The Ferguson police department never knew who 21,000 people were in serving and protecting them.
In general they didn't understand them, never knew them and treated them as an enemy.
This is a picture of a TRUTHFUL moment in Portland, Oregon.
In this Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014 photo provided by Johnny Nguyen, Portland police Sgt. Bret Barnum, left, and Devonte Hart, 12, hug at a rally in Portland, Ore., where people had gathered in support of the protests in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/Johnny Huu Nguyen)
November 29, 2014
By Gosia Wozniacka
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An African-American (click here) boy holding a "Free Hugs" sign stood crying in front of a police barricade at a Ferguson rally in Portland. A white police officer motioned for him to come closer. The officer then asked the boy for a hug — and they embraced, the boy's anguished face streaming with tears...
This is not politics. This is racism as WE know it. This is profound fear by young black men/boys of being killed by the police officers that are suppose to protect them. They are caught in a void of unknown peril and there seems to be little to nothing society has been able to do to stop it.
Coast to coast, it doesn't matter there are young UNARMED black men being cut down in their early years of living free in a democracy; only in their case they are not given a trial so much as a sentence.
The gun culture in the USA has amassed respect. It has turned a relatively peaceful nation whereby 'domestic tranquility' is guaranteed by the USA Constitution and turned it into streets of blood. Literally. Michael Brown, Jr. bled out on the street probably every drop of 8 pints of blood while police applied their yellow tape and instilled fear in the hearts of the neighborhood.
The culture of fear is alive and well in middle class and poor neighborhoods. This is exactly the outcome so many expected when the focus in the USA changed from respecting human life to that of gun supremacy. The middle class and poor can't afford weapons. The argument the right wing gun enthusiasts tout as 'the reason for concealed carry and open ended gun laws,' is that criminals get their hands on guns and the 'so called good people' are left dead because of it. That 'idea' has created overwhelming force in applications by police to protect their own lives.
Is Darren Wilson a prime example of how fearful police are of their duties? No. Darren Wilson worried about his own life and didn't bother to take into account the lives of two young black men walking down a street. Wilson had just been given a citation for arresting two black men involved in selling drugs. If one reads the reports in the newspapers regarding this arrest it was the same technique of wrestling he exercised with Brown.
Michael Brown, Jr. never touched the gun, a piece of his thumb was shot off and he was bleeding. The assault on Brown was never in question. Wilson was going to kill Brown if he had to. It wasn't a matter of Wilson being in fear for his life. He was conducting police activities as he knew it and this was just another day at work.
The unwillingness of government to exercise legislation to keep the streets safe has provided the USA with nothing less than a return of Al Capone. The people with guns as opposed to the peril of those without guns, with gun rights guaranteed by open ended laws that create a superior citizen armed with their favorite weapon(s) is now the law of the land.
What bothers me is the LACK of anyone to actually open carry weapons. When police encounter guns it is usually in vehicles, but, not in neighborhoods in the USA. It is very unusual to have any citizen exercising concealed carry in an exchange of gun fire with police. The chances of Michael Brown, Jr. actually being someone with a concealed carry permit was zero to none. But, the chances of Michael Brown, Jr. being a criminal with a concealed weapon was Wilson's pre-decided defense with any killing he would commit.
It was 'the clever criminal on the street' that Wilson decided he needed to stop. It was that one person that was better armed than he that was going to remove him in his fiancee's deepest fear.
If Wilson understood the neighborhood he patrolled or better said he responded to, he would know the chances of a young, black man from a lower middle class family being armed in broad daylight is highly unlikely.
Wilson never responded to mischief, he always responded to felonies. The police of 21,000 people with a majority lower middle class black families should have known where the weapons were in regard to any incidence of crime. Wilson was responding to the theft of $12 of cigarillos not the murder of the show owner and/or customers.
Ferguson has some wealthy folks. It is they that most probably own weapons for the reason they do. But, to assign that level of concern for concealed weapons by these people is nonsense. The families of Ferguson were focused on upward mobility. They wanted their children to attend college and find a better life than they had. That is America, that is not a drug cartel.
There was a drug problem in Ferguson as Wilson found out, but, as one person put it, "It is how I pay my bills."
Wilson applied deadly force inappropriately in killing Michael Brown, Jr. The confrontation of Brown and his friend was completely off the scale by Wilson. Those two young black men have rights and if they were involved in crime those rights are litigated in a court of law and NOT the streets of their neighborhood.
Is this another Trayvon Martin, darn right it is. Vigilantism ruled in the death of Trayvon. What was the focus in the media? The fact an innocent young black man was living with his father to straighten out his behavior when his mother could not? Was it the fact an innocent young black man was the victim of vigilantism? No, it was the fact Trayvon had blood results that proved he smoked marijuana sometime in the past month. That is called experimentation, every parent's nightmare.
Trayvon was a teenager on the way home from the local convenience store when a vigilante decided to be a police officer in all his personal hubris, engaged in confronting Trayvon and fell victim to a teenager frightened for his life. It was Trayvon that died, not the vigilante Zimmerman. As soon as Zimmerman confronted Trayvon his right to use of a gun was removed, in the real world where a teen's blood is spilled for the sake of gun culture hubris.
The police were already responding and if the vigilante were sincerely interested in assisting, all that was necessary was a finger to point in the direction or to the house Trayvon went to. The 'right wing nut case propaganda machine' is winning the day and our citizens are dying because of it. Both Wilson and Zimmerman belong behind bars along with innumerable others that have killed because THEY THOUGHT it was appropriate.
