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Police Brutality Spirals Out of Control
The growing unrest near St Louis remains the top story in the nation today. Right now, hundreds of furious local residents are protesting the police after a white officer shot and killed an unarmed black teen.
What started as a peaceful protest is now spiraling out of control. One reporter says the police are essentially acting as a military force against the same people they are sworn to serve and protect. Police dressed in full combat gear with riot shields, helmets and masks are firing rubber bullets and tear gas into huge crowds of people.
Police officers asked several people to turn their cameras off. When they didn’t comply, police started walking slowly down the street, behind the protection of riot shields and shot tear gas bombs like rockets directly at the crowds of people. Officers proceeded to break down their camera equipment.
In a nearby McDonalds, police surrounded and arrested two other reporters while they tried to unplug their laptops. Ryan Reilly from the Huffington Post says one officer used a pressure point on his neck to slam his face into the glass window. On the way out, Reilly says the cop gave a snarky apology.
Police are still using completely unnecessary force to put fear into the hearts of the crowd. Flash bang explosions and physical violence sounds a lot more like treating people as subjects instead of citizens.
The brutal police attacks spiraling out of control even got a rise out of President Obama. He put his vacation on pause to give a statement from Martha’s Vineyard.
Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson is doing his best job at convincing the community that the police are trying to help. If that’s true, then Jackson has completely lost control of his department. While he tries to craft the public relations angle in front of TV cameras, his officers are forcibly removing cameras from other people.
The Ferguson Police Department clearly wants ONE message to get out, but it’s STRICTLY their narrative. It’s hard to believe that in 2014, a group of well-trained police soldiers can be so naive to think the rest of the world doesn’t know about YouTube. Hundreds of videos show police strong arming the public into submission and the whole time, their chief says they’re just trying to help.
Right now, the only thing that can possibly help this situation is a higher power coming in and punishing the Ferguson Police Department for overstepping their power. Unfortunately, if history repeats itself, all they have to worry about is a simple slap on the wrist.
