Weapons of the Ferguson Police Department

The Ferguson Police Department has access to an array of weapons.  Some of them are controversial, like the LRAD Sound Cannon:

Developed by the LRAD corporation to broadcast messages and pain-inducing “deterrent” tones over long distances, LRAD devices come in various iterations that produce varying degrees of sound. They can be mounted to a vehicle or handheld. The device produces a sound that can be directed in a beam up to 30-degree wide, and the military-grade LRAD 2000X can transmit voice commands at up to 162dB up to 5.5 miles away.

[…]

The LRAD corporation says that anyone within a 100 meters of the device’s sound path will experience extreme pain. The version generally utilized by police department (the LRAD 500X) is designed to communicate at up to 2000 meters during ideal conditions. In a typical outdoor environment, the device can be heard for 650 meters. The 500x is also capable of short bursts of directed sound that cause severe headaches in anyone within a 300-meter range. Anyone within 15 meters of the device’s audio path can experience permanent hearing loss. LRAD claims the device is not a weapon, but a “directed-sound communication device.”

It’s not a weapon, but it can cause permanent hearing loss.  Perhaps it was not created as a weapon. But its use in Ferguson, given the devastating effects this device can cause, definitely qualifies it as a weapon.  

The images at this link include shots of the multiple weapons brought by the police in response to the protests in Ferguson.

Tear gas was used against citizens of Ferguson in their own yards.  

The people of Ferguson were not the only ones the police used tear gas against.  Apparently those news crews from Al-Jazeera America were a big threat.

Oh, and those rubber bullets that aren’t lethal?  They can still do powerful damage.  You would not want to get hit by one of them.  A woman who was helping to calm down the crowd during one night of the protests was hit by a rubber bullet (image at the link).  I sure as heck wouldn’t want to get hit by that.

The Ferguson Police Department was completely unjustified in deploying such weapons against the protesters.  The protests were overwhelmingly peaceful and they were met with police forces and weapons one would expect in a war zone.  No force should have been brought to bear against them in the first place bc they were not involved in the looting and rioting, and what little of that that occurred doesn’t require a SWAT team response.  No, the response from the Ferguson PD treated the protesters as if their mere presence was a threat to public safety (an argument many are now making of the PD itself).  A group of largely black people get together to protest the treatment by their police, to demand justice for Michael Brown, and express their anger at the handling of the investigation into Brown’s death…that’s totally a reason to bring in military grade weaponry.  They’re just a bunch of uppity black people demanding justice and equality in a peaceful manner.  They deserved their treatment by the Ferguson PD, amirite?  

Weapons of the Ferguson Police Department
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Todd Starnes is reality challenged

Todd Starnes is the religion reporter for FOX News.  Feel free to laugh at that sentence. I sure the fuck am.  Among the many deeply incorrect beliefs he holds, he thinks that the protesters in Ferguson were the ones who attacked the media:

Oh, I don’t know Todd.  How about because the police and SWAT teams were the ones who accosted and arrested reporters?  Not the protesters.

Todd is also angry that President Obama didn’t offer condolences to the police officer who murdered Michael Brown?  Yeah, I know, I know.  It doesn’t make any sense, but this is Todd Starnes.

 

(hat tip to TheNewCivilRightsMovement)

Todd Starnes is reality challenged

Good news out of Ferguson

Highway Patrol has taken over from the police in Ferguson, Missouri.  The difference is profound:

Highway patrol captain Ron Johnson leading protesters:

Ryan Reilly notes the differences between the Highway Patrol and police handling of the protests:

Finally.

I hope the protesters will be able to exercise their constitutional rights without incident and that the media will be allowed to tell the story of what has happened in Ferguson.

Sadly, since the murder of Michael Brown, two more unarmed black men have been shot by police.

 

(incidentally, the ‘terrorism’ tag for this post is due to the actions of the police and SWAT teams in Ferguson.  The actions they undertook against an almost overwhelmingly peaceful protest, as well as the reporters attempting to document the story  were very much terroristic.)

 

 

 

Good news out of Ferguson

New witness in the murder of Michael Brown

A new witness to the murder of Michael Brown speaks out:

Mitchell told News 4 she saw a door close on a police car. An officer was inside and Brown, Jr. was on the outside. She said the two were arm wrestling through the car window. Mitchell said she then tried to pull out her phone to record. Shots then rang out.

“It just didn’t look right for them to be arm wrestling,” Mitchell said. “The first gun shot came from the window, so I just started getting out of the way.”

According to Mitchell, Brown, Jr, began to run away after the first shot was fired.
“After the shot, the kid just breaks away. The cop follows him, kept shooting, the kid’s body jerked as if he was hit. After his body jerked he turns around, puts his hands up, and the cop continues to walk up on him and continues to shoot until he goes all the way down,” Mitchell said.

New witness in the murder of Michael Brown

Images and Tweets from Ferguson, Missouri

Here are some images out of Ferguson.

More tweets and images from Ferguson.

Snipers aimed at American citizens in Ferguson.

SWAT team in Ferguson.

Journalists being arrested in Ferguson?

 

What the hell is going on?  A city in the US is being treated like a war zone.  

 

Images and Tweets from Ferguson, Missouri