Violent protest erupts in Ferguson, MO over deadly police shooting

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**whembly**

whembly wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Speaking of not helping...

The Anonymous hacker group threatens St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar on Tuesday afternoon.

They're threatening to release information on Belmar’s daughter if information on the policeman who shot Michael Brown is not released today.

Jon Belmar, if you dont release the officer's name, we're releasing your daughter's info. You have one hour. #Ferguson RT so he sees this.
— TheAnonMessage (@TheAnonMessage) August 12, 2014

Um... dudes. I think you'll see how stubborn Missourians can be.

Just heard over local news cast:
Officials are telling county police officers to reset all of their passwords to their social media and email accounts. They believe the county police department was hacked by Anonymous.

**Jihadin**

Now that needs to be cracked down hard with a sledge hammer

**daedalus**

Quite right. My bad.

**Frazzled**

Damn cats infesting all our threads with their feline offensiveness.

I need an old wiener and a young wiener

Get thee gone Cat! I exorcise thee!

**Kilkrazy**

whembly wrote:
Hmmph... okay... I guess I'd buy that.

Can handgun even hit choppers?

That depends on altitude.

Of course without tracer bullets being used there is no way for an aerial target to know it had been shot at unless it had been actually hit. The cops didn't say their helicopter was hit, so their statement is basically falsitudinous.

**Swastakowey**

The last time I heard about looting in NZ (and first) was about a guy with a mental disability that compels him to steal light fittings. This was after the Christchurch earthquake.

Must be scary to be in an area where your lively hood could be destroyed.

What usually happens during these violent protests? Didnt it happen after Martin Luther King was shot as well? (I seem to remember learning about that many many years ago).

**d-usa**

Kilkrazy wrote:
whembly wrote:
Hmmph... okay... I guess I'd buy that.

Can handgun even hit choppers?

That depends on altitude.

Of course without tracer bullets being used there is no way for an aerial target to know it had been shot at unless it had been actually hit. The cops didn't say their helicopter was hit, so their statement is basically falsitudinous.

You mean it was just "stuff was going 'boom boom' while we had helicopters in the air therefore the rioters had AA firepower"?

**daedalus**

Swastakowey wrote:
The last time I heard about looting in NZ (and first) was about a guy with a mental disability that compels him to steal light fittings. This was after the Christchurch earthquake.

Must be scary to be in an area where your lively hood could be destroyed.

What usually happens during these violent protests? Didnt it happen after Martin Luther King was shot as well? (I seem to remember learning about that many many years ago).

Actually, it didn't happen in STL. There were protests, but by my understanding, we actually have had a proud and remarkable tradition of not rioting here that's sadly been broken now.

**Jihadin**

Why take a chance on a rotary aircraft when one slug can cause up to 45K in damages if it hits the spar of the main rotor blade or hit the drive shaft of the tail rotor. WHY take a chance at all if rioters are shooting just pistols at first then go up to rifles.

**Kilkrazy**

d-usa wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
whembly wrote:
Hmmph... okay... I guess I'd buy that.

Can handgun even hit choppers?

That depends on altitude.

Of course without tracer bullets being used there is no way for an aerial target to know it had been shot at unless it had been actually hit. The cops didn't say their helicopter was hit, so their statement is basically falsitudinous.

You mean it was just "stuff was going 'boom boom' while we had helicopters in the air therefore the rioters had AA firepower"?

How can a helicopter crew hear a gun shot? How can a helicopter crew see a bullet?

There is no way a helicopter crew can know they have been shot at unless there are bullet holes in the aircraft when they land.

There are no statements that there were bullet holes in the helicopters, only that the crowd had been shooting at them.

I am sure people can draw their own conclusions.

**d-usa**

Kilkrazy wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
whembly wrote:
Hmmph... okay... I guess I'd buy that.

Can handgun even hit choppers?

That depends on altitude.

Of course without tracer bullets being used there is no way for an aerial target to know it had been shot at unless it had been actually hit. The cops didn't say their helicopter was hit, so their statement is basically falsitudinous.

You mean it was just "stuff was going 'boom boom' while we had helicopters in the air therefore the rioters had AA firepower"?

How can a helicopter crew hear a gun shot? How can a helicopter crew see a bullet?