In general they didn't understand them, never knew them and treated them as an enemy.
This is a picture of a TRUTHFUL moment in Portland, Oregon.
In this Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014 photo provided by Johnny Nguyen, Portland police Sgt. Bret Barnum, left, and Devonte Hart, 12, hug at a rally in Portland, Ore., where people had gathered in support of the protests in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/Johnny Huu Nguyen)November 29, 2014
By Gosia Wozniacka
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An African-American (click here) boy holding a "Free Hugs" sign stood crying in front of a police barricade at a Ferguson rally in Portland. A white police officer motioned for him to come closer. The officer then asked the boy for a hug — and they embraced, the boy's anguished face streaming with tears...
This is not politics. This is racism as WE know it. This is profound fear by young black men/boys of being killed by the police officers that are suppose to protect them. They are caught in a void of unknown peril and there seems to be little to nothing society has been able to do to stop it.
Coast to coast, it doesn't matter there are young UNARMED black men being cut down in their early years of living free in a democracy; only in their case they are not given a trial so much as a sentence.
The gun culture in the USA has amassed respect. It has turned a relatively peaceful nation whereby 'domestic tranquility' is guaranteed by the USA Constitution and turned it into streets of blood. Literally. Michael Brown, Jr. bled out on the street probably every drop of 8 pints of blood while police applied their yellow tape and instilled fear in the hearts of the neighborhood.
The culture of fear is alive and well in middle class and poor neighborhoods. This is exactly the outcome so many expected when the focus in the USA changed from respecting human life to that of gun supremacy. The middle class and poor can't afford weapons. The argument the right wing gun enthusiasts tout as 'the reason for concealed carry and open ended gun laws,' is that criminals get their hands on guns and the 'so called good people' are left dead because of it. That 'idea' has created overwhelming force in applications by police to protect their own lives.
Is Darren Wilson a prime example of how fearful police are of their duties? No. Darren Wilson worried about his own life and didn't bother to take into account the lives of two young black men walking down a street. Wilson had just been given a citation for arresting two black men involved in selling drugs. If one reads the reports in the newspapers regarding this arrest it was the same technique of wrestling he exercised with Brown.
Michael Brown, Jr. never touched the gun, a piece of his thumb was shot off and he was bleeding. The assault on Brown was never in question. Wilson was going to kill Brown if he had to. It wasn't a matter of Wilson being in fear for his life. He was conducting police activities as he knew it and this was just another day at work.
The unwillingness of government to exercise legislation to keep the streets safe has provided the USA with nothing less than a return of Al Capone. The people with guns as opposed to the peril of those without guns, with gun rights guaranteed by open ended laws that create a superior citizen armed with their favorite weapon(s) is now the law of the land.
What bothers me is the LACK of anyone to actually open carry weapons. When police encounter guns it is usually in vehicles, but, not in neighborhoods in the USA. It is very unusual to have any citizen exercising concealed carry in an exchange of gun fire with police. The chances of Michael Brown, Jr. actually being someone with a concealed carry permit was zero to none. But, the chances of Michael Brown, Jr. being a criminal with a concealed weapon was Wilson's pre-decided defense with any killing he would commit.
It was 'the clever criminal on the street' that Wilson decided he needed to stop. It was that one person that was better armed than he that was going to remove him in his fiancee's deepest fear.
If Wilson understood the neighborhood he patrolled or better said he responded to, he would know the chances of a young, black man from a lower middle class family being armed in broad daylight is highly unlikely.
Wilson never responded to mischief, he always responded to felonies. The police of 21,000 people with a majority lower middle class black families should have known where the weapons were in regard to any incidence of crime. Wilson was responding to the theft of $12 of cigarillos not the murder of the show owner and/or customers.
Ferguson has some wealthy folks. It is they that most probably own weapons for the reason they do. But, to assign that level of concern for concealed weapons by these people is nonsense. The families of Ferguson were focused on upward mobility. They wanted their children to attend college and find a better life than they had. That is America, that is not a drug cartel.
There was a drug problem in Ferguson as Wilson found out, but, as one person put it, "It is how I pay my bills."
Wilson applied deadly force inappropriately in killing Michael Brown, Jr. The confrontation of Brown and his friend was completely off the scale by Wilson. Those two young black men have rights and if they were involved in crime those rights are litigated in a court of law and NOT the streets of their neighborhood.
Is this another Trayvon Martin, darn right it is. Vigilantism ruled in the death of Trayvon. What was the focus in the media? The fact an innocent young black man was living with his father to straighten out his behavior when his mother could not? Was it the fact an innocent young black man was the victim of vigilantism? No, it was the fact Trayvon had blood results that proved he smoked marijuana sometime in the past month. That is called experimentation, every parent's nightmare.
Trayvon was a teenager on the way home from the local convenience store when a vigilante decided to be a police officer in all his personal hubris, engaged in confronting Trayvon and fell victim to a teenager frightened for his life. It was Trayvon that died, not the vigilante Zimmerman. As soon as Zimmerman confronted Trayvon his right to use of a gun was removed, in the real world where a teen's blood is spilled for the sake of gun culture hubris.
The police were already responding and if the vigilante were sincerely interested in assisting, all that was necessary was a finger to point in the direction or to the house Trayvon went to. The 'right wing nut case propaganda machine' is winning the day and our citizens are dying because of it. Both Wilson and Zimmerman belong behind bars along with innumerable others that have killed because THEY THOUGHT it was appropriate.
