Ferguson's Cops Are Armed Like I Was in Iraq

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Ferguson's Cops Are Armed Like I Was in Iraq

The streets of Ferguson resemble a war-torn district of Iraq. One U.S. military veteran says these tactics are wrong and will only make matters worse.
In Iraq, I led a motley crew of soldiers, civilians, and contractors, who lived outside the wire in downtown Baquba, advising the government of Iraq’s volatile Diyala province in 2005-06. My team drove Iraq’s roads, walked Iraq’s streets, and regularly encountered improvised explosive devices, small arms fire, mortar fire, and other dangers during that dark and deadly time in Iraq. We wore body armor, carried semi-automatic rifles and pistols, and drove in armored Humvees, sometimes with drones or helicopters above.

In other words, we served in one of Iraq’s bloodiest cities, during the most violent time of the war, with the same gear that a civilian police department is now using in the small American town of Ferguson, Missouri, to quell civic disturbances there. Our wars have come home.

American police have become increasingly militarized for decades, in a story told brilliantly by scholar Radley Balko in his primer on the subject. However, for much of the past decades, paramilitary SWAT teams were balanced by community policing efforts, resulting in a mostly civilian, peaceful approach to law enforcement.

Things began to change during the 1980s, when the nation’s leadership declared a “war on drugs,” and began to militarize its approach accordingly. Congress allowed the Pentagon to give warfighting gear to police departments, and also created a number of exceptions to the historical rule precluding military involvement in law enforcement. Police departments raced to apply for federal funding to harden their communities and police forces against an entire spectrum of threats not previously contemplated. Sophisticated command and control systems migrated from the military to law enforcement, alongside powerful surveillance and investigative tools first developed for the military and intelligence community. Police departments touted their use of military counterinsurgency techniques, learned from Army field manuals and returning veterans. And, most recently, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have wound down, the Defense Department has aggressively transferred combat gear to civilian law enforcement agencies at home – more than $400 million-worth in 2013 alone. According to a USA Today report, “police forces in the same county as Ferguson received advanced rifle sights and night vision equipment between 2012 and 2014.”

The net effect is a Ferguson police department in name only. In terms of its equipment, organization, and deployment methods, the Ferguson force looks more like an infantry or military police company in Iraq. Its police wear the same body armor; carry the same semi-automatic M4 carbines and semi-automatic pistols; patrol in similar fire-team and squad formations; and employ similarly aggressive tactics towards a population perceived to be hostile.

This military gear transforms the police department into an occupying army.
Moreover, to a police force with such a military arsenal, every problem potentially looks like one that can be solved with military force. In hindsight, the Ferguson police department’s heavy-handed response to protests arguably caused the situation to escalate into the crisis that exists today. A lesser-armed police department might have used less confrontational, more community-oriented policing strategies to restore order, and been far more effective (and efficient) in the long run.

To be sure, there is a legitimate police purpose to much of this military gear. When used properly, body armor and other protective equipment enables police to use less force; similarly, non-lethal munitions can be effectively used to quell a crowd with far less force and suffering than the alternative.

But when used as in Ferguson, this military gear transforms the police department into an occupying army, and enables the police to act with such speed and violence so as to destroy any meaningful right to peaceably assemble or address grievances towards government. The key difference lies in how the police choose to use this gear – whether as civilian police, or as infantrymen with badges.

The great irony is that in Iraq, we rarely employed such hostile tactics, generally only using force when attacked. As combat advisers, our mission was to build Iraqi police and government capacity, not to conduct offensive combat operations. We carried rifles, machine guns, grenades, and other firepower, and used it when necessary to fight al Qaeda in Iraq, Shiite militants, or others who attacked us.

However, we sharply distinguished between the Iraqi civilians we were there to serve and protect, and those militants we sought to defeat (and sometimes kill or capture). Towards the former, we adopted as friendly a posture we could, often removing our body armor and laying down our weapons in order to share tea or lunch, or doing whatever we could to show trust and build rapport.

If only the Ferguson police would learn from our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the paradox of force stated so succinctly in the Army’s counterinsurgency field manual: “Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -iraq.html

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Que révèle l'autopsie de Michael Brown ?

Alors que la petite ville de Ferguson, dans la banlieue de Saint Louis (Missouri), reste secouée par des affrontements plus d'une semaine après la mort de Michael Brown, les résultats d'une autopsie du jeune homme, réalisée à la demande de sa famille, ont été révélés lundi 18 août.
Lire aussi, en zone abonée, le récit de notre envoyé spécial Ferguson ou le malaise des Noirs américains

Selon le rapport du médecin légiste, le Dr Michael M. Baden, Michael Brown a été touché par six balles. Les quatre premières balles ont atteint l'adolescent au bras droit, les deux dernières à la tête. Seule une de ces blessures, infligée par une balle reçue au sommet du crâne, était mortelle, a précisé le médecin lors d'une conférence de presse. « Il n'a pas souffert », a assuré Benjamin Crump, un des avocats de la famille Brown lors de la présentation du rapport.

