To Protect And Serve

Tiger Beat on the Potomac gets it right.

Violence continues in Ferguson

By BYRON TAU, Politico

8/17/14 9:01 AM EDT

At least one male protester was critically injured in a shooting and was in the hospital fighting for his life, police said in a hastily arranged early Sunday morning press conference.

An additional seven people were arrested in the disorder and mayhem that followed. Police moved along West Florissant Street dressed in riot gear and driving military-style vehicles – a return to the cycle of violence seen earlier in the week.

Police fired tear gas and smoke canisters along the street – though they initially denied that tear gas was used. Under repeated questioning and when confronted with physical evidence of a tear-gas canister, police admitted that they’d used the chemical late in the operation.

Journalists were restricted to a small media pen at the far end of the street and were told they would be risk arrest if they left amid a blanket five-hour curfew declared by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Saturday.

Izvestia swings and… misses.

Police in Ferguson Arrest Protesters Who Defied Curfew

By JULIE BOSMAN and ALAN BLINDER, The New York Times

AUG. 17, 2014

A clash between the protesters and dozens of police officers in riot gear began less than 30 minutes after the curfew took effect and ended about 45 minutes later with the arrest of seven people, all charged with “failure to disperse,” officials said.

The protesters had moved toward the officers – some of whom rode in armored vehicles – and chanted: “We are Mike Brown! We have the right to assemble peacefully!” invoking the name of the 18-year-old who was shot and killed by the Ferguson officer.

…

Despite an earlier pledge by Capt. Ronald S. Johnson, the state Highway Patrol commander who is overseeing security in Ferguson, the police eventually began firing smoke grenades and some tear gas.

At a news conference about 3 a.m. on Sunday, Captain Johnson explained that some tear gas had been used because the police had learned that armed men were inside a barbecue restaurant. One man with a gun had moved to the middle of the street, Captain Johnson said, but escaped. Another man, who was not identified, was shot by an unknown assailant and taken by companions to a hospital, where he was reported to be in critical condition. A police car was fired upon, the captain added, but it was not immediately clear if it was hit.

Pravda is much better.

One shot, seven arrested as chaos erupts after curfew in Ferguson

By DeNeen L. Brown, Manuel Roig-Franzia and Jerry Markon, Washington Post

August 17 at 6:11 AM

Gun violence, tear gas and armored vehicles marked the first night of a controversial curfew imposed in this St. Louis suburb where the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager has kicked over a cauldron of frustration and anger.

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Tear gas was fired, Johnson said, after officers spotted a man with a handgun in the middle of the street. (Lt. John Hotz, a highway patrol spokesman, initially said police used only smoke. Later, he told the Associated Press that police also used tear gas. “Obviously, we’re trying to give them every opportunity to comply with the curfew,” he said.)

…

Hundreds of protesters stood in the middle of Ferguson’s main avenue under heavy rain early Sunday, minutes after the curfew went into effect.

The crowd chanted, “No justice, no curfew!” and “Hands up, don’t shoot!”

At 12:41 a.m., police shouted over a loudspeaker: “You are violating a state-imposed curfew. You must disperse or you will be subject to arrest or other actions.”

Some people in the crowd left. Others shouted at the police: “F— you.”

Then came disorder.

At 12:49 a.m., police fired tear gas canisters and devices that produced smoke. Protesters ran. Some were handcuffed. Shots were fired. Police sirens wailed.

By 1:30 a.m., a plume of smoke rose over West Florissant, the street where Brown took some of his final steps. The smell of smoke was in the air. Explosions erupted every 10 minutes or so – more canisters that made loud bangs.

Police in riot gear blocked the entrance to the main road. They held shields and pointed rifles, shouting for people to clear the road. Many dispersed.

Law enforcement officers in black gloves pushed television cameramen out of the street as they tried to capture images of a man with his hands restrained behind his back being led into an idling police van.

“You’re violating the law,” a law enforcement officer said over a loudspeaker.

…

By 2:45 a.m., the police had succeeded in turning much of Ferguson into a ghost town. A heavy downpour puddled on streets emptied of inhabitants. Two officers ran down Florissant, shedding gas masks without breaking stride. The flashing lights of dozens of police vehicles reflected off of a rain-slicked pavement.

“This is not our community!” an onlooker said. She made a peace sign with her right hand, then talked of “revolution.” She wouldn’t say her name.

A lot of people in Ferguson won’t say their names these days. They’re scared or suspicious or both.

