Whole new vibe at today's Ferguson protest. And by vibe we mean less tanks, guns, tear gas

boing
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It was the governor who sent him there and made the St. Louis county police back out.

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Why hello, Mr Mamet. Dog my cats indeed.

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So this kind of LE response only comes after a teenager is murdered and tear gas is fired? How would Occupy Wallstreet have ended if the protesters had been treated as citizens?

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Time was that police used to have to brutalize unarmed protesters with the things they already had on hand, like night sticks and german shepherds and fire hoses.

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Is anyone else afraid of what these now disgraced county police might do?

It seems one officer might think this is still a tinderbox ready to go, and he is just the match needed to prove that the previous heavy handed response was necessary.

As with OWS, weren’t there non-OWS agents (undercover law enforcement) inside trying to stir things up there?

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You’re welcome.

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Wow, you really don’t get the idea of multiple factors contributing to a problem? I think it’s a combination of things, with racism, poor training, bad police culture, and the avalanche of military equipment contributing significantly to what happened here. I have some experience and interest in the military gear aspect, so that’s what I brought up. Never claimed it was the only factor.
Or are you just disagreeing for the fun of it? Either way, no thanks.

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I’m seriously worried it’s going to hit the fan tomorrow night in Oakland.

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What a difference having some professionals show up can make. Cpt. Johnson seems like a real stand-up, take-charge-in-an-appropriate-way kind of guy.

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31

When the police bring tanks,

the people bring Thomas the Tank.

(link)

There’s a vine:

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The gear is a symptom, the chain of causality is not unclear. It may have made things worse, exacerbated things, but it definitely wasn’t a cause of the problem, because the problem existed long before the gear did. In a way, the gear might have even actually helped - it let the local police overplay their hand and draw national attention.

The state police undoubtedly have access to the same exact gear, and yet the response is night and day.

Not that enabling the asshole locals is good, mind you, but it doesn’t really seem to be a factor in how they treat the populace at large here.

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You’re absolutely right, I don’t think it’s right to judge anybody, based on me sitting here surfing the internet. But it’s perfectly valid to judge a situation. In this case there’s a whole pile of evidence to say that somebody gunned down an unarmed kid. Like I said, I do not know of any circumstance in which that is just. Even if somebody is shooting at cops and it’s the only option, it’s still not just.

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Good. Like I said earlier, they needed to bring in people with out the emotional involvement of the local cops.

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All that domestic military hardware is out of sight, but it cannot and should not be out of mind.

Until it’s scrapped and discarded, the temptation to abuse it will be right there waiting for the next unsavory, dishonest police department to seize.

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I wasn’t disagreeing with you.

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I’ve been scouring the Internet, but I haven’t been able to find any images of tanks in Ferguson, just armored vehicles. Has it been confirmed that there were actual tanks?

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I think just armored vehicles. “Tank” has become a generic term it seems.

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Every picture I’ve seen has been of APCs (or armored trucks,) so not actual tanks. Many of them seem to be labeled as “rescue vehicles,” but they still have weapon ports / mounts. They may not be even scout tanks, but they’re still more than overkill for the duties they’re performing.

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The image reminded me of the old Texas Ranger Story “one riot, one ranger”.

FROM WIKI
One of the most enduring phrases associated with the Rangers today is One Riot, One Ranger. It is somewhat apocryphal in that there was never actually a riot; rather, the phrase was coined by Ranger Captain William “Bill” McDonald, who was sent to Dallas in 1896 to prevent the illegal heavyweight prize fight between Pete Maher and Bob Fitzsimmons that had been organized by Dan Stuart and patronized by the eccentric “Hanging Judge” Roy Bean of Langtry, Texas. According to the story, McDonald’s train was met by the mayor, who asked the single Ranger where the other lawmen were. McDonald is said to have replied: “Hell! Ain’t I enough? There’s only one prize-fight!”

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