No one is saying lynch Darren Wilson, no one is saying death by firing squad, no one is demanding he sit in an electric chair, the people of Ferguson, Missouri, are merely asking that the man who shot the unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, 6 times, 2 in the head, be charged and have due process. Let a jury decide the fate of Darren Wilson and how he should be accountable for what he did. That’s all the people of Ferguson want. Why are they being denied the basic constitutional due process that every other murder is granted? If the facts were in the Ferguson Police Department’s favor, if Darren Wilson is innocent, then why all the smoke and mirrors? They clearly have something to hide. I’ve been following this so intently I could not get to sleep tonight. The NY Times revealed Mike Brown’s autopsy and it appears as though the gunshot wounds are consistent with someone in the surrendering position because a bullet entered Mike Brown’s head but ended up in his collarbone. The 6 foot 4 kid would had to have been on his knees for that to happen. The shots in his arm indicate that his arms must have been up. All of this suggests Mike Brown was in the universal surrender position. Yet, Darren Wilson has not been charged and he reportedly fled Ferguson days ago. This isn’t merely about Mike Brown either. The level of rights violations going on in Ferguson has resulted in Amnesty International intervening on an unprecedented level and Governor Nixon has called in the National Guard. For any of you who want to reduce the people of Ferguson to “thugs” I would ask you to bite your tongue. There are only a handful of “looters,” most of which have been subdued by protestors who are guarding, blockading and protecting local businesses. These looters are not protestors and I can’t believe anyone would assert that a few misguided people can somehow undermine the integrity and message of the peaceful protests or use looting as an excuse to justify murder. Looters are unrelated. They are red herrings. And if you think there isn’t a double standard, when White college students riot, no matter how much destruction there is, they aren’t called thugs and they don’t bring in the military. White kids get shot with bean bags, Black people get the fucking military. Meanwhile 100 people were arrested at this college riot and only 7 or 8 have been arrested at Ferguson, many of which were journalists. Who are the “thugs”? Who are the “animals”? (If we’re going to define people by their rowdy behavior.) And no, it’s not your fault as a White person that you get treated differently, it’s the police force and government institutions that need to enforce equality. And please resist the temptation to make the argument about the myth that Black people only protest White-on-Black crimes and not Black-on-Black crimes because that is simply not true. You never hear about those other protests because the news doesn’t care. Meanwhile the Department of Justice warned the Ferguson PD against releasing that footage because it was completely unsubstantiated as to whether or not it was actually Mike Brown in that video. And if you think stealing from a convenience store warrants an execution, well here are just a few of the mass murderers who were arrested with care and uninjured by police on the scene. I should remind you of the time Winona Ryder was slaughtered on sight when footage of her robbing a store surfaced, right? Not to mention the Police Chief admitted that Mike Brown being a robbery suspect was totally unrelated to the robbery, that officer Darren Wilson stopped him for jaywalking not because he suspected him of being a thief. Shot 6 times for jaywalking. The Ferguson Police Department keeps saying that the protestors are dangerous, that they are attacking the police but there is no such evidence of that. There are no pictures of protestors hurting police but there are tons of photographs of police officers pointing snipers and guns in the faces of peaceful protestors, there are plenty of photos of citizens with rubber bullet wounds and of many fleeing teargas and flash grenades. The citizens are in danger because of the police. This issue has gone so far as to unite many conservatives and liberals because, well, what the Ferguson PD is doing is too much. They are armed like the military but they are behaving like “thugs.” The police have violated the constitutional right to protest, freedom of assembly and continue to threaten the lives of the press. Yes, I saw it on the live stream and there is a video of an officer threatening to shoot a reporter. Police have taken off their identification so that they can get away with breaking the law, which is very illegal. Teargas is actually banned in international warfare! We are treating our citizens worse than we would our own enemies. Last night the police thought fireworks were gunshots and began teargassing residents 3 hours before the midnight curfew. Children were being teargassed. If the police can’t tell the difference between fireworks and gunshots how can we trust their discretion? These people are trigger happy and looking for a reason. What’s most disappointing is that all of these constitutional violations, the fact that a teenager’s life was lost, the fact that this whole thing resembles a civil war, isn’t considered newsworthy for most networks. Citizens who are brave enough to stare into the barrel of a gun, to suffer injuries for freedom and justice aren’t newsworthy? The facts add up to this: We know that Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown when he was unarmed. We have an autopsy report that corroborates the witnesses’ testimony that he was executed. We know that Darren Wilson has not been charged. We know the police have begun a smear campaign against Mike Brown against the Department of Justice’s wishes. We know that the police are violating constitutional rights. Those are the facts. Whose side are you on? *Update* The very photographer, Scott Olson, who took most of these photos on behalf of Getty Images has been arrested in Ferguson. Obviously he was a “criminal.”
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