Posted on 08/15/2014 7:14:31 AM PDT by bigdaddy45
FERGUSON, Mo. — Suddenly, everything has changed.
The heavy riot armor, the SWAT trucks with sniper posts, the hostile glares: tonight in Ferguson they were gone.
A stunning change in tone radiated through the suburban streets where protests had turned violent each of the last four evenings following the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
But Thursday night, when more than a thousand protesters descended on the remains of QuickTrip – which was burned during riots on Sunday – they had a new leader.
The man at the front of the march, was Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson, a Ferguson native.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Did they mean to say “the fatal shooting of TOTALLY INNOCENT black child michael brown who was praying when shot in the back of the head by a racis’ white cop.........”?
When you’ve pretty much looted everything... then it must be a good time to protest peacefully?
You’re clearly missing the point. The point is that instead of going in with tanks to quell the crowd, a low key approach worked infinitely better. The over-the-top response of the police over the past few days clearly made a bad situation worse than it needed to be.
Oh brother!
While the state cops are making nice to the protesters, is anyone going to find out who burned and looted the businesses in the area and bring them to justice? Is anyone going to enforce the law?
So you’re opposed to the approach the cops took last night? Were the tanks working better? Seems to me that if you’re going to enforce the law, the first step is to stop the law-breaking. Apparently, some more intelligent policing is helping to achieve that outcome.
Where is the barf alert? This article may as well have been titled “White people bad, black people good.” Is is POSSIBLE things have calmed down EXACTLY because of the early actions by the police? What exactly were they supposed to do? Allow an angry inflamed crowd who had already been looting and burning to loot and burn more? I’ll bet MOST of that crowd could have cared less or didn’t know what happened....they only saw it as an excuse for free stuff.
While law enforcement is so worried about détente with these hoodlums, where is the justice for the business owners whose livelihoods may have evaporated because of these criminals?
So you think the “go in with tanks approach” provided a more effective outcome. Or did it just make you feel better?
Would there still have been hugs and kisses if Johnson was white?
So now they know law enforcement won’t do anything to them, they can go ahead and burn/loot another store the next time they have some grievance, real or imagined.
As Teddy R said;”Speak softly but carry a big stick”.
You gonna argue against PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH ?
King Obama is black and he is above the law. Why not the rest of these black thugs and they will not be even investigated.
No, I’m going to argue that with the tanks, there was no peace. When the cops went low key, there was apparently peace.
Amazing how some people are so annoyed that there was a good outcome last night when the cops tried a different approach.
You are clearly confusing the role of the police and the role of the justice system. The role of the police last night was to keep the peace. They succeeded by trying a different approach. That is totally different than the justice system, which prosecutes crime. How do you know that looters won’t be prosecuted?
“So you think the “go in with tanks approach” provided a more effective outcome.”
The only thing that would have been more effective is if the tanks would have been actually used as intended. In other words, ‘opened fire’ on the animals.
I am upset about the Quick Trip being burned!!!! Quick Trips are very popular around this area and provide good paying jobs!! They treat their employees well and it is a good place to work!! They had nothing to do with what happened and now people r out of good-paying jobs!!!
I know lives were changed and lost that night and unfortunately it had to affect innocent workers.
I am not opposed to the police reaching out to the community in an attempt to work together. In fact I support it. However, the disturbing things to me about this are:
1. Apparently only black policemen can patrol predominantly black neighborhoods. The balkanization of the country continues apace.
2. By leading the protest, does this mean the Missouri State Police agree that the shooting of Michael Smith is on it’s face a criminal act? Are the State Police acting to taint any potential jury pool?
3. Does this mean that certain communities can get want they want through violence? Will there be any further investigation into acts of criminality during the riots? Or has a Get Out of Jail Free card been issued?
You don’t see the big picture. So this kinder, gentler approach defused a tense situation for the moment. But now the crowd has this message that the next time they commit violent acts in the name of protest, they will be met with hugs and kisses. Is that the message you think law enforcement is supposed to send?
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