Update: Differing Accounts: What the BLEEP is happening in Ferguson??
Ferguson is a small city located in St. Louis County, Missouri and the population was 21,203 in the 2010 census. Ferguson is about two-thirds black, one-third white, and it sufferers from double Missouri’s average poverty rate.
Riots in the St. Louis area are unprecedented even in the height of the 1960’s when St. Louis was the 10th largest city in the U.S. there were peaceful demonstrations but no riots. However, on Saturday August 9, 2014, Michael Brown a young African American man who was reportedly unarmed was shot and killed by a police officer. The police contend that the shooting occurred during an altercation in which Brown and the officer were struggling for the officer’s weapon. Witnesses claim that Brown was gunned down while he had his hands in the air responding to the officer’s commands.
Over the past week the unlikely City of Ferguson, MO, has been a hotbed of civil disobedience. Since that time the protests, rioting, and violence have escalated. KARG Argus Radio has initiated the social media project titled the “I Am Mike Brown livestream”. Contributors post videos of police contacts and protest activities in the Ferguson area. Reported on this livestream site is that police have fired rubber bullets into crowds of unarmed citizens and police are assaulting peaceful demonstrators. The contributors also stated that police are ordering them to turn off their cameras “Because they don’t want witnesses”.
On Wednesday Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly and Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery were reportedly arrested by a “SWAT team” in a McDonald’s where they were working. Reilly reported that they took a picture of police and the officer demanded to see his ID. Reilly said he was assaulted and arrested by police. I do not have the information to excuse or judge this situation but in my experience any officer who puts on a bullet resistant vest or tactical/riot gear is misidentified by the public as a SWAT team member. This is far from accurate and laughable if you look at some of these officers in this gear.
It is very easy as a law enforcement officer who has been involved in crowd control, protests, and riot situations to succumb to groupthink taking the hard-line stance that the protesters are all criminals looking for an excuse to loot and commit acts of violence. In some cased this may be true but there are obviously some serious underlying issues and tensions that go far beyond this stereotype. The shooting of a young African American man has ignited serious racial and social class tensions. A New York Times article discusses how the town’s leadership and the police have remained predominantly white and out of the 53 Ferguson police officers, only 3 are black, even though African Americans make up two thirds of the cities population.
People are angry in Ferguson and if the protesters were just criminals then the police could work with the local law abiding community to discourage and quell the problems but they are not abating. Typical law enforcement groupthink believes that if a crowd gets out of hand blunt force is the correct, justifiable, and preferred option but this is not always the case. The police have to ask what is the larger social problem and what steps can they take to mitigate it? Armored personnel carriers and tear gas are not working and it appears to be only aggravating the problem.
Then again it is easy to succumb to the anti-establishment groupthink believing that the police are brutes who hunt down and murder young minority men. Admittedly there are some very bad actors in the ranks of law enforcement but most are normal people who chose this path with altruistic intentions. The public must realize that the police make mistakes and unfortunately these mistakes can be costly to the community and to themselves.
The general public must recognize that some groups and persons embed themselves into these types of events to stoke the flames to promote fear and distrust to further their own agendas. The public must break the cycle of groupthink and understand that this shooting may have been justified if the officer was under attack. The local police and the FBI are investigating this incident and details cannot be released until investigated by the authorities. Moreover, with a situation this volatile releasing the officer’s name would put him and his family at an extreme risk and it could taint any witnesses statements and other evidence.
The hacker group Anonymous says they have been able to obtain the name of the police officer involved in the shooting. “We have the name of the shooter,” the group tweeted.” “We just can’t verify. We need to either talk to witnesses or get a second leak source.”
Update: It looks like the new incident commander in Ferguson, MO, is using critical thinking and has reassessed police tactics. I applaud his outstanding leadership in this crisis. The community needed a leader to emerge and hopefully Capt. Johnson is that person.