CONTRADICTIONS

Surtout, l'autopsie n'a révélé « aucune trace de lutte », a constaté le médecin, attribuant les quelques abrasions présentes sur le corps de la victime à la chute sur la route. Une donnée qui jette le discrédit sur la version officielle de la police, selon qui Michael Brown a été tué en pleine altercation avec un agent, alors qu'il essayait de lui voler son arme.

Selon le médecin légiste, aucun résidu de poudre n'a été relevé sur la peau Michael Brown ce qui signifie que l'arme se trouvait « au moins à plus de 30 à 60 centimètres », a-t-il ajouté. Il a souligné qu'il n'avait pu examiner les vêtements qui ont pu filtrer les particules de poudre.

NOUVELLE AUTOPSIE ATTENDUE

Un deuxième médecin légiste a précisé que l'adolescent de 18 ans « se penchait en avant », lorsqu'il a été atteint en haut de la tête. Les spécialistes ont toutefois souligné qu'ils ne pouvaient dire si Michael Brown était en train de se défendre, de se rendre en levant les mains ou d'attaquer le policier au moment où il a été tué. Mais pour Daryl Parks, un deuxième avocat de la famille, « l'autopsie confirme ce que les témoins ont dit sur le fait qu'il essayait de se rendre ».

Trois autopsies du corps de Michael Brown ont été ordonnées, l'une par les autorités locales, l'autre par la famille, et une troisième, dimanche, par le ministre américain de la justice, Eric Holder.

Mary Case, médecin légiste du comté de St Louis chargé de réaliser l'autopsie officielle, a livré quelques bribes au Washington Post. Une personne proche de l'enquête officielle a précisé, sous couvert d'anonymat, au journal que Michael Brown avait de la « marijuana dans l'organisme », et qu'il présentait entre 6 et 8 blessures causées par des balles l'ayant toutes atteint de face.

Jusqu'ici, les versions sur la mort du jeune homme divergent :

• Selon la police, l'adolescent aurait tenté d'« agresser physiquement l'officier dans l'habitacle de sa voiture » après avoir dérobé plusieurs paquets de cigares dans une boutique voisine.

• Selon plusieurs témoins, le jeune homme se trouvait à une dizaine de mètres du véhicule et les mains en l'air quand il a été abattu après une confrontation verbale.

http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article ... _3222.html

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Amnesty International has come to Ferguson

In an unusual move, the global rights organization Amnesty International has dispatched a delegation of observers and organizers to Ferguson, Mo., to provide direct support to community members and to observe the police response to protests. The 13-person delegation, which arrived late last week, was the first of its kind deployed by Amnesty within the United States, the organization said.

The St. Louis suburb has been filled with unrest since since Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed on Aug. 9 by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. That unrest intensified once again on Sunday, with reports of gunshots prompting law enforcement officials to respond with tear gas.

Overnight, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) announced that he’ll send the National Guard into Ferguson.

Amnesty decided to send a delegation to the city last week — a day after Amnesty International USA’s Executive Director Steven Hawkins sent a letter to law enforcement officials there expressing “deep concern” about Brown’s death and the way in which the police responded to protesters in the following days.

On Saturday, Hawkins criticized Nixon’s decision to impose a mandatory midnight-to-5 a.m. curfew on Ferguson. Nixon on Monday rescinded the curfew, following another night of violence on Sunday and his decision to deploy the Guard.

Jasmine Heiss, an Washington-based campaigner for Amnesty International, was part of the delegation that traveled to Ferguson. Her previous deployment? Palestine.

“What was unprecedented and is unprecedented,” Heiss said of Ferguson, “is the scope of [Amnesty's] mission.” Amnesty’s response in Ferguson, she added, was more akin to the organization’s work during the 2013 protests in Turkey than it was to any previous action the group has taken in the United States.

Amnesty International routinely sends research teams to report on potential human rights abuses during and after crisis situations in the United States, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And the group provides ongoing organizational support to certain communities in the U.S. — Hess, for instance, has worked on prisoners’ rights issues in Louisiana.

But this is the first time the organization has sent delegates to support and observe a community in the middle of a crisis.

Heiss, who returned to Washington on Sunday, said the most striking thing she saw during her time in Ferguson was the “overall lack of transparency” from law enforcement.

“Reflecting on our time there, one of the most troubling things is what we didn’t see,” she said, referring to limits placed by law enforcement officials on access to the protests. “When you see this kind of restricting of people protesting … it seems clear that the authorities are using the ill will of some to undermine the rest.”

Some members of the Amnesty delegation, including Heiss, worked as observers during the protests. Others provided direct training and support to the community, including non-violent direct action and “street medic” training.

Heiss is planning to return to Ferguson soon. The Amnesty team, she said, would remain in place in the community until local organizers there determine they are no longer needed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post ... -ferguson/

[Kraach]

Les flics tirent à balles réelles et accusent les manifestants...En fait l'american dream on l'a en France.

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Ouais, mais enfin voilà la dégaine des flics US quoi