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

The whole arresting journalists crying is stupid. Yes some cops screwed up. As soon as the police in charge found out they got pissed off that it happened and the journalists where let go.

Out of hundreds of journalists only two got arrested because of couple dummies who probably got their asses chewed out from the entire chain of command.

The testimony from the several witnesses who've actually spoken is that:

• The kid was walking with a friend
• The "cop" pulled alongside them to say something along the lines of "get the fuck out of the street"
• They responded that they were almost to their destination
• The "cop" pulled up closer, grabbed Michael Brown through the window, and shot him
• Brown and his friend ran away, Brown injured
• The "cop" hunted Brown down and shot him in the back, killing him

That's not a rumor; that's the unanimous eyewitness testimony.

Missouri has the death penalty. One of the few classes of people who really should be put to death are sociopaths who join the police to have license to shoot people. That "cop" should die, and if he doesn't the citizens of Ferguson would be completely correct to view all police as legitimate targets.

@evenflow is bang-on and not being simplistic.

Para-military equipment needs to be taken away from police forces. If they don't have the tools, they're can't use them.

Every American should be horrified at these pictures:

http://www.businessinsider.com/police-militarization-ferguson-2014-8

Liet. You're an idiot.

The witnesses are not unanimous in what happened.

As someone who is supposed to be involved in law you should know better than to make a blanket statement like that. You're letting your cop hate get the better of you.

Agreed. And every police car in America should have a camera, officers should wear a camera.

And no knock raids should be outlawed. Except for terrioism and hostage situations. Yes I know no knock has nothing to do with thos case.

Oh and it should be made 100% clear that you can photographand film police asong as you're not interfering.

I'm against the militarization of the police myself but that doesn't seem to be an issue here, the shooting of the 18 year old black man (I don't know of a single 18 year old black male who likes being called a "kid") was by a police sidearm IIRC.

Not an armored vehicle.

And as far as I'm concerned the "unarmed" is a complete non issue. Police are not expected or required to "wrestle around" with someone if they are not armed.

One factor I think is that the public has a wildly inflated expectation of what law enforcement people are capable of. They think police can for the most part subdue people one on one without using deadly force. Thus they think if police do kill someone it is never our of necessity but with malicious intent.

Real life is nowhere near a "Walker: Texas Ranger" episode where Chuck Norris takes out people carrying machine guns with spin kicks. (ignoring the fact that during the course of that series, Cordell Walker gunned down literally dozens of people as well).

While I agree, you're being idiotic if you're reducing this entirely to the militarization of police and ignoring race. You assume that if the police didn't have this gear that these riots wouldn't be happening? I think that's a bit of a stretch.

To those ready to jump on the outrage bandwagon while having next to no facts.

Rodney King

Treyvon Martin

My understanding is that the two journalists who were arrested were sitting in a McDonald's writing or filing their stories.

The Washington Post has had two reporters arrested in the last three weeks.

One in Iran, the other in Missouri.


As for the crews hit with bean bags and tear gas, if you put yourself in the middle of a shitty situation like that, don't be surprised if you get "splashed".

Please point out, exactly, where that assumption was made in my post.

Do try to keep up. Police are using military-grade equipment to assault and disperse people who are lawfully exercising their right to assemble and protest, not to mention firing tear gas at journalists who dare to record what's going on.

Police have no business shooting unarmed people, either. What, you think a badge and a gun means you have the right to murder with impunity? Perhaps cops would prefer that, but people in this country have rights.

You have had a tendency to very strong and incendiary rhetoric for long as I have known you, but with this post, you show yourself to be a full-blown nutcase, along the same lines as the ISIS extremists and the "we should go burn down the White House" people.

You should seek help. Seriously. You are really outside the bounds of reality. This post is worse than the kind of stuff Dayton or Midnight Funeral write.

I heard one of the journalists say that the police arrested him because they were clearing the McDonalds (I assume for safety reasons due to rioters being in the area and he didn't clear out quick enough.

Look at it this way. You're a cop and all hell is breaking lose. You are told by your superiors "Get those people out of McDonalds! There is a crowd gathering just down the block!!"

