The police deliberately denied Ferguson protesters the right to free speech using military-style tactics of crowd control last summer, the U.S. Justice Department says.teleSUR
New scientific research suggests the effect of militarized dress on cops is more profound than imagined. Here's why.
There’s at least one line every Marine knows: “Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot.” The St. Louis County Police Department apparently never received that memo.…
One small way to measure the police violence against black people in Ferguson is to attend to its details. It is in that spirit that I present this simple catalog.…
The "streets" did not "flare up". The cops in Ferguson flared it up, perhaps, according to pretty much all of the live coverage we followed for hours last night on TV, on the web and, most crucially, on Twitter.Yeah, that's what I was doing last night until the wee hours and that was my take, too. Police riot.
It used to be billy clubs, fire hoses and snarling German shepherds. Now it's armored personnel carriers and flash-bang grenades. The weaponry has changed, but the target is still the same.
If some of the photos from Ferguson last week were in black and white, you might confuse them with scenes from the 1950s south. White police officers beating black protestors. Young black men lying face down in the street with police officers standing over them with assault rifles.
We have a long history of aggressively policing communities of color in America. Police have treated black and brown people like the enemy for decades. In that context, the recent events in Ferguson in the wake of Michael Brown's shooting come as no surprise. But they go way beyond Ferguson.….
It might be tempting to think that the brutal tactics we've seen are the result of a few bad police officers. It might be comforting to think this is a fluke. And that might be partially true. But when the government arms cops like soldiers, trains them in counter-insurgency tactics, tells them they are fighting an enemy, we should expect this type of combustive, tragic result.CNN Opinion
Minneapolis and St. Paul police, along with the US Military, are conducting training exercises for the next three evenings from 8 p.m. to midnight, according to a Minneapolis Police spokesman.
In 2012, the agencies conducted similar training.Hope everyone there feels safer.
