Gone too far
The details of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri in St Louis County will take a while to work out. Police say Brown physically assaulted a police officer and during the struggle reached for the officer’s gun. He was shot once in the police car and a number of shots were fired outside the car. The result is an 18 year old unarmed Black man killed by the police. Riots have ensued. In the days since Saturday, there has been a tremendous show of force by the St. Louis police. It is as if the US Armed Forces and all their firepower converged on Ferguson. The pictures of the equipment, machine guns, assault rifles, protective gear do not remind us of the Midwest, but rather of the Third Reich.
All this firepower and military-level equipment in the possession of police is not only a bad idea, it is unconstitutional. The military is not supposed to police the citizenry. We are on the same side. But the police in St Louis, and I’m sure in other parts of the country, have become the military. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it must be a duck. People can call it a goose, but it is a duck. They can call the riot control in St Louis police, but it has the look and feel of a high-powered military. And that should be the major concern for Americans, behavior of the citizens of Ferguson aside. The pure deadly force possessed by police officers puts them in a military/warrior mindset.
Reporters Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post and Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post were arrested in a Ferguson McDonalds, a gathering spot for journalists covering the riot. In an interview with MSNBC, Reilly said the officer would “not tell me what I was under arrest for…he was in complete SWAT gear…The worst part was he slammed my head against the glass purposely on the way out of the McDonalds then sarcastically apologized for it….The mentality of the officers was extremely disturbing. They essentially acted as a military force.” Lowery wrote on Twitter: “Apparently, in America, in 2014, police can manhandle you, take you into custody, put you in cell & then open the door like it didn’t happen.”
The UK Daily Mail reported that “The two men were eventually released without charge and all attempts at asking the names of their arresting officers were rebuffed.” Irrespective of the behavior of the citizenry and justification for the shooting, jackboot tactics and military firepower have been established as the national policy for unrest. We saw it in the door to door shut down of Boston and we see it in Ferguson. This is a dangerous threat to the liberty of all Americans, irrespective of race, religion, age, gender or social status. It is even more threatening when you consider the persecution of race, religion, and freedom of speech allowed worldwide by this Administration. Someday you may face an Acts 5:29 moment. Will you be as Peter and the other apostles in answering “We ought to obey God rather than men”?
