Perhaps if the "protesters" weren't firing off rounds and looting stores, the police wouldn't need machine guns to protect themselves and the non-riot seeking public.

Actually, the people in charge are saying this:

Belmar stressed that the approximately six people involved in the exchange of fire that led to the shooting by police should not be associated with the demonstrations. “They weren’t protesters; they were criminals,” he said.

source: the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/10/ferguson-shooting-gunfire-heard-during-anniversary-rally

This has revealed a major fault, which is that plainclothes police do not carry any form of bodycam or dashcam, which could tell us what actually happened. I am also disturbed that while they say the protesters and the criminals are separate groups, they have decided to use chemical warfare on the protestors.

“Failure to disperse may result in your detention, arrest, and/or exposure to chemical or less-lethal munitions,” a police officer said over a loudspeaker. “Police intend to use chemical munitions.” While some were swept down the main street others were shot by a bombardment despite retreating down the side street as requested by police.

Again, the Guardian, same article. Usually a reasonably trustworthy source, when they can figure out how to spell.

What is with all this "kid" stuff? Michael Brown was definitely a man and according to the information gathered by the BBC so is the new chap.

Initial reports suggest he was armed with a stolen gun. If that turns out to be true then it will take some pretty solid evidence showing him complying with police demands to convince me the shooting wasn't justified. If it turns out not to be true, then very much the reverse.

Yeah, yeah, using the word kid for an 18 year old is technically inaccurate. But I can tell you that even though many of my classmates are already 18, they are very much kids. It's certainly more accurate than the slander trip reported.

Those reports happen to be by the police, so I'd take them with a grain of salt for now. It's not out of the question that the shooting was justified, but there was way too much else that simply can't have been anyway. A better managed protest probably wouldn't have quite the same issues.

I'm not a reporter. I did read that shots were fired and a store was looted. Is that innacurate?

No, but saying that it was the "protesters" appears to be.

So, it's OK to damn every police officer in the US because of the actions of a few, but when protests in one particular town always erupt in to violence, it's not OK to associaite one with the other. Sounds about right. That the protesters are protesting the death of a guy who behaved like the criminals that they don't want to be associated with isn't lost on me.

I didn't say that it wasn't justified, though I don't know anything at this point. I also don't know why the word "kid" carries so much meaning to you - I call 40 year old athletes kids all the time.

The protestors are from the same town and so are the police.

Perhaps it would be useful for someone to provide a bo sox to English dictionary to avoid future misunderstandings?

Kid - Man in his 40s
Shot - Spoke to
Arrested - Gave directions
M-16 - Handkerchief

I think the word "reenactment" is the one bo needs defined for him. Remember, he didn't claim what happened was unjustified, just that it was a reenactment of a situation that he believes unjustified force was used.

Fuck you guys. Really.

I still can't believe that some people believe that the moment someone commits a crime they have no rights. Scratch that, once they are believed to have committed a crime they have no rights. And there's always reason to believe a young black man has committed a crime, we just have to find out which one. Basic human rights just fly out the window once someone may have been behaving in an illegal manner.

I think you're making an assumptive blanket statement about how some of us feel based on one particular incident. In my own particular case, your condemnation is way off base.

My statement was a bit offtopic, actually. It wasn't specifically about either you or Octavious. I just don't like the way reporting seems to treat the fact that a man may have been a criminal as justification for killing him. It was treated as relevant that Brown may have stolen a box of cigars. Felons don't have the right to vote in so many places. Prisoners are treated like shit, sold off to private companies, and no-one cares. It's a general tendency, most pronounced in American culture.

@ Phil

It largely depends on what the crime is. Someone who is considered armed and dangerous should expect to be treated very differently to someone who has stolen a wallet. I largely agree that there is a disturbing tendency by some people to say that any criminal deserves whatever they get. In this particular case, if he was carrying a gun to the protest, I would say a heavy handed minimal risk approach by the police was justified. That's not to say the police can shoot first and ask questions later, but if they had shot after an armed criminal had made a sudden movement I would struggle to criticise them.

We need more mamas like this:
http://www.11alive.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/04/28/mom-camera-slapping-son-baltimore-riots/26513125/

just brilliant

As long as that's not the only way she knows how to parent. From years of living in Philly, I've seen a lot of Moms parent their kids through threats/cursing them out and physical violence. Guess how their kids deal with things?

Octavious is a fucking fascist, don't Listen to him

So here is what happened today:

-police arrested and got violent with journalists for reporting
-police arrested peaceful protestors for peacefully assembling and filming them
-white supremacist neo-facsists calling themselves "oathkeepers" show up on the streets of Ferguson to "defend InfoWars" and the police, sporting assault rifles, and obviously the police don't hassle them

Cool

The voice of cool headed reason as always, Thucy :).