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Capt. Johnson said Saturday that the curfew would be enforced through communication, not physical force. “We will be telling people, ‘It’s time to go home,’ ” he said.

…

Several blocks away, hundreds of officers waited in the shopping center parking lot, which has become their staging area.

Full coverage at The Guardian of course.

Missouri police fire teargas at Ferguson protesters defying curfew

Jon Swaine and Rory Carroll, The Guardian

Sunday 17 August 2014 05.38 EDT

Police in riot gear fired teargas at protesters who defied a Saturday night curfew imposed in the Missouri city of Ferguson, where an unarmed 18-year-old being shot dead by a police officer has been followed by a week of street clashes.

About 200 demonstrators ignored an order to return home at midnight made under a state of emergency declared earlier on Saturday by the state’s governor, Jay Nixon, after rioting and looting returned to the centre of the city on Friday night.

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The curfew did not mean a return to military-style policing, Johnson promised. “We won’t enforce it with tanks,” he said. “We won’t enforce it with teargas.”

Ferguson cop who walked middle of road finds critics coming both ways

Jon Swaine and Rory Carroll, The Guardian

Saturday 16 August 2014 22.20 EDT

He was the man who seemed to have pulled Ferguson back from the edge.

After nights of unrest, during which police fired teargas and rubber bullets at protesters who hurled abuse, rocks and occasionally worse, captain Ron Johnson signalled that things had changed by leading a peaceful march of demonstrators through the centre of the town on Thursday.

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But the euphoria faded fast. Late on Friday, pockets of rioting brought back the armoured trucks, riot gear and teargas. Later still, after police retreated, small crowds began looting shops, most notably one where Brown allegedly shoplifted cigars before he died.

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Some proved even more difficult to win over. As Johnson gave media interviews amid a crowd of protesters on Thursday night, Kesheara Ross, 26, listened to his remarks and snorted.

There would be no meaningful police reform, she predicted. “They’re not going to make any changes. I’ve heard all the same stuff after other shootings.” She gave the captain a withering look. “Uncle Tom-ass brothers.”

Missouri’s days of unrest expose the stark reality of a segregated society

Rory Carroll and Jon Swaine, The Observer

Saturday 16 August 2014 13.01 EDT

“The police don’t like coming here,” said Don Williams, 52, who moved to Vickie Place with his family in 2001. “It was majority white then. Now, almost all black.” The absence of street lighting made everything pitch dark after sunset, intimidating patrols, he said. “We have break-ins but the police barely investigate. They’re not worth nothing.” Opposite the Brown home lives one of the street’s last white residents, Doris McCann, who has lived here for 55 of her 86 years. “It’s a changed neighbourhood. Everyone that’s white moved out,” she lamented.

White flight is a familiar phenomenon in many countries but the use of armoured vehicles and sniper nests in the height of a Missouri summer has exposed the extent and consequences of segregation in America’s heartland.

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“I keep my sons shuttered at home because of situations like this. Young black men have targets painted on their backs,” said Kesheara Ross, 26, a protester. “I’ve had a cop call me nigger. This shit’s been going on for years.”

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Many critics focused on the military equipment. Under a federal programme the Pentagon has offloaded $4.3bn in surplus gear, much of it from Afghanistan and Iraq, to police the US. As Kara Dansky, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, pointed out, to a hammer everything looks like a nail.

Another factor was racial imbalance: only three of Ferguson’s 53 officers are black (94% white, in other words) and only one of six city councillors is black – a product of disenfranchisement and anaemic political mobilisation in a city where two-thirds of the population is black.

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The sense that the worst had passed, however, masked an enduring problem: most of those in uniform inhabit a different realm to the people they are supposed to serve. Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson alluded to this when he said there was “a community that is at odds with us now”. He added: “Apparently there is this undertow that has now bubbled to the surface.”

Ferguson’s mayor, James Knowles, who is also white, defended his police officers – the ones who waded in looking like Robocop on steroids. “I’m sure they’re under a great deal of stress, and though it does not make it OK, they are human, and I can understand their frustrations as well,” Knowles said.

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The separation of races should in theory be a fading anachronism given that a black man occupies the White House and black artists suffuse mainstream culture. But half a century after the civil rights movement triumphed, the dream of an integrated multiracial society in this sprawl by the Mississippi is largely dead. As black families moved to nicer areas, exploiting newfound freedom, white neighbours fled. “It was gradual but they all packed up. You’ll find them now in St Charles, Chesterfield, Wildwood, Alton,” said McCann.