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We've been debating internally whether or not to cover the mess that is currently going on in Ferguson, Missouri. There has been plenty of attention paid to the protests and the failures by police there -- and we frequently cover problems with police, as well as the militarization of police, which was absolutely on display in Ferguson (if you've been under a rock, police killed an unarmed teenager there last week, leading to protests over the past few days -- and the police have been handling the situation... poorly, to say the least). However, the situation was changing so rapidly, it wasn't entirely clear what to cover. The pictures from Ferguson of a very militarized police force were disturbing, and we've been thinking about writing something on that (and we may still). However, this evening, things got even more ridiculous, as not only did the SWAT team show up, but it then arrested two of the reporters who had been covering the events: Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post. Both had been vital in getting out the story of what was happening on the street.
Here are a few of their tweets (prior to being arrested):
And then, soon after those and other tweets, another reporter, Jon Swaine from the Guardian, reported that he saw two reporters detained by police in a McDonalds: Lowery and Reilly each had live tweeted the police entering the McDonald's, followed by a long silence from their accounts: A fourth reporter on the scene, Matt Pearce of the LA Times, contacted the police chief about the situation, who was apparently surprised at the turn of events and said he'd order them released: Quote: I just called Ferguson police chief to ask about @WesleyLowery and @ryanjreilly, told him what I knew. His response: "Oh, God."
— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) August 14, 2014
Quote: I just talked to the Ferguson chief again about Wes and Ryan. "I told them to release them," he said of the riot command.
— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) August 14, 2014
Quote: Ferguson chief tells me @WesleyLowery and @ryanjreilly's arresters were "probably somebody who didn't know better."
— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) August 14, 2014
Soon after, both Lowery and Reilly tweeted about their experiences, which were not exactly pleasant. Quote: Officers slammed me into a fountain soda machine because I was confused about which door they were asking me to walk out of
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Quote: Detained, booked, given answers to no questions. Then just let out
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Quote: Also Ryan Reilly of Huff Po. Assaulted and arrested
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Quote:@ryanjreilly and @wesleyLowery have been arrested for "not packing their bags quick enough" at McD's #Ferguson
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 14, 2014
Quote: Unfortunately my last Vine featuring the officer who assaulted me was deleted when other my phone died.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 14, 2014
I'm sure that we'll have more on this whole thing, but as GideonsTrumpet notes, Lowery and Reilly were technically detained, not arrested, "which is far more insidious" because there's no accountability. No charges to challenge. Nothing. It's just a way to silence the press who were diligently getting the word out there on what they were doing.
There are all sorts of very questionable activities going on in Ferguson, including intimidation and threats against the protestors exercising their right to assembly and free speech. Detaining reporters in the middle of that is just the latest in a long string of "fuck your constitutional rights" by the (very heavily militarized) police down there.
Originally Published: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 01:09:58 GMT
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Last night we wrote briefly about the police in Ferguson, Missouri, detaining two journalists -- Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post. The situation in Ferguson was already a mess in terms of the police killing an unarmed teenager, responding poorly to that situation, and then making things worse by challenging citizens' rights to free speech and to assemble. Taking it a step further and targeting journalists further shows that the police in Ferguson, beyond having little plan on what to do, were looking to suppress the flow of information about what was happening. Soon after that post went up, the police went even further in teargassing a reporting team from Al Jazeera America. Living in the US, the idea that reporters from Al Jazeera might face teargassing from "security forces" may not seem that strange... if it were in the Middle East. But this is in Missouri, which should say something about how much we've lost the plot here in America.
It's pretty clear from the video that the teargas was shot directly at the press -- who were obviously members of the press getting their lights ready for a live shot. There were further reports that the police also fired rubber bullets at those same reporters.
But of course, in this day and age, focusing just on the "professional" press is kind of meaningless. Anyone can be a part of the press, and that's happening quite frequently. Local Alderman Antonio French went out into Ferguson and was doing plenty of reporting, even if he wasn't professional media. Here were some of his tweets from last night: Wesley Lowery, the Washington Post reporter who was detained, noted that French provided the "biggest public service" he'd seen so far in covering what was happening... and that he was "appalled" to find out that, of course, French was arrested. Unlike with Lowery and Reilly, who were detained and not charged, French was charged with "unlawful assembly" and was thrown in jail. While police said he would be in jail for 24 hours, after protests emerged around the arrest, French was released this morning.
