What I find astounding about this movement is the ability of so many African American men identifying with police harassment.
President Obama and Attorney General Holder both spoke of instances whereby they were JUDGED by perfect strangers while they were innocent to any wrong doing.
The movement across the entire country isn't about anti-police, it is about wrongful death of African American young men. I haven't seen a movement like this since the sixties whereby demonstrators could identify strongly with the understanding of why the movement was started and continues.
I can't dismiss this death either. It occurred in Ferguson
November 26, 2014
By Ben Mathis-Lilly
A 20-year-old man (click here) named DeAndre Joshua was found dead in Ferguson on Tuesdaynear the location where Michael Brown was killed. From USA Today:
At 9 a.m. Tuesday, a resident of an apartment complex spotted Joshua's body inside a parked car, a white Pontiac Grand Prix, near Canfield Green Apartments, the same complex where Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson shot Brown on Aug. 9. Blood-soaked shattered glass lay in a pile on the ground beside the car.
Joshua was shot in the head, CNN reports, and gasoline had been used to light his body on fire. Joshua was reportedly a friend of Dorian Johnson, the Ferguson resident who was with Michael Brown when Brown died....
Do the police in Ferguson know they are not operating in a vacuum? The world is fixed on that town and the people of that town following the police killing of Michael Brown, Jr.
There is another African American man in Ferguson that has described what amounts to death threats from police for being involved in organizing the protests. (click here) He stated he thought it was the KKK at first, but, was surprised when it was the police department. The police put their guns to the head of the occupants of the car. The police were following T Dubb O for weeks since the demonstrations started.
It was one thing to have a police officer shoot a young black man, it is quite something else to have additional heinous murders and intimidation of young people in the community at the barrel of a gun. And to hear T Dubb O state this type of harassment happens all the time.
Cops can be white supremacists, too. If the community is harassed by these police there is an obvious problem in trusting the police at any time of day or in any activity.
While I am speculating I have to say, there is something profoundly wrong here. Where is the corruption or what is the culture within the police department that allows this and more than allowing this harassment it even seems to encourage it. Is there a drug problem within the police department? Is all the evidence intact in the evidence room? This is a small town. The police are big fish in a small pond. What gives already? Why are the police in Ferguson so invested in their positions to carry out this level of intimidation? None of this sounds NORMAL. I hope the FBI is assisting in the death of DeAndre Joshua. His death was heinous. No one reported the fire? Why?
