Posted on 09/02/2014 7:37:41 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The images of violent demonstrations in the wake of the killing of young Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., are subsiding, and now the nation awaits the results of local and federal investigations. Still, many of us continue to ponder the issue of the polices response to those protests.
Scenes of the militarized police force roaming the neighborhoods in tanks armed with tear gas canisters, smoke bombs and rubber bullets used indiscriminately upon protesters and troublemakers alike reminded many of war-torn areas abroad or the violence visited upon demonstrators during the civil rights and Vietnam eras.
However, the killing of an unarmed teen is far from the only example of the kind of state-sanctioned bullying that makes one wonder whether police are out of control.
Take the recent case here in North Texas of Kametra Barbour, a young mother heading home with her children. She was stopped by Forney police, pulled from her car and handcuffed while the children were left terrified. Why? The police received a report of a beige or tan Toyota carrying four black men, one of whom was waving a gun. Barbour is a black female. She drives a maroon Nissan Maxima and had no weapon of any kind. Her 6-year-old son got out of the car with his hands raised high in the air asking, Are we going to jail?
This Forney mothers encounter with the police is not uncommon. Indeed, it could have been worse....
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Rubber bullets? I thought they were ear plugs.
I’ve seen numerous articles where wooden bullets, real bullets and laser weapons are referenced as being used in Ferguson.
If someone could post a picture of the author it would go miles to explaining everything.
The Reverend Gerald Britt
From an Internet source (and what I remember): Detroit 1967 riot ... By the time it was quelled four days later by 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops, 43 people were dead . . . .
Cincinnati where I was had NG troops on the streets. I got stopped a couple of times going to work late at night. There were a few deaths.
Los Angeles 1960s riots were very similar to Detroit. Ditto D.C. Many major cities had these kinds of riots.
. . . militarized police force roaming the neighborhoods in tanks armed with tear gas canisters, smoke bombs and rubber bullets . . . . more hype from the race-grievance industry -- where was there this volume of protests as militarized federal and contractor thugs surrounded the Bundys as the Bundys were going about their daily chores on their ranch?
Liberals will now spend the next 5 years destroying the nation’s police departments.
They will turn them into another politically correct liberal social experiment, driving out dedicated law enforcement officers and replacing them with libtard misfits, racists, NOW Cows, sexual deviates and professional victims - just as they are trying to do with the US Military.
The police will be redirected from enforcing the laws (except for white people) to concentrate instead on rooting out anyone who opposes or speaks out against liberals and the liberal agenda.
We are so far past Orwell’s “1984” that it reads like the good old days.
“Liberals will now spend the next 5 years destroying the nations police departments.’
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Libs? You can find people like that right here on FR.
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Liberals!?
The police are doing a pretty bang up job of that themselves.
Yes, that’s so. Mostly Rontards, but not all of them.
Police states are happy states.
“armed with tear gas canisters, smoke bombs and rubber bullets used indiscriminately upon protesters and troublemakers alike”
Who says it was indiscriminate?
My pet peeve is this back door emotional editorializing. If they have some proof or complaint or something specific to say be man enough to come out and say it and suffer the repercussions if necessary. This sort of reporting is gutless and inflammatory.
Not the least of which was it has diverted the attention of white Americans from real abuses regarding police misbehavior.
Cops are NOT the National Guard. They are not the military. The Founders of America had very strong opinions about standing armies among the citizenry. An a constabulary provided with hundreds of SWAT teams, armored vehicles, assault rifles, etc, is exactly that - a standing military force among the citizenry.
Yet despite this, and due in no little part to the 9-11 attack, police departments all over the Country have become militarized with police units using heavy equipment, assault rifles and other combat gear at the slightest pretext.
Nor are they alone. We have Homeland Security, NSA, the Transportation Security Agency and even personnel in the Social Security Department, Bureau of Land Management and other traditionally civilian agencies getting involved. They TOO think they have a right to employ military force and tools against American citizens.
And ALL of this action, INCLUDING the provision of military gear to the Ferguson police by the same government which is criticizing them now, has been orchestrated by an administration singularly unwilling to identify the REAL source of terrorism - ISLAM, while CONTINUALLY rating about anti-abortionists, anti-UN activists, pro-Second Amendment activists as though THEY are the source of our nation's internal threats.
The truth of what happened in Ferguson should be left to a local investigation and the courts. THAT is what we have them for, and like or hate it, the jury will and should have the ultimate word.
But the ENTIRE situation with the rioting was, in my opinion, generated by a police force overeager to demonstrate their military prowess, as exemplified by a SWAT team sent to observe peaceful protesters and mourners at the very beginning of this situation before agitators ever appeared.
We have a National Guard for a reason, and once the situation had escalated to the point where they were needed, THEY should have been the sole users of military material and force.
I and YOU - and I mean all of us here at Free Republic, should have more confidence in our fellow citizens using this kind of force fairly and judiciously than a law-enforcement establishment which has demonstrated again and again they are no longer “peace officers” but frequently a collection of union thugs who fancy themselves American Gendarmes.
They considered using flubber bullets, but were concerned about ricochets.
OK ... have we heard now from every African-American, degree-by-subscription ‘reverend’ with an axe to grind?
Funny. The rogue, Cincinnati IRS government employees didn’t dishonor the IRS’s “good work”.
How about you stop shooting our dogs?
Did Darren Wilson or George Zimmerman shoot anyone’s pet?
No. I thought this article was about rogue officers, not people defending themselves.
Every civilization, back to the caves, has had a certain number of bad constabularies and corrupt officials. It isn’t ever going away.
Well done. ;>)
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