There’s a police coup going on right now in Ferguson, Mo.
►http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Theres-a-police-coup-right-now-n-Ferguson-Mo-.html
This afternoon, several hundred citizens who gathered on a public street, in broad daylight, to air their grievances over Brown’s killing were met with a massive SWAT team, an armored personnel carrier, and men in camouflage pointing heavy artillery at the crowd. Two prominent credentialed journalists who tried to report on the event were arrested for a time, and there was a report that a state senator who questioned authorities about tear gas earlier was also in custody. All this as authorities continue to cover up the most basic information about what happened on the night Mike Brown was murdered.
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There is a lot to talk about in the days and weeks ahead. For starters, authorities — not just in Missouri but around the nation — are going to need to explain the obscene (and obscenely expensive) over-militarization of American police departments, weaponry now aimed at the communities that these officers had sworn to protect and serve. Americans should not have to turn on their TV sets to see news that looks like it’s coming from ISIS-held territory in Iraq or Kandahar, until we see the McDonald’s arches in the background and realize that we are just 15 minutes from Busch Stadium. And there will need to be a massive conversation about community policing — especially in Ferguson, a majority black community where 94 percent of officers are white — but also anywhere where cops are seeing as suppressing communities instead of protecting them. And there must — and one cannot emphasize this enough — be real justice and accountability for the murder of Mike Brown.
