[delucain]

I don't understand it. Who are the police so afraid of that they need armored vehicles, assault rifles, and snipers? I can see a SWAT response for a hostage situation or a large scale gang arrest. In what rational world is it necessary to deal with protesters?

Armored vests, plexiglass riot shields, helmets, and less-than-lethal armaments I understand. They have to protect themselves, but these levels of deadly equipment are surely only necessary in war. Are they just going to start gunning down the crowd? Does no one in charge not see the absurdity of all this?

[jmathai]

Black people. And I don't mean that sarcastically.

But I don't believe they're afraid of them as much as it's a power play.

A police officer on video said "Bring it. All you f*cking animals." [1] Based on everything I've seen this sentiment feels more like the rule than the exception.

[1] http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/266242/speedreads-white-...

[allegory]

Without getting into a race debate, black people do get a lot of bad press. What the cause of this is, I don't know or wish to comment on past I suspect that it is mainly down to education, poverty and somewhat stereotypical reporting.

The latter is good leverage for anyone with an agenda.

However if I was in the US I'd be rather more worried about the significant portion of gun toting redneck conservatives who are devoid of all logic.

[calibraxis]

Is there a race debate? Many cultures simply feature weird -isms like racism. Racism is designed to divide people using bizarre theories, in order to justify institutions of societal control, violence and inequality. (There may be debaters arguing about it, but the existence of flat-earthers doesn't make "round-earth debate" a serious one.)

Just like sexism is used to divide people using gender as leverage. That's how women were men's property and unable to vote, men dominate various professions and get away with workplace harassment, etc.

(For what it's worth, "Redneck" is regionalist and probably classist. No need for such pejoratives.)

[LyndsySimon]

I think the only "-ism" in the end is tribalism. People seek to identify with a group that sets them apart from "the rest", and allows them to think of the world in an antagonistic way.

Whether that group is based on gender, race, or some other visible characteristic is immaterial. The result is always that each group works to suppress those outside that group, consciously and unconsciously.

I'm beginning the believe that mankind is wired in such a way where this is the primary social expression of our competitive drive. While the current situation at any given time is created by social circumstances, the overall nature of our social actions as a species seems to be pretty much the same.

[coldtea]

>Without getting into a race debate, black people do get a lot of bad press. What the cause of this is, I don't know or wish to comment on past I suspect that it is mainly down to education, poverty and somewhat stereotypical reporting.

It's about:

1) Kidnapped and being brought to another country by force to work as slaves, cutting lost deep cultural and societal bonds and ties they had with their original communities.

2) "Freed" but still (always) being a minority in the country, numbers wise, and with their old masters and racist people against them, including legislators (Jim Crow laws), business owners ("no blacks" or sharecropping), white communities (seggregation), etc.

3) Starting the race from a huge handicap (the huge majority of them being slaves, poor and uneducated) compared to even the poorest new immigrants arriving.

Unlike the prevalent myth, "hard work and determination" doesn't do much statistically for large groups of people. Actually if you work hard as a low wage worker, without the proper business/investment ideas of your own you stay mostly in the same paylevel. So, that plus luck and talent (e.g from business to music) might get a small percentage moving upwards, but tons of black people breaking their backs everyday will just go nowhere.

[freethinking]

White communities- is segregation? Seriously? Black people are more likely to pick/stay in high crime neighborhoods full of mostly black people, isn't this the same? Difference being, successful, hardworking, decent, honest black people will move away- usually in a primarily white neighborhood. Ask them why... they don't want black neighbors. This is not made up. I, with 2 other college students, conducted our own study for our social economics course, we talked to so many people from different races, wealth classifications, different neighborhoods, and their answers were dependent on their class and neighborhood, more than their race. But hey I guess when you think about it, it's only racist, segregation, and wrong when white people do it.

Funny how illegal immigrants come over here with nothing more than the clothes on their back, work for $7-$100pcs an hour, pay taxes/social security/Medicare -but never get it back, and they more often than not, somehow achieve a good enough life to take care of their families, and still send some money back home.

[coldtea]

>White communities- is segregation? Seriously? Black people are more likely to pick/stay in high crime neighborhoods full of mostly black people, isn't this the same?

