Protests Follow Police Shooting Of Unarmed Black Teenager Michael Brown
Just two days after the muted relief of a measure of justice in the murder of Renisha McBride, another young black life has been cut short, a life lived on the same razor’s edge of suspicion and fear that has become all too familiar. Details are still somewhat murky, but according to several witnesses, police in Ferguson, Missouri, shot down 18-year-old Michael Brown in the street as he held his hands up, unarmed, then shot him up to nine more times after he fell. Here’s how one witness described it:
Crowds soon formed to protest the shooting, and police from 15 different departments responded to the scene following reports of gunshots. Brown’s body was reportedly left in the street for four hours before he was removed.
While the scene of the shooting eventually calmed, KDSK reports that protests at the Ferguson Police Department continued into the night, in what’s called a “vigil” when white people do it, but in this case, constituted “unrest”:
Of course, if the protesters in Ferguson were white, they’d probably be walking away with several hundred cattle.
Media coverage has focused as much, or more, on reports of crowds chanting “kill the police” and a dumpster that was set on fire than on the shooting itself.
Yes, well, shooting an unarmed kid ten times is one thing, but that trash fire could really hurt someone!
Police have confirmed the shooting, but little else, and as if the people of Ferguson, or across the nation via social media, needed any more reason to be outraged…READ MORE
mea_mark August 10th, 2014 at 9:15 am
It sure seems like the local authorities and their officers in this country are making the racial tensions a lot worse. I wonder if this is a result of gerrymandering and the resultant political bubbles people live in. It sure seems to me that we need election reform real bad in America before things get out of hand. We are being divided and conquered by ourselves.
Eric Trommater August 10th, 2014 at 9:30 am
It does seem like the politicians who represent the areas where these kinds of incident occur never seem to get pubished at the ballot box.
Anomaly 100 August 10th, 2014 at 9:21 am
The cops are going to get Christopher Dornered if they don’t stop this madness.
Eric Trommater August 10th, 2014 at 9:41 am
In New York it’s forced gentrification. Out west it’s an oldr and more general fear of the other but in all these cases of misused deadly force it seems like there is a background of whipped p fear of violent crime that isn’t justifed by the statistics.It’s too simple to just say racism (although it is race based) because the fear is more a general state of paranoia in which minorities make an easy scape goat. The racism is a deeper problem because it prevents certain people to have the empathy needed for these victims in order to facilitiate policy changes that would put an end to these needless deaths.
mea_mark August 10th, 2014 at 12:17 pm
So Michael Brown is dead because a cop didn’t like him walking in the street and had to push the issue. I think the real issue here is, why do we have so many cops with issues.
edmeyer_able August 10th, 2014 at 1:26 pm
Actions like this will surely embolden the maniacs headed to the border.
Rixar13 McGinnis August 10th, 2014 at 9:08 pm
Report this to http://www.CopBlock.org as no one holds these cops accountable.
atunionbob August 11th, 2014 at 11:16 am
Now the Blacks riot, which shows all the whites just how they want to act. Those who looted, rioted, have shown them selves to be Niggers and not blacks. They wonder then why Whites hate them. This is why…when was the last time you saw a group of whites rioting because a white guy got shot? When was the last time you saw a group of whites rioting because a white guy got arrested? NEVER only the niggers do that. I dont include the Blacks in this as they dont riot, dont loot, and obey the law for the most part just like the whites do. NO I am not raciest, but those rioting and destroying property sure make it hard not to be.
R.J. Carter August 11th, 2014 at 11:22 am
Wow, what blatant race-baiting on the part of the author! I live here, Tommy, and the event was never called anything but a vigil, until after it was over — which was when the next event broke out, appropriately called “rioting and looting.” And now there are more unemployed in Ferguson, who can’t go to their jobs at QT, Walmart, Kmart, Hibbett Sports, and other businesses. Because that really got justice for Michael’s family, didn’t it? (Michael’s family, by the way, condemns the actions of the rioters, as should anyone with functioning brains.)