There is no way a helicopter crew can know they have been shot at unless there are bullet holes in the aircraft when they land.

I just figured it came from cops on the ground. "We heard people shoot while our helicopter was in the air!"

Unrelated: one of the Oklahoma City or Oklahoma County LE helicopters was shot at not too long ago. Nobody knew it until, like you said, they found a bullet hole in the helicopter while inspecting it.

**Jihadin**

Kilkrazy wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
whembly wrote:
Hmmph... okay... I guess I'd buy that.

Can handgun even hit choppers?

That depends on altitude.

Of course without tracer bullets being used there is no way for an aerial target to know it had been shot at unless it had been actually hit. The cops didn't say their helicopter was hit, so their statement is basically falsitudinous.

You mean it was just "stuff was going 'boom boom' while we had helicopters in the air therefore the rioters had AA firepower"?

How can a helicopter crew hear a gun shot? How can a helicopter crew see a bullet?

There is no way a helicopter crew can know they have been shot at unless there are bullet holes in the aircraft when they land.

There are no statements that there were bullet holes in the helicopters, only that the crowd had been shooting at them.

I am sure people can draw their own conclusions.

Can see the result of bullet holes in the aircraft
Can also see individuals firing at you.

**Hordini**

Good to see the St. Louis Ink guys defending their business. According to this article they share a storefront with a gun store. Defending it was the responsible thing to do. If the mob had cleared out the gun store that would have been bad news.

Some people ask why a civilian would ever need an AR-15. This is a pretty good example.

**Kilkrazy**

Jihadin wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
whembly wrote:
Hmmph... okay... I guess I'd buy that.

Can handgun even hit choppers?

That depends on altitude.

Of course without tracer bullets being used there is no way for an aerial target to know it had been shot at unless it had been actually hit. The cops didn't say their helicopter was hit, so their statement is basically falsitudinous.

You mean it was just "stuff was going 'boom boom' while we had helicopters in the air therefore the rioters had AA firepower"?

How can a helicopter crew hear a gun shot? How can a helicopter crew see a bullet?

There is no way a helicopter crew can know they have been shot at unless there are bullet holes in the aircraft when they land.

There are no statements that there were bullet holes in the helicopters, only that the crowd had been shooting at them.

I am sure people can draw their own conclusions.

Can see the result of bullet holes in the aircraft
Can also see individuals firing at you.

**Jihadin**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Jihadin wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
whembly wrote:
Hmmph... okay... I guess I'd buy that.

Can handgun even hit choppers?

That depends on altitude.

Of course without tracer bullets being used there is no way for an aerial target to know it had been shot at unless it had been actually hit. The cops didn't say their helicopter was hit, so their statement is basically falsitudinous.

You mean it was just "stuff was going 'boom boom' while we had helicopters in the air therefore the rioters had AA firepower"?

How can a helicopter crew hear a gun shot? How can a helicopter crew see a bullet?

There is no way a helicopter crew can know they have been shot at unless there are bullet holes in the aircraft when they land.

There are no statements that there were bullet holes in the helicopters, only that the crowd had been shooting at them.

I am sure people can draw their own conclusions.

Can see the result of bullet holes in the aircraft
Can also see individuals firing at you.

Which there apparently weren't, as I pointed out twice.

Can see people waving hands, sticks, even guns in the air, if you are lucky and sharp-eyed, and claim it to be people shooting.

Where is the video footage? Shouldn't police helicopters gather evidence using their on-board equipment? Perhaps locked in the same vault as the name of the policemen who shot the unarmed teenager multiple times who was seen by a witness surrendering.

Justification on taking the "chance" then. None of the "birds" have Kevlar paneling or armor seats for the pilots and passengers.

I've also seen "hands going up" when the targets gets shot to. Question remaining at this point is
Was he surrendering before getting shot
or
Getting shot and having the arms going up from impact

Eye witness says one thing and police reports says another. Let the investigation reach its conclusions

**Lynata**

Frazzled wrote:So when does DHS roll in with their assault tanks and black helicopters?

The DHS? I thought this is why local law enforcement was stockpiling APCs and stuff.

Spoiler:

Maybe they'll call in Roy Scheider and Blue Thunder.

blaktoof wrote:anything happens to minority = racist even if it was another minority doing it.

