In the movie The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan attempts to imagine what it might look like if a dangerous terrorist with a warhead confronted the military. That's the top picture.

The bottom picture is actual police response to a peaceful, daylight protest involving 100 persons in Ferguson, MO on Wednesday.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bu9F8R-IQAIhPqj.jpg

Kinda makes ya think. :88) Wudda we need fiction for?

Is this the same "peaceful" protest that turned into a mob riot with full scale looting?

:haha: Yeah, there's a definite gung-ho attitude there, makes me wonder how long they'd last in the NYPD. :doh: :dead::dead:

Still, the local authorities seem to have managed to pull their collective heads out of their backsides and put someone with a bit of sense in charge and it helps that he's the right colour, so to speak.
Let's hear it for Captain Johnson:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvCInTVIAAEc_Ey.png

"When I see a young lady cry b/c of fear of this uniform then that is a problem” :yep:

Well said, sir. He's also ordered police to remove their gas masks, and is setting up media staging areas. Sounds like a man who a) knows how to de-escalate the situation and b) knows how to handle the media. Hopefully this thing will wind down now.

I think that this is another lesson to the US PD that using overwhelming force against a reasonably small protest in an attempt to crush it does not work, not back in the old days and especially not now when everyone has a camera on their mobile phone.

Now I don't know if Brown instigated a skirmish with the police, or whether it was an overzealous copper, either is entirely possible. However the reaction of the local PD to the incident and to the protests of the public has only served to keep this unrest going as long as it has. I mean, this protest is only a small fraction of the size of the 2011 London riots, and we didn't even use tear gas during them...heck, we didn't even use Baton rounds...we just sort of saturated the area with police and waited for the rain. :haha: So I think really in the grand scheme of things the response was somewhat disproportion to the level of violence in Ferguson.

I guess we'll just have to see what happens tonight after the vigil, needless to say Alex Jones is loving it: http://www.ustream.tv/RealAlexJones :haha:

I didn't see or hear of any of that during last nights protests, a couple of molotovs thrown but that's it. I think the only thing that's been looted is the local QuikTrip, and that was on Sunday.

:haha:

Hey, if a couple of molotovs are considered a full scale mob riot in America then you've had a very lucky life. :har: :03:

Bingo :D

And likewise, I think it's an incredibly naive view that the actions of some/few invalidate the wider concerns and causes involved. And if it does, why such vocal American support for a particular side in the conflict in the Ukraine? More than a couple of molotovs thrown there. Interesting how that works.

I thought this article makes some great points:

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/ame.../+leahfinnegan

If it walks, talks and acts like a duck,.... it may very well come to believe it is a duck. That's what is happening with our police. We equip them as soldiers and they are going to start acting like soldiers.

https://medium.com/the-nib/officer-f...y-28e8d9399bbb

Good article August, and I agree with you. I am in support of the police as an entity, my grandfather was a policeman, and yes, he was moderately racist too, but that was in the 1950s, and we're supposed to have moved on, the police are a force for the public, not for the state, and institutional racism and disproportionate force has no place in a modern police force, in any country.

I'm sorry this young man lost his life, whatever the reason was. This guy lost his life after an altercation with a cop. But more kids lose their lives at the hands of other kids, you find yourself starting to get numb to it, sadly.

But when there are over 200 murders in Chicago so far this year, we hear about it all the time. Throw in the murders from other large cities with illegal guns every where (and no I'm not against guns) its starts to be very repetitive in the news. Sad that we have become that way, unless a cop shoots someone. Where are the protests in Chicago? Aren't those kids lives as valuable as this kids who was killed in Ferguson? So if kids kill kids, its just the way it is, but if a cop shoots a kid, we protest. Makes sense to me.

And no, I'm not taking the cops side in this shooting, have no clear idea as to what happened.

Ferguson police have only three black officers out of 53, in a town that is almost 70% black. They are not part of the community. I doubt many of them even live there.

I believe that it is vital that a communities police (and firemen and paramedics too) be an actual part of the communities that they serve. Really a part, not from another town or even a different part of town but lives down the street around the corner, goes to the same churches, has kids in the same schools kind of part.

Good point August. I'm at least happy the focus has now moved to somewhere other than Santa Rosa.

I always fail to find sympathy when civil unrest is lowered to an excuse for looting, but it always happens and ruins any chance of meaningful dialogue. Humans, in general, are really good at being self serving opportunists, and who can really blame them? This amorality spans all classes unfortunately.

Cheers,

Disgusted with Man

:agree:

@eddie The probable reason why there weren't riots in Chicago or elsewhere after people have been gunned down is that people are becoming desensitized by hearing the same story in the news every day, at first it's like "OMG SOMEONE GOT SHOT!!!!", now it's more like "Oh someone got shot, whatever.", it's gotten down to the point where more people don't care just so long as it doesn't happen to them or someone they really care about.

Granted it is getting really ridiculous when it gets to the point when people start to fear the cops more then anything else, I told my folks once after seeing a cop at a local store, "You know I'm more worried about being shot by a cop then a burglar these days.". I mean seriously what happens when members of a community really do start to fear those who are supposed to protect and serve? I also think that police officers are starting to get desensitized just by the nature of their military style training, yes in some cases split second timing is needed but the use of deadly force isn't always necessary even though cops are supposed to be trained that deadly force is always the last resort it's becoming the first resort more and more. Simply put cops should be cops not SEALS with roid rage.

A lot depends on the cops approach to policing regardless of where they come from. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-0...-shift/5673588

Well, have no clue what happened if there's no video/audio.

Cops have gotten out of control, even in our small town you would think they're the dang Delta Force with all their garb.

Sure lawyers are getting excited.

Are they all on heightened alert?
 

I got pulled over yesterday.:haha:

Well said. A community's police should mirror the community


If true http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...loody-lie.html

then possibly the local PD is the problem.

Yes the police force should mirror the community. But then no police force in the country does yet they don't seem to have the problems Ferguson has. Ferguson if you ask me is a small little hell hole with 22 percent of its 21,000 population on the dole, Im surprised they can find anyone black or white to go look for a job let alone work there.

Do you have first hand knowledge that all of those residents are on Welfare and why should it concern you if they are?
If we didn't have those social safety nets, you'd see a much, much higher rate of crime everywhere.
Still, we see more crime than there should be because the Police seem to be fighting a war against the general population and acting as cash collectors for the governments they work for.
My local bank branch has been robbed twice in the last two months and the corner quickie mart has been robbed several times and I live in what's considered a rural area.
Likely the work of desperate folk who are way down on their luck.

I'm glad the night passed peacefully in Ferguson, but it looks like as of this morning the young man gunned down by the police is no longer a martyr. Anyone who has had the misfortune to be on the business end of a Michael Brown is changing the channel.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvFZ9xgIIAAgCZW.jpg