Just a few bits.... It's entirely possible that I could be involved in this mess, even though I work for a campus police department. We are deputized and largely trained by the County police, have received various forms of "crowd control" training, and we have the necessary equipment (shields, helmets, etc) in our cars.
We are in fact, for the next week. putting out a 2-man "detail" which is nominally to provide extra patrol but also to be available to "respond if requested".
To put in our two-cents worth, as it were.
I see that now both the governor and one of our state senators (McCaskill) have gotten into the act. The governor is apparently planning to yank the country police from the scene, possibly replacing them with state officers, or even the NG (he is empowered to do so)
McCaskill was outraged over the arrest of the reporters.
I listened to an interview with one of the reporters on the local "St. Louis Talks" NPR show last night. He confirmed that they were not using the McDonalds for interviews and such, and there were only a few patrons present.
Time and again we are told that we are to expect to be filmed or recorded and that this is entirely legal so long as the people involved are not actively interfering with operations or creating a dangerous situation.
I've been involved in a lot of riot/crowd control training over my many years and I've done a fair bit of reading on the subject outside of such training.
The first full year of my employment as a police officer, back in '69, we had the very first actual "riot" in St. Louis County... At the very university I work at now.
This was the Vietnam/ROTC thing that culminated in the burning of the ROTC building. I was not at the scene, I was working the "desk" at the time, handling communications, so I was at least witness in that regard.
Years later, going to work for that university, I was informed by now-commanding officers that the situation that night was essentially caused by the arrival of the large contingent of heavily riot-equipped county officers. That the demonstrations had been ongoing and peaceful up to that point.
Prior to the big presidential debate held at our university... the three-way with Clinton, Bush, and Perot in '92....
The chief sent all us supervisors to take training from a highly-regarded expert on crowd control and riot tactics.
This guy was on a different page from apparently most in the field (and the guys running the show in Ferguson).
His idea was that the "ninja turtle guys" (fully armed and equipped tactical units) often only exacerbated these situations and that they should be held in reserve until things became actively out of control... Not on the line confronting demonstrators.
That's pretty much what we did at the debate when a very large crowd of rag-tag protesters marched down the main thoroghfare to confront the police line. This was Ralph Nader and his crowd, and every other anarchist, tax-protestor, and generally-disenchanted type for a hundred miles around.
We had some 600 fully-equipped tac unit troops on hand.... In the big garage just West. The "line" was ordinarily-equipped police officers and guys (like myself) on bikes. The protestors chanted, sang, waved banners, got their TV-15 minutes... And dispersed.
A couple of the more-radical anarchist types tried to do an end run around police lines and were caught by St. Louis police at the East end of campus.
I thought it went pretty well.
Now, more than 20 years later......Lessons do not appear to have been learned.
Regarding the "militarization" of us police.... I've commented on this before. Police are being increasingly called upon to do military-style operations. With Columbine, with the North Hollywood bank robbery, ordinary patrol officers are frequently being thrust into situations that require military tactics and weapons.
With the "active shooter" doctrine becoming the paradigm, we (front-line patrol officers) are expected to "go in and engage" the active shooter.
Waiting for specialized units means more deaths.
In order to carry out these operations, we need appropriate weapons and tactics. These are exactly the sort of things our lads in Iraq and Afghanistan do. Small-unit tactics, maneuvering and room-clearing, supressing fire... All of those things.
Most all squad cars now have an "AR" type rifle. The "patrol rifle" has largely replaced the old standard shotgun.
We are told that we are part of "Homeland Security". Part of our more-advanced training is to be able to deploy with other departments to work in coordination in case of a large-scale Mumbai-type attack.
Let me tell you, Mumbai turned a lot of heads. This would be an easy and inexpensive attack to mount. A couple of dozen attackers, with small arms only, managed to terrorize an entire large city for a considerable amount of time, even in the face of fairly massive response.
These sorts of things are part of the landscape now. So, we have to have the ability.
However, the deployment in Ferguson by these very same "ninja turtle" guys is clearly exacerbating the situation....