The whole thing highlights just how dangerous this situation has become and how police in Ferguson appear to be trampling over basically every constitutional right they can come up with (there was a joke on Twitter last night -- and forgive me for not being able to track down where it originated -- that before too long, police in Ferguson will be demanding to be quartered in residents' houses...).
We've been covering the ridiculous trend of militarizing the police for quite some time (though nowhere near as long as Radley Balco, who has been warning about this for ages, with very few people paying attention...), and just last month highlighted just how ridiculous it has become. In many, many cases, the militarization is actually driven by the Department of Homeland Security giving local police forces cast off military equipment for free. In the past 12 years, DHS has given $35 billion (with a b) in grants and equipment to local police forces. I recently found out that the local police in the small sleepy suburb where Techdirt's offices are located got themselves an MRAP, and it scares me silly.
Glenn Greenwald is noting that the events in Ferguson are finally dragging the horrors of a militarized police force into the limelight, and I hope it leads to a severe about-face. Ryan Cooper, at The Week, has a similar piece, saying that what's happening in Ferguson shows why you don't militarize police. Another comment (again, sorry for the lack of attribution as I can't find it now) that flew by on Twitter was something to the effect of that the military is trained to take out an enemy, while the police are supposed to be the public's servants. But when you militarize the police, the public becomes the enemy.
Given all this, Trevor Timm, of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, rightly notes that the militarization of the police is now a press freedom issue as well: Quote:
But until now, this issue has not really reached the mainstream, or if it has, it's been thought of as something that happens in a foreign authoritarian country and not the United States. Besides the arrests yesterday, you can watch video of Al Jazeera journalists being tear-gassed by these police forces (and perhaps mistake it for footage from Tahrir Square in Egypt). Or you listen to a brave citizen journalist operating a livestream describe events as police demand people to turn off their cameras, just as the tear gas and rubber bullets start to fly. Or you can think about citizen journalist Antonio French who was not as lucky as the other two reporters and is still sitting in jail.
In response to the travesty in Ferguson, the Justice Department indicated it may re-open a broad review of local police tactics around the country to investigate some of these issues. That is the least they should do. The rights of countless lawful citizens have been trampled on in Ferguson and around the country thanks to these police tactics, and something needs to be done soon.
But reporters should take note: these issues don't just affect protesters, but also affect those who cover the protest. It creates an environment where police think they can disregard the law and tell reporters to stop filming, despite their legal right to do so, or fire tear gas directly at them to prevent them from doing their job. And if the rights of journalists are being trampled on, you can almost guarantee it's even worse for those who don't have such a platform to protect themselves. Mr. Lowery said it best after he was released from jail yesterday:
Quote: “I knew I was going to be fine,” he said. “But the thing is, so many people here in Ferguson don’t have as many Twitter followers as I have and don’t have [Washington Post owner] Jeff Bezos or whoever to call and bail them out of jail.”
And, of course, what that really shows is that this is not just a freedom of the press issue, but a freedom of speech issue -- and, more broadly, a freedom issue, period. By militarizing the police, DHS and the federal government have set up a situation that is designed to snuff out free speech, freedom of assembly and the rights of everyone. It is trampling the very constitution it is supposedly defending. It's a complete travesty. It's been going on for a while, but the events in Ferguson only serve to highlight just how ridiculous and dangerous the situation has become.
Originally Published: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 17:12:29 GMT
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Welcome to Ferguson, Missouri; which is now owned by the local police dictatorship. Sit down, do nothing, follow your rights as an American citizen, and they will gladly arrest you.
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The situation in Ferguson seemed briefly like it was getting better last Thursday, but that didn't last long. Over the weekend, the militarized and threatening police fired tear gas at protestors and continued to escalate the situation, rather than de-escalate it. The governor declared a state of emergency and instituted a curfew -- which created some more problems, and resulted in continued protests, but also some looting. In the last few hours, however, things have gone from bad to worse again. Police went back to arresting journalists, including Robert Klemko from Sports Illustrated and Rob Crilly from the Telegraph (who, believe it or not, is the "Pakistan and Afghanistan correspondent" for that paper -- now reporting live from... Ferguson, Missouri). While both were quickly released, police appear to be quite aggressive towards reporters. Chris Hayes, the MSNBC TV host reports that he was threatened with being maced:
Quote: Riot cop to me just a few minutes ago: "Get back! Or next time you're gonna be the one maced."
