The brief, violent detention of two reporters in Ferguson, Mo.

[alp227]

Not even JOURNALISTS were spared the wrath of the Ferguson, MO police, as the San Diego Union-Tribune reports:

As tempers continued to flare in Ferguson, Mo., Wednesday, national reporters Wesley Lowery and Ryan J. Reilly were detained by police in an episode that unfolded on Twitter as dramatically as the protests they and others have documented in this small city near St. Louis since Saturday's shooting death of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer.

The two reporters were working from a Ferguson, Mo., McDonald's Wednesday afternoon when the police entered the restaurant and in an effort to clear it, in the reporters' own words, "assaulted" one and "slammed" the other into a soda machine.

This is how their detention unfolded, and how another reporter, Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times, spurred their release with a phone call to a police chief after only about 40 minutes. Lowery covers Congress and national politics for the Washington Post. Reilly is a justice reporter for the Huffington Post.

[earthside]

1. Police in Ferguson are out of control.

Surely the governor of Missouri has emergency powers to step into a situation like this.

The photos of police in military gear, the arrest of reporters, weapons aimed at citizens -- this sounds like a police state in a fascist third world country.

[arcane1]

3. He should be calling the National Guard on the police!!

[GliderGuider]

5. It sure looks like a police state from up here in Canada.

I was in the May riots in Paris in 1968, and that didn't look anywhere near this frightening. I want to say you need the National Guard to step in, but then I remember Kent State...

[babylonsister]

2. It seems it's tougher to hide actions now; it's a good thing. nt

[L0oniX]

4. We need to Freedom Ride in mass to Ferguson.

[GliderGuider]

6. That's an excellent idea! nt

[freshwest]

7. Send in federalized national guard troops. Kennedy did it. No excuse for any of this.