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How to increase public approval for the police state « The Burning Platform
How to increase public approval for the police state « The Burning Platform.
If someone were to design an event to bolster public support for a militarized police state, what would that event look like? Let us imagine:
- The event involves a controversial use of force by police. The event generates a national controversy and debate — a debate which the government has sufficient evidence to win in the end. After facing criticism, the police demonstrate to the country that they were right and opponents were wrong.
- The “victim” is as unsympathetic as possible; a suspect fleeing from an assault and robbery that took place on camera.
- All the physical evidence supports the official version of events — illustrating how witnesses lie to condemn innocent cops.
- Protests emerge and come off as unlikeable as possible, leaving a trail of theft, violence, arson, and destruction.
- The media ends its silence on police brutality long enough to repetitively lionize the police and decry the actions of the deceased suspect and his violent supporters. The media intensely focuses on the wanton violence and the danger of public protests. Every statist pundit in the country chimes in, reiterating the righteousness of the police and the wrongness those who oppose them.
* * * * *
This scenario is not hypothetical. It currently playing out in Missouri, after a grand jury’s decision not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson after shooting Michael Brown. Dozens of businesses, buildings, and vehicles have been looted and burned to the ground by the aggressive mobs that have exploited the occasion.
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BBC News – Ferguson shooting: Protests spread across US
BBC News – Ferguson shooting: Protests spread across US.
A dozen US cities have seen new protests over the decision not to charge a white policeman who shot a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.
Demonstrations from New York to Seattle were mostly peaceful but rioting broke out in Oakland, California.
There was some unrest in Ferguson itself, with police making 44 arrests, but the town did not see rioting on the scale of Monday night.
The officer who killed Michael Brown there says he has a “clean conscience”.
Darren Wilson, who shot the 18-year-old on 9 August, told ABC News that in the struggle which preceded the shooting, he had felt “like a five-year-old holding on to [US wrestler] Hulk Hogan”.
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2,200 National Guard Troops To Be Deployed In Ferguson Tonight, Up From 700 | Zero Hedge
2,200 National Guard Troops To Be Deployed In Ferguson Tonight, Up From 700 | Zero Hedge.
While last night’s events in Ferguson raised many eyebrows over the decision to release the Jury decision late into the night, and even more tempers, as rampant destruction and looting quickly became the means by locals express their indignation with the US judicial system, some say they could have been worse. Still, just to make sure the second night of the Ferguson protests is not a replica of what happened yesterday, moment ago Missouri governor Jay Nixon announced he would dispatch a massive 2,200 national guard troops, up from 700 on Monday night: a presence that is set to make the city resembles an all out warzone. One can only hope the similarities end there.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says more than 2,200 National Guardsmen will be in place in the region near Ferguson on Tuesday night in the event of more violence.
He said Tuesday that hundreds more will be deployed to Ferguson, where fires and looting erupted Monday night after word that a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer who fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown.
The rest will be in a position to respond rapidly, if needed.
Nixon says 700 guardsmen were in the area on Monday night, when more than a dozen buildings were set on fire and otherwise vandalized.
Ferguson’s mayor said earlier in the day that the National Guard wasn’t deployed quickly enough as violent protests broke out.
“Down Outright Murder”: A Complete Guide to the Shooting of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson – The Intercept
The nation is on edge, awaiting a grand jury decision in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown — an unarmed African American teen in Ferguson, Missouri — by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson more than three months ago. The decision is expected any day and there is widespread belief, based on weeks of leaks to the media and laws that historically favor police officers in lethal force cases, that Wilson will not be indicted. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has preemptively declared a state of emergency in anticipation of protests.
Brown’s killing, the culmination of an incident that the St. Louis Post Dispatch would later report lasted no more than 90 seconds, devastated a family with high hopes for their college-bound son and sparked some of the most significant civil rights demonstrations in a generation — casting a harsh light on the disproportionate number of black men killed by police, on St. Louis County’s exploitative and racially discriminatory municipal court system, and on the militarization of law enforcement.
In the months since Brown was killed, numerous eyewitnesses have come forward to describe what they saw during the teen’s final moments, while controversial disclosures to the press have served to describe Wilson’s version of the events that day.
This is everything we know about the shooting.
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Police arrest protesters as Ferguson awaits grand jury decision | Reuters
Police arrest protesters as Ferguson awaits grand jury decision | Reuters.
(Reuters) – Police arrested five people in Ferguson, Missouri, overnight after they tried to block a street in a protest calling for a grand jury to charge a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen in August.
A few dozen demonstrators, some chanting: “Indict that cop,” gathered outside the Ferguson police station late on Wednesday in sub-freezing temperatures.
They were faced by officers in riot gear. The arrests were the first in about a week.
The grand jury has been meeting for three months to determine whether police officer Darren Wilson broke the law when he shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in an incident that exposed long-simmering racial tensions in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb.
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Missouri Governor Declares State Of Emergency, Activates National Guard Ahead Of Michael Brown Shooting Verdict | Zero Hedge
It’s been a while since the public disturbance in Ferguson, MO made the front pages, so here is a reminder: with the St. Louis County prosecutor saying he expects the grand jury to reach a decision in mid-to-late November whether Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson should face charges for shooting Michael Brown on Aug. 9, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is not taking any chances and moments ago declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard in advance of a grand jury decision about whether a white police officer will be charged in the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.
Per AP, Nixon said Monday that the National Guard would assist state and local police as needed, in case there is civil unrest when the grand jury’s decision is announced. There was no indication an announcement is imminent. There is no specific date for a decision to be revealed about whether Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson should face charges for shooting Michael Brown on Aug. 9.
Below is the full executive order:
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Reading the Road Map to a Police State – Aaron Tao – Mises Daily
Reading the Road Map to a Police State – Aaron Tao – Mises Daily.
Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, by Radley Balko, PublicAffairs, 2013
“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” —Charles de Montesquieu
If there was any silver lining to the horrifying events that took place in Ferguson, Missouri which riled the month of August, it has finally brought the issue of police militarization to the forefront. As outrageous as the police shooting death of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown was, the brutal law enforcement response in the form of running roughshod over the First Amendmentand resorting to quasi-martial law to mostly peaceful protests by local residents and activists was worse. To many observers, what took place in a Midwest suburb was indistinguishable from scenes out of occupied Iraq.
How did this happen? For an answer, the writings of investigative journalist Radley Balko are an invaluable resource. Perhaps more than any other person, Balko has reported substantially onpolice militarization and injustice across the country for years.
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