No, it's not the same. That's because they can't afford to live elsewhere. And also because racism doesn't let them integrate in other communities. Heck, even when they had money and tried to move to white communities, real estate agencies and locals didn't let them, to avoid "lowering the value" of the place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

>Difference being, successful, hardworking, decent, honest black people will move away- usually in a primarily white neighborhood. Ask them why... they don't want black neighbors.

No, they just don't want the kind of neighborhouds a legacy of opression, racism and poorness has made of those other blacks. The richer blacks would have tried to move just the same even if they lived in a poor latino or white area. So it's not about not wanting "black neighbors". White people didn't even like black middle class families, or even doctors and lawyers living next to them.

Again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

[tammer]

Don't forget a long history of systematic prevention of wealth accumulation through redlining, contract mortgages and predatory lending!

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...

[LyndsySimon]

Good read :)

[bigtex]

#1 makes it seems like the white man just went over to Africa with a big net and starting catching Africans. In reality, most slaves were captured people from other tribes whom there own people sold/bartered to the European slave traders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#African_part...

[LyndsySimon]

I agree that there is a major problem within the media and culture at large in that there is a presumption of criminality whenever a black citizen is involved in any sort of incident with law enforcement.

This has been in the public eye recently after the successful Twitter campaign #IfTheyGunnedMeDown. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/08/12/if-...

It is true that a higher percentage of black in the US are imprisoned, a higher percentage are convicted felons, and a higher percentage are arrested before age 25. It's also true that a higher percentage have household incomes below the poverty line, and a higher percentage are raised in a household with only a single parent. This would lead a rational person to believe that the causes of crime have far more to do with social and economic factors than with any other attribute.

> However if I was in the US I'd be rather more worried about the significant portion of gun toting redneck conservatives who are devoid of all logic.

While it may not matter to you, I find this highly offensive. I'm a white male, and a fervent supporter of gun rights. While I'm not poor or conservative - I'm middle-class at most, and an extreme libertarian - I grew up in an area where the vast majority of people were in fact poor and conservative.

I know many, many people who fit your pejorative, and they are with few exceptions the kindest and most reliable people I've ever met.

With respect, I urge you to actually get to know some of those "gun-toting redneck conservatives" of whom you speak. They may not be like you, but I truly believe that you'll quickly come to realize that they are in fact people too, and that their actions and beliefs barely resemble the caricature that you apparently ascribe to them.

[freethinking]

Stop believing agenda seeking black people about the media (Sharpton, James, etc.)- turn your tv to CNN, msnbc, etc., and watch it for an hour. They do not blame black people. They don't wait for facts. They automatically side against cops, and with our president. So you are right, they do report the news on bias, you just have their bias backasswards. When changes get made in the wake of these type issues, you still blame people for not changing... why change, why be fair, what's the point?.. when they still get blamed for not doing the right thing.

[DanielBMarkham]

The idea is that police want to have a risk-free lifestyle. "Every cop deserves to go home at the end of his shift"

I completely agree with the sentiment, but in reality the police are paid to take risks to ensure public safety. You can't automate your way out of getting to know the corner grocer.

There's also a strong paramilitary nature to police in the U.S. Always has been. Local police departments are full of either former soldiers or guys who wanted to be soldiers but never could pull it off.

Finally, a lot of pundits, politicians, and security folks have been going on and on about how the future is going to be full of poor, angry folks raising hell. This might be true, but it's also a self-fulfilling narrative. The more you escalate the law enforcement side, the more the civilian side will counter-escalate. The trick for LE is to be just bad-ass enough to have Angry Joe Sixpack demonstrating, but not violent (or a victim). Very tough thing to pull off.

Personally? I'm not afraid of escalating police brutality or demonstrations. This tension is natural in a free society. What I'm afraid of is that one side finally figures out how to totally dominate the other side (which I believe has already happened). If the townsfolk get really angry and hit the streets -- only to have the cops flip a switch and make them all go back inside again? Then we're truly hosed.

[allegory]

It doesn't work like that in the real world. Look at Northern Ireland's history over the last 40 years.

The most powerful people are the people who end up in the newspapers, not introducing kerfews and patrolling the streets tooled up.

Also the post-Katrina mob rule in some areas in the US.

