Thread: (USA) Civil Rights Moving Backwards? Violent Cops, Racism and Hate?

Ok, on the much broader subject of policing in general, I don't disagree with you, though I don't believe brutality and corruption is as endemic as you seem to. It certainly exists, and more than a little of it, and I am definitely not in favor of militarization and swat teams as I've said already. One suggestion I've heard that I think is a good idea is to have community police boards that they must comply with and that aren't government run but run by the people themselves. I also like the idea of police wearing cameras on their uniforms - it would keep them honest and also protect them from situations taking place away from dash cams where they might otherwise be accused of excessive force when they actually did nothing wrong.

But on the Ferguson case in particular - I do see the points you're bringing up, but again, I think you're talking more about theoreticals. Using tear gas and rubber bullets has been standard practice for protests and other crowd control situations for a long time, hasn't it? So it's entirely understandable why they approached it that way - it's standard procedure. Now it's possible that due to the high profile nature of the case it might bring a lot of scrutiny on the standard procedures, and hopefully it can lead to changes in the future. But I don't think anybody can fault them for approaching it the way similar situations have always been approached. Yes, to say those procedures are excessive and need to be changed is one thing, and I would agree with that. But that's for the future (hopefully the near future, and hopefully sparked by the Ferguson protests and conversations like this one happening all over the net).

"Appropriate force and precision in squelching the disturbance, violence, looting, whatever really isn't that hard to do, it is a matter of training and the discretion of the individuals responsible for controlling the situation. Forming a long human barricade and launching tear gas grenades at random into a crowd does not count as surgically removing the illegal activity and leaving law abiding citizens out of it. They would rather bully the entire assembly into submission than do their jobs right."

How would that be done, surgically removing the illegal activity? I don't mean that to be smartass in case it sounds that way, I'm actually interested. The only thing I can picture is cops running into the crowd toward where the violence is, which I think would freak a lot of people out and possibly make them react violently. And it seems to me that tear gas is actually a very effective way to quell those sudden mass eruptions of violence that have a way of happening in mob situations. Violence in angry crowds isn't always small and localized, sometimes a big part of the crowd rises up and attacks the police or starts attacking each other. Tear gas puts a quick stop to it with nobody getting hurt badly or shot. Pepper spray wouldn't be nearly as effective because you can only use it on a couple of people at a time - what if 20 people suddenly turn violent? It would take a long time and a lot of pepper spray to get them all. And you certainly can't taze them all. I think if police don't have the right kind of weapons it can actually make things go horribly wrong. Tear gas and rubber bullets are time tested and proven - I don't know of any alternatives that would be as effective.