As usual, I see waaaay too much one-side "reporting" of the result with no attention to the origin.
> A shooting is a disproportionate response to someone walking in the road, riots and looting are a disproportionate response to an unjust death, militarized police is a disproportionate response to riots and looting, and Molotov cocktails are a disproportionate response to a militarized police force. > A cycle of violence will continue to escalate until one side will take a step back and often it takes a third party like the Missouri Highway Patrol to make that happen.
When a conflict is escalating, there are multiple layers of disproportionate response that allow outside observers at any point to interject how the people worrying about Layer X are ignoring Layer X-1, which allows other observers to interject that said person is ignoring Layer X-2, ad nauseum.
It's somewhat the inevitable result of people trying to process a complicated tragic situation with information overload into simple understanding that are inevitably influenced by their pre-existing biases and experiences.
[0]http://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/2dlq8w/the_first_ni...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182939
These photographs of paramilitary soldiers shooting tear gas into groups of reporters and peaceful protesters turns my stomach. Likewise, allowing looting and destruction of innocent peoples' property is unacceptable. It's a despicable situation on all sides.
On its own, it looks to me as if one cop went berserk for some reason of his own. It had nothing to do with the police department or Ferguson. Some people are trying to make it out to be white cops picking on black people but, if that were true, you would hear of stories from that area all the time and you don't. Yes, there are tensions between the police and some in the community but, be aware, Ferguson is not The Hamptons.
No one needed to die over this. The cop apparently went berserk. However, this was more than just some kid walking down the street. As minor as this sounds, people walking down the street, blocking traffic, is something of a major issue in Ferguson. People are always complaining about this in that area. It's a real problem. Perhaps this "If I told you once I told you a thousand times!" incident is what finally set him off but this was HIS problem, not that whole department's problem or anything to do with Ferguson.
What I'm trying to say is, the REAL story is "Cop gets fed up and goes berserk" not "White cops murdering black kids".
While the radio station did its best to confirm the ID of the caller, we don't know for sure she's real. However, her recounting of the events is similar to what was reported on TV and radio within hours of the original shooting. I own some restaurants and frequently get police visitors. I've been told that the real story will come out later and little of what's been told by those so-called "eyewitnesses" is true. Specifically, "witnesses" claim Brown was shot in the back as he was running away. We will soon learn that isn't true at all.
While I thought it sounded like a cop gone berserk at first, more and more bits and pieces are leaking out along with the link above and, if confirmed, will tell you something I won't go into here and now.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7939710