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 18, 2014
A live stream from the local radio station KARG (Argus Radio -- which is a local volunteer run radio station that has been doing amazing work) caught police screaming, "Get the fuck out of here or you're going to get shelled with this" while pointing a gun at the reporter. Many reports claimed that he was saying, "You're going to get shot," but it's pretty clearly "shelled." Not sure it really makes a huge difference. As you can see from the video (thankfully clipped and uploaded by Parker Higgins), another police officer, "Captain Todd," claims that the lights from the reporters are the problem, not that that somehow makes it okay to point guns at reporters and threaten to "shell" them (or to arrest them). Meanwhile, Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post reports that reporters were ordered to "leave the area and head back where we wouldn't be able to witness anything for ourselves." Quote: We are being told to leave the area and head back where we wouldn't be able to witness anything for ourselves.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 18, 2014
All of this really ought to make people wonder: if this is how the police act when they know the world is watching them and live streaming what they're doing, how do you think they act when no one is watching? The photos from Ferguson feel unreal, but are, in fact, quite real: The situation has become so ridiculous that Amnesty International has sent in a human rights team, saying this is the first time ever that the group has done so inside the US. Think about that for a minute or two...
And then recognize that the press are almost certainly being treated significantly better than the residents who are protesting.
Originally Published: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 07:17:54 GMT
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We've been writing about the militarization of police, and why it's problematic, for years -- but the events of the last week in Ferguson, Missouri, have really shone a (rather bright) light on what happens when you militarize the police. Annie Lowrey, over at New York Magazine, highlights what may be most disturbing about all of it: all of this has happened while violence has been on a rapid decline, and, no it's not because your local suburban police force now has a SWAT team and decommissioned military equipment from the Defense Department:
Quote: Since 1990, according to Department of Justice statistics, the United States has become a vastly safer place, at least in terms of violent crime. (Drug crime follows somewhat different trends, though drug use has been dropping over the same time period.) The number of murders dropped to 14,827 in 2012 from 23,438 in 1990. The number of rapes has plummeted to 84,376 from 102,555. The number of robberies, motor-vehicle thefts, assaults — all have seen similarly large declines. And the number of incidents has dropped even though the country has grown.
[....]
And there’s no evidence that giving police officers the weapons of war has had anything to do with that decline in crime, either, with researchers pegging it to a combination of factors, among them the removal of lead from paint and gasoline, an increase in abortion rates, and improved policing methods.
So, instead, we get a very militarized police -- and tons of cases where it is being used in cases that absolutely don't warrant it. At all.
And here's the really disturbing thing. It may get a lot worse. As Vanity Fair notes, on June 19th, Rep. Alan Grayson had offered up an amendment on the Defense Appropriations bill, which would have limited the militarization of police. And it failed by a wide margin. Included in those voting against it? The guy who represents Ferguson. Quote: The amendment attracted the support of only 62 members, while 355 voted against it (14 didn’t vote). Included among those voting against it was Rep. William Lacy Clay (D), who represents Ferguson. Clay was joined by every senior member of the Democratic Party leadership team, including Reps. Nancy Pelosi (CA), Steny Hoyer (MD), and Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (SC). Democrats did form the bulk of support for the amendment (with 43 votes in favor), with 19 Republicans supporting as well—led by libertarian-conservative Rep. Justin Amash (MI), who lamented that “military-grade equipment . . . shouldn’t be used on the street by state and local police” on his Facebook page.
Apparently, arming the police with military equipment has powerful lobbying support. Because why expect people to think about what actually makes sense when there's money and FUD on the line: Quote:
Why was there such tremendous opposition to the Grayson-Amash effort? Two very powerful constituencies in Congress may be to blame: the defense industry, and the police lobby.
Take Rep. Clay. He has been all over the news media calling for justice in his district, and demanding an investigation of Brown’s death. Yet like every House member, he is up for re-election every two years, and his fourth-largest donor is the political action committee of the weapons maker Boeing.