You go in and order the people out but some dumbass reporter hesitates because he is trying to upload his story.

What should the cop do? Say "take all the time you need!"? Imagine whats going to come back on the if someone throws a Molotov cocktail inside and the reporters ends up with some serious burns?

In general "peaceful protests" don't take place at night.

And just because someone is unarmed doesn't mean a shooting is not justified.

Just as someone being ARMED doesn't mean a shooting is justified.

Going around and throwing out things like "kid" (he wasn't) and "unarmed" are meant to be inflammatory.

Just like the media kept harping on Trayvon Martin carrying "tea and skittles" (totally irrelevant).

This is a good point.

In real life a Cordell Walker would have already been chased off the force.

What?

If you can't tell the difference between someone eating a Big Mac and someone actually working (and more than likely wearing a press credential) then you're too stupid to be trusted with enforcing the law.

From accounts that I've read, the reporters were trying to clear the area but apparently didn't do it "fast enough" for the police. One claimed that he was shoved/assaulted because he tried to leave through the "wrong" door.

I don't know any 10 year old white male that likes to be called "kid". Don't be obtuse. There's a reason the word "kid" is being used in this context. It's the same with Trayvon Martin. These are young people. Teenagers - even at 18 - can be belligerent and mouthy and ... all kinds of other things. I know when my older son was a teen - in a small ... I guess it was a town within a larger metropolis, the few times I had to deal with the police because my son and his friends were out "being teenagers", I was informed of their disrespect for police. They're teens. Whatever. I don't like cops and I'm not a teen and I give an attitude when they pull me over. But you don't hear about cops shooting innocent, unarmed white teens. Do you know why? Cuz THAT would be different.

Against the military grade equipment but you're stupid. Why? Because there is no peaceful protests here. It's riots. So yes the police are going to try and disperse the crowds.

Yeah the police are purposely ignoring the rioters and aiming at the journalists.

What's more likely: Police are intentionally targeting journalists or journalists are in the middle of the riots doing their thing and are near tear gas when it goes off?

Yes they do. So do you. Under the right circumstances of course.

Is this shooting one of those right circumstances? We don't know yet. The investigation is going on and while I can understand people being wary of the police not to worry the FBI/DOJ loves putting police officers in jail.

I call the 20-something-year olds that we hire these days "kids" because they are.

They can vote and even drink, but they're still "kids".

Evenflow reduced the whole thing to being about the military gear and not about race, you said he was bang on and not simplistic. Kinda hard not to make that assumption.

They apparently don't have things like "take back the night" marches in Arkansas, just as an example.

That's easy.

"We saw they were reporters doing their job. We advised them to leave for their safety. They refused."

Let the reporters take the blame for it.

Cops have to be smarter about these things. They've got to think on their feet. There are riots going on. The community is pissed off. Reporters are not friends of the police. So common sense tells me to handle these reporters with satin gloves instead of iron to avoid anymore PR nightmares.

I've always wanted to carry around a document that I could give to cops that basically says, "I and my estate hereby absolve you of responsibility for my safety", but they wouldn't honor it even if I did.

Well of course they won't. They can't. Decisions like that are way above their pay grade.

If they could I've no doubt they let you guys roam into a hostage situation if they thought it could get them intel.

So are all the rest of you kids here on Wordforge...

Regarding this whole situation:

Too much emotion, not enough facts.

Liet is the same idiot who said: "If the Court rules that way, the Government should ignore the Court."

He's also the one whose basically said every gun owner is a lunatic. Especially the ones on this board.

It's why I said a while back: "Once again we see that as much teeth gnashing leftists do about the right wanting to set up dictatorships it's always the leftists who end up making dictatorships."

The way I understand it, the Peaceful Protesting is being carried out, mostly by locals, during the daytime. At night, they are going home and being replaced by a bunch of violent crooks and opportunists from out of town, looking to cause mayhem.

Of course, one of the surest ways of identifying those who are only "looking to cause mayhem" is that they tend to go armed even in the shower. And eat cookies while doing it...