St Louis police murder scandal (PLUS: riots, idiotic press conferences, etc.)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Why do you arm your police again?

Apparently to keep the blacks in their place.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Governor puts Missouri Highway Patrol in charge of policing Ferguson, headed by African-American Capt. Ron Johnson:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/14/us/missouri-teen-shooting/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/14/ron-johnson-ferguson_n_5680351.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

The city government's website is pretty weird too.

If you go to www.fergusoncity.com you'll be informed that "a group of students from Dr. Robert Wilson's undergraduate history class in the Honors College at the University of Missouri-St. Louis produced a short informational video about the City of Ferguson. " Also there's an announcement for the Grand Opening of the Family Fun Fair in the Ferguson Community Center. And the city's "Alert Center" on the right is set on green for "No Alerts at this time".

You have to scroll waaaaayyyyy down to the very bottom of the homepage where you finally find this brief statement from August 9:

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All of this reminds me of these guys:

[Middle-aged Europe]

The private Facebook profile of Ferguson mayor James Knowles III can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/james.w.knowles.1

For some reason, he and apparently also his closest relatives (a Patti Knowles, a Lisa Reed-Knowles, and a Lisa Knowles Willis) have all changed their profile picture to the city arms of Ferguson now.

In his timeline, comments like the following (from a "Stasie Xombie" who has also changed her profile pic to the Ferguson city arms) can be found:

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Another FB friend of Mayor Knowles writes:

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[Middle-aged Europe]

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Says Robert McCulloch, Prosecuting Attorney for St. Louis County on Governor Nixon's decision to put the Highway Patrol in charge in Ferguson.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/gov-nixon-gives-police-control-of-ferguson-situation-to-missouri/article_0806541b-ed48-5d06-9267-323531ad6cf1.html

Thank God Obama put no federal authorities in charge, otherwise certain people would start to cry over states rights.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Steals cigars and candy from a convenience store, physically threatens the owner... SHOOT HIM TO DEATH

Obviously robbing a gas station doesn't justify execution, but if it's true it makes me a lot more inclined to believe the policeman's story.

At the very least, the friend/also criminal's account wouldn't be very credible anymore.

What is the officer's story exactly, though?

Something about Brown trying to grab for his gun or something.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Even if Brown did everything what he's accused of, it brought some serious problems into the spotlight (aside from the fact that he still didn't deserve to die):

1) Majority black towns with all-white police forces and all-white city administrations as if we were still in 1955 Alabama. (And there's also things like this statistic that St. Louis County Police happens to stop black drivers twice as often for traffic control as they do white drivers.)

2) Police militarization taken to insane levels and police forces who see crowds of average citizens as security threats.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The first part of 2) is correct, but the bolded part is pretty much true of everywhere else as well, see Stuttgart 21, in which the police also used to be quite brutal. Or Istanbul, or Kiew, etc.

That's true even though in these cases a decision had been made by the respective political leadership that the police shall act in such a brutal manner. Even in Stuttgart, it was Stefan Mappus' call that the gloves should come off. The police didn't act on its own initiative.

So, the question is to what extent the Mayor of Ferguson or the St. Louis County Executive bear responsebility for the police's conduct.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Michael Brown just looks like your regular teenaged jerk to me.

Depicting him as a violent criminal wouldn't do him justice, since all things considered he didn't do anything worse than - let's say - Justin Bieber. So, what must be cleared up is whether Brown is dead because he wasn't white and rich.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Two German journalists who had covered events on Ferguson were arrested last night. #policestate2014

[Middle-aged Europe]

DIE WELT journalist Ansgar Graw published a detailed account on how he was arrested in Ferguson. When he was handcuffed he asked the respective police officer for his name. The officer replied: "Donald Duck".

[Middle-aged Europe]

Another German journalist has been arrested in Ferguson, bringing the count to three: Ansgar Graw (Welt), Frank Herrmann (Rhein-Zeitung), Lukas Hermsmeier (Bild). The German Federation of Journalists (DJV) has issued a statement condeming the arrests:

http://www.djv.de/startseite/profil/der-djv/pressebereich-download/pressemitteilungen/detail/article/polizei-jagd-journalisten.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

Hey, it finally got its own Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ferguson_unrest

[Middle-aged Europe]

Btw, both the City of Ferguson's as well as the St. Louis County's official websites have been offline for a couple of days now due to a suspected Anonymous hacks.

http://www.fergusoncity.com/

http://www.stlouisco.com/

The State of Missouri, the Missouri National Guard, and the City of St. Louis are still there though.

[Middle-aged Europe]

A Ferguson cop does his very best to restore peace and civility to the situation.

God bless our boys in blue.

This was Lieutenant Ray Albers from the St. Ann Police Department, who has now been suspended for his behavior:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2014/08/20/cop-ferguson-protesters-will-ing-kill-you-yourself/2udTSNAO21AiVgIGmEaCkL/story.html

Of course, he was only suspended, because someone happened to film the incident and published it on the Web. Makes one think how often such stuff simply goes unnoticed/unpunished...

[Middle-aged Europe]

why are libruls always bringing race into everything?!?!?

Are you really surprised? Joe Wilson got hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations just for being a dick to the first black president. I'm sure if one of them called him a n on the House floor they could rake in a million.

I liked the comment which urges Darren Wilson to buy himself a lap dance.

[Middle-aged Europe]

What about Bell Neighbors?

Riverview looks pretty bad too. These are the two communities in St. Louis County which are even worse than Ferguson.

Places like Moline Acres seem okay.

It's also noteworthy that there's only a single town on that list with more black people on the police force than among the general population and that's University City.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Unlike some class-mates of mine, I never shoplifted anything.

Then again, I was a pretty unpopular kid in school.