Rather, I suppose it might be a combination of history + ratio of blacks to non-blacks (both in victims as well as cops) + commonly lack of consequences for the officers involved (doesn't actually apply solely to white-on-black brutality, but would obviously be interpreted differently in this situation, compounded with the aforementioned ratios).

As for the rioting, I'm fairly sure this has less to do with exploitation but rather with built-up anger leading to cessation of an objective analysis of the situation. This is how mob mentality works, and in this case the only thing on people's mind is a desire to vent frustration.
Get a large enough group of humans together, rile up their emotions, and watch them go crazy. Have you never been to a concert or read about stuff like the Reichskristallnacht? It's a part of human nature.

[edit] spoiler'd for big images

**Ensis Ferrae**

daedalus wrote:

Spoiler:

Four-year-old Aubrey Glover struggled with a broom even taller than her to sweep broken glass in the parking lot of a burned-out convenience store the morning after a riot in Ferguson.

Her mother, Erica Hampton, 31, woke up Aubrey and her brother, Jaden, 10, early that morning in their north St. Louis County home and said they were going to do some cleaning up.

"Tearing up buildings and trashing places is not the way to solve anything," she told them. They brought large white trash bags and brooms.

She called her sister, Dede Patteron, 29, who lives near the street where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer on Saturday. Patterson's young children have slept in the bed with her the past few nights while they heard shouts from the crowds outside.

"I didn't even explain it to them," Patterson said. She wasn't sure what to tell them. "It was just too much." The QuikTrip is where her 9- and 7-year-old walk to for snacks. "My kids can't ever come to the store anymore."

"Let's go clean it up," her sister said to her. "Let's go."

Patterson agreed: "What I seen I didn't like. ... It's not going to bring him back."

There is an urgency to do something, anything, to make the terribleness of the past week less so. For Hampton, who will complete her master's degree in counseling in December, she wanted her children to see her picking up trash around the destroyed building.

"This what you do for your community," she told them.

There is anger here, not just about the shooting, but toward the vandals who destroyed their businesses in their neighborhood. Toward those who have changed the conversation from trying to find out what happened and seek justice to the criminal reaction of some.

"They are judging us by this," Patterson said, waving her arms around the parking lot.

Shamika Williams, 36, stood in the lot with two of her three daughters. They had seen Brown's body lying in the street in broad daylight when he was killed. Their mother has been at protests, wanting to add her voice to those calling for a change in the way residents are treated by law enforcement.

"I don't want them growing up getting mistreated. I don't want them growing up afraid of the cops," she said. "Why can't we protest? Why can't we grieve? Let us get this out of our system."

The stories she's heard and things she's seen make her glad she doesn't have a son. "If I had a boy, I'd be afraid to let him walk the street."

Beyond anger and grief, there is weariness in this area.

How many times have we seen this scene? How long will we march in streets?

"It seems like this has been going on a while," said Kenyana Shaw, 25, of St. Louis. "I can't imagine if this happened to my son."

A small child stood next to a young, black man speaking angrily to an older man in a parking lot. When I told him I wanted to speak to parents in the area, he became even more upset.

He shook his head and started walked away from me but kept talking. He said he knew what it was like to be Michael Brown. He knew how it felt to be stopped walking down these streets, automatically a suspect.

There was anguish in his voice: "They hate us! Their daddies, their granddaddies hated us and now they hate us!"

There is fear.

A woman who owns a hair braiding salon said she told her children to stay inside all day. She only came to check on her store and planned to lock up and stay home. Her older boys had been friends with Brown.

"I'm so scared," she said.

There were still parents pushing baby carriages down the debris-scattered street, past cracked and broken storefront windows, past graffiti that said "kill the police" and "RIP."

Randy Casson, 37, stood in a small group with his 11-year-old son, who partially hid behind his father's legs. His son's eyes were sad. His face somber.

Casson tried to explain to him that the people who rioted had not learned a better way to express themselves. That they were angry and lashing out in the wrong way.

"It seems like the police and the people are about to go to war," Randy, Jr. said.

I couldn't help my immediate response.

"Oh, baby, no. That's not going to happen. Why do you think that?"

"I heard there are tanks coming down."

This is not Gaza. This is not Iraq.

This is the heartland of America.

Why do the trash bags have to be white?

