Police images fuel outrage in St. Louis and beyond
Source: AP-Excite
By SHARON COHEN and ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — The images were reminiscent of a war zone: Helmeted officers pointing weapons from armored trucks, flash grenades lighting the night sky and tear gas exploding in crowded streets.
The ugly clashes between police and protesters in this St. Louis suburb fueled a torrent of criticism and raised questions about whether the officers' tactics were inflaming the same violence they aimed to suppress after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.
The repeated scenes of police officers wearing military-style camouflage and gas masks and training their rifles on unarmed civilians — some holding their hands up — looked to critics more like an Army trying to quell a revolution than a police department trying to keep the peace in a small suburb.
"It's clear what is going on in Ferguson is a complete, hyper-exaggerated, hysterical response on the part of law enforcement," said Thomas Nolan, a former Boston police officer and criminal justice professor at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. "It's clear that there is no one in charge and no one to corral the officers ... and restrain them from engaging in an unprecedented show of brutal force against civilians. It's horrifying and shameful and a disgrace."
FULL story at link.
A man picks up a flaming bottle and prepares to throw it as a line of police advance in the distance Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. Protests in the St. Louis suburb rocked by racial unrest since a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager to death turned violent Wednesday night, with people lobbing molotov cocktails at police who responded with smoke bombs and tear gas to disperse the crowd. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140814/us-police-shooting-missouri-police-response-9678d6f6f6.html
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racist america keeps doing these types of murder and when the response is violent it's the people who are violent that are at fault according to the RW/LW righteous. No I don't agree with looting your community, but violence begats violence. Unarmed, hands in the air, shot 10 times. Well. The racists want a war because of that "brown tyrant" living at 1600 and they are trying to start one, just ask zimmerman or bundy, Hannity, Limpig, et al or the cop who shot this young man. What other motivation can there be for murders, intimidation and RW hate spewed from the television 'news' and RW hate radio such as this? Just a question.
