Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Police on Rampage in Missouri

Five days ago, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed, black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. Since then, Ferguson has been the scene of protests, and some looting and other irresponsible acts of violence against property. Yesterday, however, the police turned the town into an occupied city complete with armored vehicles and automatic weapons. Police attacked taxpayers with rubber bullets, bean bag rounds, flashbangs and tear gas . The pretext was these legal assemblages of citizens failed to disperse at sundown, despite statements by authorities that there is no curfew. Two reporters suffered false arrest as did a St. Louis alderman. This is fascism.

The facts about the moments before an anonymous police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, are likely to be hard to uncover. There was no video camera in the police car; funds have been made available for such but have yet to be spent. The police claim that the deceased injured the officer during a struggle for the officer's weapon. Eye witnesses say Mr. Brown had his hands up when he was slain. The coroner says there are six bullet wounds in the corpse.

What is beyond dispute is the heavy-handed reaction of an almost white police department to the initially peaceful protests of a town that is 2/3 black. The chief of police Thomas Jackson explained to the press that armored vehicles were necessary to protect police from mines. He has, of course, no evidence that such explosives were a possibility, or he would have produced it for the media. When a handful of pre-teen girls dance in the street in daylight as part of a peaceful protest, no police officer should point an automatic weapon at them. Photos and video show that is what happened yesterday.

Fascism begins when the elected officials of a polity are reduced to rubber stamp wielding yes-men and when the press has been intimidated into providing only the official story. Ferguson, Missouri's police department would fit in nicely in Franco's Spain.

Huffington Post put reported,

Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal confronted Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson during a press conference Wednesday, asking why she was tear-gassed during a nonviolent protest . . . .

"I just wanted to know if I was going to be gassed again, like I was on Monday night," Chappelle-Nadal asked. "We couldn't get out, and we were peacefully sitting. I Just wanted to know if I'm going to be gassed again?"

"I hope not," Jackson replied.