So there's that. And then, let's take things up a notch. Scott Greenfield alerts us to the news that a judge over in Colorado has determined that the Cinemark Theater where James Holmes opened fired on the opening night of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises" may have some responsibility because it should have known that such an attack might happen. Despite the fact that there has never been such a shooting in a theater, the judge says that the theater should have been prepared for such a possibility: Quote:
Noting "the grim history of mass shootings and mass killings that have occurred in more recent times," U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled that Cinemark — owner of the Century Aurora 16 theater — could have predicted that movie patrons might be targeted for an attack. Jackson's ruling allows 20 lawsuits filed by survivors of the attack or relatives of those killed to proceed toward trial.
"Although theaters had theretofore been spared a mass shooting incident, the patrons of a movie theater are, perhaps even more than students in a school or shoppers in a mall, 'sitting ducks,' " Jackson wrote.
That makes absolutely no sense. But the inevitable result, as Greenfield notes, seems to be a lot more militarized police -- and now, private security guards... everywhere. Just in case. Quote: Consider, if what happened in Aurora, the duty of businesses to be prepared for the act of a one-in-a-million crazy. The biggest growth job in America will be armed guard. Every theater will require its own SWAT team, perhaps a MRAP or Bearcat. Office buildings, parks, skating rinks, pretty much anywhere more than three people gather, could be the next target of a madman. They will all need security, armed with the weapons needed to take out any crazy.
Don’t blame the businesses. They’re just trying to cover their foreseeable obligations. Sure, there is almost no chance, almost no possibility whatsoever, that they will be the target of the next insane shooter, but Judge Jackson says it’s still foreseeable. In fact, that no one has ever shot up a skating rink makes it even more foreseeable, by his rationale.
It is difficult to comprehend how profoundly screwed up all of this is.
Originally Published: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 18:13:00 GMT
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We've been writing about the efforts by the police in Ferguson, Missouri to intimidate and arrest reporters trying to cover the protests and the police (over)reaction there. What's now come out is that, last Friday, the police actually signed a court agreement promising not to interfere with the media:
Quote: Parties acknowledge and agree that the media and members of the public have a right to record public events without abridgement unless it obstructs the activity or threatens the safety of others, or physically interferes with the ability of law enforcement officers to perform their duties.
This was based on a lawsuit brought by Mustafa Hussein, the reporter for radio station KARG (Argus Radio) who got some attention last night after a police officer yelled at him to "get the fuck out of here or you're going to get shelled with this" while pointing some sort of weapon at him: Note that the agreement was signed by Hussein and parties representing St. Louis County, the City of Ferguson and the Missouri Highway Patrol... on Friday the 15th. The threat to Hussein came on Sunday... the 17th.
And those kinds of activities are continuing today. Here's an Instagram video of a Getty photographer, Scott Olson, being arrested. Olson, if you don't know, is the guy who has photographed many of the most iconic images of what's happening in Ferguson, including this astounding shot.
And here's a video of police threatening CNN's Don Lemon -- which I've now seen, but for reasons that I don't understand, the video seems to disappear at times (as does the embed code).
No matter what, it seems pretty clear that police are continuing to stamp on the rights of just about everyone, including those with cameras and microphones (so you can just imagine how they're handling those without such things). The fact that there's a signed court agreement promising not to do this doesn't seem to matter to anyone.
Originally Published: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 03:41:00 GMT
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Ferguson does show the kind of duplicity that is rampant in Western media though.
How it's reported and presented differs from similar events in "non pro-Western" countries. In which the government and their police is almost always denigrated.
jshm2, that is an intriguing point... but i don't believe that the police in ferguson are being judged unfairly.
when the national guard is called in to protect the people from the police and restore order... that says something.
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You can call me racist if you want but you don't see people in most white neighborhoods rioting and destroying businesses just because they disagree with something. Sure if you want to get together and protest something there isn't anything wrong with it... but when you are destroying crap and breaking into businesses? Really most people don't shit where they eat.
Yes i have seen rednecks trash their own neighborhoods too so it does go both ways.
if by 'white neighborhoods' you mean affluent areas with police officers that are held to a higher standard since the residents usually consist of lawyers and, or people who can afford lawyers... i totally get what you mean.
also, the protesters in ferguson were protesting peacefully... until they were confronted by a hostile police force. come on, ViperScale... do you really think that the reporters and news crews that were in the area were also part of the riots and deserved to be targeted by dod's surplus m203 grenade launchers (firing tear gas grenades, of course) and arrested without any justifiable reason?
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