louis Metro area (20th largest metro area in USA, ~2.9M population). I'm not even sure if Ferguson owned their own riot gear of if they borrowed it from other area law enforcement units.

Oldfella's lack of tact aside, blacks do on average score lower on standaridized tests like those that I would assume one would take for Law Enforcement....and that is a fault that lay with the shitty conditions of inner city schools, or any school in a poor are, whether in a Chicago 'hood, an LA barrio or an Appalachian trailer park.

So, it goes right back to privaledge.

Who said that? Militarization of the police gives higher activation to existing problems. The reason a militarized force is an issue is because the foundation is corrupt. So here is an example of the corrupt foundation, exaggerated by military equipment and tactics.

Not taking the bait, this is how it happens. In fact it's a classic play.

Thus thread ain't about me. It is about the string, militarized arm of government. Killing kids, invading neighborhoods, arresting journalists. Never hitched myself to that wagon.

Also it's being ignored that the police forces responding to the riots is the county police forces. The police force of Ferguson has a role of course but it's not the main player in charge of law enforcement in Ferguson now.