Ferguson Police claim dead teenager was “prime suspect” in convenience store robbery.
After a week of basically non-stop suck, check out this powerful on the scene reporting from Wesley Lowery on what appears to be the dramatically changed mood at the protests this afternoon/evening in Ferguson. Ron Johnson, the state Highway Patrol officer now in charge of the police response is marching with the protesting crowd. Amazing read.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon puts state Highway Patrol in charge of security in Ferguson. It appears the Ferguson City PD and the St Louis County PD will still be involved in some fashion by that the state Highway Patrol will be in charge.
A member of Congress is introducing a bill to ‘demilitarize’ local police forces – specifically to end the practice of having the Pentagon transfer military grade weaponry and vehicles to local police departments.
As tensions run high in Ferguson, the New York Times video team put together an excellent video to capture the feeling of protests in about three minutes. Flagged by reporter Dylan Scott, the video seems to show the anger and distress of protesters. The last thing you see is a highly armed police officer shoving the camera away.
“Go! Get outta here,” the unidentified officer says.
Watch the full video, below.
Not confirmed yet by the Governor’s office. But St. Louis Rep. William Clay says the Governor told him he plans to remove the St. Louis County police from duty in Ferguson when he arrives in St. Louis.
Here’s another point I keep wondering about on the “Hollywoodization” front. Why are a lot of police officers wearing jungle camouflage? Is there more jungle or forest terrain in Ferguson than I realize? It’s not even a standard military uniform. Obviously in Iraq the beige/brown desert camouflage is the standard, for obvious reasons. But it goes without saying that jungle camouflage serve no purpose in an urban setting than to signal a highly militant response to whatever citizens are doing.
So did the Ferguson PD get military surplus gear from that Pentagon program which has handed out various heavily armored ambush protection vehicles to local police departments around the country? Well, indeed they did!
As the situation in Ferguson has escalated, we and others have been talking more and more about the militarization of police work in the US – something we’re seeing to a wild degree in Ferguson but is actually pervasive across the United States. We have several pieces in the works you’ll probably see over the course of the day delving into various aspects of that part of the story. But there’s one part of this, one caveat, worth noting. A substantial amount of what we’re seeing might be better termed the “Hollywoodization” rather than the “militarization” of police work.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has just released a statement on the escalating events in Ferguson. Statement after the jump …