**Crablezworth**

Well out of 53 officers only 3 are black so odds are higher the officer wasn't himself black.

Lynata did an excellent job explaining the effect of being in a mob.

I agree that rioting is universally stupid, but I also have to acknowledge that without the unrest in the wake of the shooting, none of us may have ever had it brought to our attention.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Crablezworth wrote:

I agree that rioting is universally stupid, but I also have to acknowledge that without the unrest in the wake of the shooting, none of us may have ever had it brought to our attention.

At the same time though, once all the details of the initial shooting come out, what is the possibility that the officer was doing his duty completely by the book, and did nothing wrong? Is this even really national/international news worthy?

I mean, I completely understand why people in LA rioted after the Rodney King verdict, I get why people rioted in Chicago in 68. To an extent, I "get" why people in Vancouver rioted when the 'Nucks lost the Stanley Cup... But this... I don't fething understand why it's "cool" to feth up your own, and others' communities and riot over this.

**blaktoof**

free tallboys and pringles. Thats cool.

**cincydooley**

No one rioted in Malibu after OJ was set free.......

**Ensis Ferrae**

cincydooley wrote:
No one rioted in Malibu after OJ was set free.......

that's because certain segments of society finally got their "justice"

**Jihadin**

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
cincydooley wrote:
No one rioted in Malibu after OJ was set free.......

that's because certain segments of society finally got their "justice"

You two might be going down a different path that could lead to stupidity on this thread

**Ahtman**

cincydooley wrote:
No one rioted in Malibu after OJ was set free.......

Is there a long history of tension between the cops and the minority community there? Is the history there the same as MO? Did the cops shoot an unarmed teen after OJ was release? Riots don't happen overnight or over a single incident, but usually from a series of incidents and problems over a long period.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Jihadin wrote:
Ensis Ferrae wrote:
cincydooley wrote:
No one rioted in Malibu after OJ was set free.......

that's because certain segments of society finally got their "justice"

You two might be going down a different path that could lead to stupidity on this thread

Lol, that, and it's malibu... most of the "rioters" would be too busy surfing, or worried about scratching their Ferrari

**Jihadin**

Ahtman wrote:
cincydooley wrote:
No one rioted in Malibu after OJ was set free.......

Is there a long history of tension between the cops and the minority community there? Is the history there the same as MO? Did the cops shoot an unarmed teen after OJ was release? Riots don't happen overnight or over a single incident, but usually from a series of incidents and problems over a long period.

I got the "vibe" that LEO are not from Ferguson because a majority of the population is black?

**cincydooley**

Because the most logical course of action to resolve tension is to loot and burn stores in your neighborhood.

Oh, wait. No it isn't.

These pieces of garbage are selfish opportunists that couldn't give two happy feths about resolving any "tension" in the community. I hope those store owners pick up shop and don't reopen their stores.

**hotsauceman1**

cincydooley wrote:
No one rioted in Malibu after OJ was set free.......

That had me laughing way more then it should have.

**cincydooley**

Furthermore, the amount of justifying that seems to be going on in the media is absurd. There's no "justification" to a riot or looting.

**Relapse**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Jihadin wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
whembly wrote:
Hmmph... okay... I guess I'd buy that.

Can handgun even hit choppers?

That depends on altitude.

Of course without tracer bullets being used there is no way for an aerial target to know it had been shot at unless it had been actually hit. The cops didn't say their helicopter was hit, so their statement is basically falsitudinous.

You mean it was just "stuff was going 'boom boom' while we had helicopters in the air therefore the rioters had AA firepower"?

How can a helicopter crew hear a gun shot? How can a helicopter crew see a bullet?

There is no way a helicopter crew can know they have been shot at unless there are bullet holes in the aircraft when they land.

There are no statements that there were bullet holes in the helicopters, only that the crowd had been shooting at them.

I am sure people can draw their own conclusions.

Can see the result of bullet holes in the aircraft
Can also see individuals firing at you.

Which there apparently weren't, as I pointed out twice.

Can see people waving hands, sticks, even guns in the air, if you are lucky and sharp-eyed, and claim it to be people shooting.

Where is the video footage? Shouldn't police helicopters gather evidence using their on-board equipment? Perhaps locked in the same vault as the name of the policemen who shot the unarmed teenager multiple times who was seen by a witness surrendering.