A Twitter account appears to show the only contemporaneous and recorded account of Michael Brown’s shooting. We can’t say for certain whether the account is accurate or complete. But significantly it was recorded before it could be known that the circumstances of his death would become a nationwide story or such a subject of controversy. Check it out.
To most of us, legalized marijuana is something happening in Washington and Colorado and yeah, probably going nationwide or at least to a lot more states at some point in the future. But the folks who run the alcohol industry are way past that. To them, it’s a done deal. And they’re already sizing up and trying to make sense of what they believe is a key competitor. Most folks in the booze lobby want a get along and go along approach but at least one faction in the pot legalization movement wants to legalize pot by shining a light on the health effects of booze. And that’s turning into something of a buzzkill for many of the folks involved. Here’s our latest Prime longform (sub req.) whether the titan and the coming titan in the struggle to get you buzzed and stoned can get along.
I will preface this by saying I don’t think anyone at TPM at least is saying it’s either/or at that ‘militarization’ caused the situation in Ferguson. But this struck me as an important take on Ferguson from TPM Reader GJ …
Ferguson Is About Racism, Not Police Militarization
The idea that some Bush era homeland security program giving police camo pants and armored trucks is what led to the events in Ferguson is absurd.
We’re hiring a Publishing Fellow for our New York City office. This is a six month paid fellowship. Learn the ins and outs of the publishing and business dimensions of making a digital news site work. Listing after the jump …
Just to bring you up to date on the latest development in the Ferguson story, city police have released a police report that purports that show that Michael Brown was the suspect in a convenience store shoplifting/roberry incident in which the suspect stole a box of Swisher Sweets cigars. (It’s a little hard to capture the apparent progression of alleged events in a few words – see the print out of the police report here.)
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.