sorry I don’t buy it the only thing wrong in ferguson is the police are allowing people to riot and loot. If they had shut it down with harsher stricter tactics that really cost the rioters something it would have ended in one night.
This militarization excuse is just the latest scapegoat in a long line— racism, poverty, slavery, profiling and now “militarization” its all bullshit scapegoating that diustracts from the real problem—Black culture fosters, promotes and enables violent criminal bahvior.
The object of “riot control “ is to disperse mobs of people & if possible to arrest/detain the pudding stirrers. That requires more than just firing teargas in all directions & hitting the first person you see over the head with a club .
It requires first & foremost a relationship in the community that is more than a visiting goon squad complete with automatic weapons .
Modern crowd control also requires you to be at least as smart as the rioters in the use of communications/public relations ,communications for command & control of your own people as well & having the stones to tell the mayor that standing back & watching the looters run amok will not win the dumb bastard any votes.
What worked was the use of sufficient manpower ie not only the Ferguson PD & local area police but the state police & the National Guard, getting a good relationship with local community leaders & using targeted use of force ie instead of volleys of teargas they use police “snatch” squads” say 6-8 cops with riot shields mace & clubs to chase down the bottle throwers & other assorted pudding stirrers that were getting pointed out by the locals who were peaceably assembled .
The level of training on how to handle riots/unruly crowds was nonexistent in the local PD’s & that is usually due to budget constraints for all aspects of law enforcement.
You train a certain way to work with other PD’s as part of mutual aid but that usually involves disasters/fleeing felons/ missing person . Riot control requires hands on training as it involves massed formations working in unison .
This ain’t easy to do when properly drilled & trying to do it an the fly is a recipe for a clsuterf*ck.