Saturday, August 16, 2014

Military Vets Weigh In On The ‘Militarization’ Of The Ferguson Police Force


From I'm 41:
It seems like everyone has something to say about the Ferguson case, but a particular group of people have been weighing in on the police tactics, and their response has been fascinating. 
The Huffington Post reports that many are outraged about the “militarization” of the Ferguson Police Department – from their actions, to the weapons they have been using. “…upwards of 70 officers decked out not just in riot gear, but in equipment suited for foreign battlefields, took to the streets Wednesday night in an attempt to disperse the largely peaceful demonstrations organized to protest Brown’s death. 
If the nation needed a poster child for the militarization of its police forces, it just got one.”  
And speaking out loudest about the negative effects of the police “playing Army” are veterans themselves. Kelsey D. Atherton, a writer for Popular Science, has collected tweets of members of the military who have commented on the effectiveness (of lack thereof) of the military-style tactics used by the Ferguson Police Department in the days since the violence and looting has broken out through the St. Louis suburb. Here is a selection of some of those tweets, with a few others that have.
GO GET THE REST. 

More at the Independent Journal

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