@Eaglebauer Said 
Most people watching the national news for the last week or so have a general idea of what's going on in my part of the country right now. The riots haven't spread to my neighborhood but have affected areas where I work and some of the cities I service. There has been looting and disturbances in some areas that I handle and I have spent about 80-85% of the past week either at work or on call, and the rest of that time has been spent trying to sleep.
First off, the news media is not my friend. They have regularly misinformed and twisted a lot of what's been happening which makes things worse for everyone involved. This morning I took several calls on 911 lines from people in the richer communities I serve who were incensed at the fact that they were seeing people looting stores on live television and demanded to know why the police were doing nothing about it. Short of the fact that such complaints are not what 911 is in place for, these people were upwards of 35 miles from the rioting and didn't seem to grasp that their local police departments were not in charge or involved in the incident other than through the designation of some of their officers to respond to the area and assist.
The other, larger problem is that the news channels broadcasting these images had reporters on site claiming that the looting was continuing and that police were doing nothing to stop it, and that store owners were being forced to guard their own businesses because the police "refused" to get involved. One reporter interviewed a local resident who said that obviously the police "wanted the looting to happen" because they stopped doing anything about it.
What the media is failing to explain is that Jay Nixon, our Missouri governor, ordered the police to stand down and pull back. They aren't refusing anything, they are being told directly to withdraw and remove their involvement.
This entire incident, to be sure, is an embarrassment to the law enforcement community that I am a part of in this area.
I have said since this began that I cannot imagine how the officer who shot Michael Brown was justified in using deadly force. He was unarmed. He was several feet from the officer when the fatal shot was fired, and as far as I know he wasn't running. There was a struggle in the police car, and a shot was fired in the vehicle. I would be less suspicious if Brown had been shot in the vehicle at point blank range, because the possibility would be there that a struggle was taking place over the officer's weapon. But he wasn't. He was shot in the street at several feet unarmed, and there is no way I can imagine that deadly force should have been used.
After the riots started, the county police called out a code 2000, which means every department within about a 50 mile radius is requested to send up to five police officers to assist to restore order. That first night, there were minial injuries but substantial damages to businesses, several of which were gutted and a few of which were burned to the ground. The people who did this were not interested in Michael Brown and it had nothing to do with him or his family, who I cannot help but to feel sorry for.
The next day, Nixon offered to call in the national guard but the county executive requested not to. Shortly after that, the state police took over and tried a less invasive approach, removing gas masks and armor and actually marching alongside some of the peaceful protesters. Then night fell and the rioting became worse with people being shot by other citizens, further looting, more destruction of property, and overall unrest between the police and the public. Most recently, the governor as I said issued the order to stand down and more or less just establish a perimeter and let the area destroy itself.
The individuals looting and destroying, burning and harming and killing are without a doubt in the wrong and do not have interest in peace or real protest. That being said, I think a large portion of the blame for things going as far south as they have lies with the way the incident has been mismanaged by authorities, the failure to establish a clear and constant chain of command (because control of the scene keeps being shifted), and a lack of protocol for ground officers during the uglier periods of the riot.
There are two distinct groups of citizens involved in this whole thing, which a lot of the media has failed to recognize. There are the protestors who appear during the day and speak their minds and opinions, and the looters who come at night and largely are not from the neighborhoods they are destroying and do not have any agenda regarding the police involved shooting that sparked this whole thing.
Those protestors in my opinion have valid arguments and opinions but they are being obliterated under the violence of selfish individuals who are using the initial incident as an excuse to rob, assault, and destroy the property of their fellow citizens. And the police, as much as I advocate for them, have been horribly mismanaged and have had terrible leadership through this.
I have said it already and I will say it again. This makes me very desperately sad. I am sad for the community. I am sad for the protesters who are not having their voices heard. I am sad for Michael Brown's family. I am sad for the police officers who are trying to do good but are doing it alongside officers who aren't and who are in the field with no strong command to look to.
This whole thing is just terribly sad.
And I am so tired.
So. Very. Tired.
this is an extremely intelligent, heartfelt message..i know you're a supporter of the police , yet even you criticize the bad elements that can cause so much trouble for the decent cops and the wider community... and I respect you for posting it.
Aug 16, 2014 @ 21:36:05
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