[arethuza]

Northern Ireland eventually worked out reasonably well when we started talking to the "terrorists" and realizing that they represented a minority community who had some pretty legitimate grievances - both sides eventually recognized that fighting was never going to get anywhere.

I'm not sure how relevant the experience of NI is to this situation - but one thing I would note is that the pictures do look alarmingly similar!

[freethinking]

They are afraid of people yelling, holding signs, and putting up graffiti, to kill a cop, kill all cops. Afraid of people kicking, hitting them. Turning over their police cars. Burning down, destroying, and looting businesses, even when customers and employs are there. They're scared of the bricks being thrown at them. Glass bottles flying at their heads. The children in the homes behind their barricade. The citizens who can't get through the area and home to their children. The parents who can go to work to support their families, because their job isn't there anymore or the roads are blocked. The cops have all been theatened with death - what would you do? I personally don't care what color or class the protesters are, If I was a cop, I'd be at the same point. Let's not forget, the cops aren't all in town officers, they've been brought in because the department needed help, so if it wasn't cops dressed/armed this way, it would be the national guard. When the national guard comes in, it will look much worse.

[vanderZwan]

> Armored vests, plexiglass riot shields, helmets, and less-than-lethal armaments I understand.

I recall reading that there is very little reason to believe that the currently used crowd control methods actually work as intended. After rioting starts you probably want a capable force stopping the rioters. But riot police being present before riots start might as well contribute to triggering riots, especially if tactics like kettling[0] are involved.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling

[fenomas]

If you've ever seen a police force de-escalating a protest, it's pretty obvious - the cops have their helmets off, they chat with demonstrators, hand out bottles of water if it's hot, etc.

Comparing that to the photos out of Ferguson - which show visors down, assault weapons readied, and a striking absence of visible names or badge numbers - it's hard not to get the impression that the police are trying to escalate the conflict. (That or they're completely incompetent - I'm not sure which is worse.)

[vanderZwan]

> (That or they're completely incompetent - I'm not sure which is worse.)

Given that they changed their police team and tactics to what you suggested should have happened in the first place gives us our answer, I think. Especially if you realise this is apparently so special that it has even reached Dutch news channels:

http://nos.nl/artikel/686596-nieuwe-aanpak-kalmeert-ferguson...

[Shivetya]

Unlike others I doubt it has much to do with race and more to do with ego and power tripping in general. Toss in a bunch of guilt tripping the public and they can pretty much spend loads of money and be more bad ass than the town next door or comparable towns across the country. Oh I hear NYC has this many X, well we can get more!!!

The police state relies on the same imagery and intimidation that politicians use, they will use hyperbole and such to guilt you into agreement. Its for the children, you don't want cops to die, and drugs are bad. They will point to the gangs in the inner cities and proof of their need all the while ignoring it is government programs which create them. From idling so many young men and women with freely distributed benefits, tossing them out of schools for the slightest infraction, and having them living in concrete ghettos, they have created a real mess.

For those who haven't been idled for a long time it may be hard to understand the amount of frustration that builds, when you can really go no where and everyday is just the same any outlet is eventually considered.

Frankly, cops should not have access to weapons any more dangerous than anyone in the public should have. They don't need automatic weapons and certainly not grenade launchers.

[iterationx]

The army gives the police all that gear for free. http://fox59.com/2014/05/12/armed-for-war-local-police-tote-...

"As he spoke, Downing was perched in the driver’s seat of a $650,000 Mine Resistant Vehicle (MRAP) that once protected soldiers in Afghanistan from mines, rocket-propelled grenades and .50-caliber weapons.

The Morgan County SWAT Team acquired the armored vehicle for essentially the cost of gas and the time of two deputies to drive to Mississippi and pick it up and bring it back home to Martinsville."

[bjourne]

Apparently they get it for free or almost for free because the US army has to much surplus equipment. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2527699/California-p... So who can blame them for wanting to play with their new toys? Of course maintenance can't be cheap on a vehicle like that.

[trhway]

"let them hate, so long as they fear"

[BadassFractal]

Exactly this. Is there any real reason for anything more than batons, tear gas and riot shields?

[sparkie]

Is there any need for batons, tear gas and riot shields?

Well, unless your objective is to start a riot of course.

[baddox]

People who would see the absurdity of this would not find themselves (and probably would not aspire to be) in charge.