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?
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.