[ by Charles Cameron — easily the clearest and most powerful critique of recent events in Ferguson comes from KD Atherton and friends ]
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Kelsey Atherton has Storified a fine compilation of tweets comparing Ferguson police, their weaponry, posture and tactcis, with military equivalents, in what is essentially an extended DoubleQuotes approach to understanding the “militarization” of US police. Please note that the piece runs two pages to see the second, you need to click for it at the bottom of the first page.
He leads of with a sequence of tweets from Andrew Exum aka Abu Muqawama, of which this is one:
5. … This, for example, is not a policeman who is about to win the trust of his fellow citizen: pic.twitter.com/6u8MCAZ5PT
— Andrew Exum (@abumuqawama) August 13, 2014
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Two of the tweets Atherton posts use what I call a DoubleQuotes in the Wild format:
The gentleman on the left has more personal body armor and weaponry than I did while invading Iraq. pic.twitter.com/5u6TxyIbkk
— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) August 14, 2014
and:
Postures tell story of perceived threat. L: aggressive security during AJ camera dismantling. R: patrolling in Iraq. pic.twitter.com/b3q7cyPvG4
— Alex Horton (@AlexHortonTX) August 14, 2014
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Here are some other examples, pulled from a total of 45 tweets all told — including some from friends of this blog:
One point nicely made by Adam Weinstein is that the “militarization” isn’t military much beyond the gear:
Police have tons of mil gear, but they're not exactly "militarized." I know of plenty of line infantry units more compassionate than this.
— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) August 14, 2014
See also this:
@AdamWeinstein Also, we contained riots in Baghdad next to mosques with less violence than the police are employing.
— Josh Prentice (@Cardozorolled) August 14, 2014
Here’s Jimmy Sky:
In the USAF, we did crowd control and riot training every year. Lesson 1: Your mere presence has the potential to escalate the situation.
— James Skylar Gerrond (@JimmySky) August 13, 2014
— which pretty much confirms a point I was making in DoubleQuotes in Foreign Policy: Ferguson and the world.
Three from Nathan Bethea offer further perspective on Iraq:
People in 2004-2006 struggled to understand why Iraqis would want to fight the US military occupation. Does it make sense now?
— Nathan B. Bethea (@inthesedeserts) August 13, 2014
It might help to imagine if all these Ferguson PD were from a foreign country and were blocking traffic / shooting people for eight years.
— Nathan B. Bethea (@inthesedeserts) August 13, 2014
It wouldn't matter if it was with the most altruistic of intentions. People see armed men in riot gear / death-stronaut gear and they react.
— Nathan B. Bethea (@inthesedeserts) August 13, 2014
Again, that last tweet reinforces what I was suggesting in DoubleQuotes in Foreign Policy: Ferguson and the world.
My next-to-last pick: Jason Fritz makes a triple point:
As someone who studies policing in conflict, what's going on Ferguson isn't just immoral and probably unconstitutional, it's ineffective.
— Jason Fritz (@JasonFritz1) August 13, 2014
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After requesting further tweets that might be relevant to his Storify story, Atherton includes a handful of tweets from @kudzu81 aka ibreakthings, offering this moderate critique:
@AthertonKD I can't disagree with many in your storify but we had same gear cops have, 2005-2006.
— ibreakthings (@Kudzu81) August 14, 2014
Atherton’s own conclusion, which he posts as a sub-head to his Storify:
The general consensus here: if this is militarization, it’s the shittiest, least-trained, least professional military in the world, using weapons far beyond what they need, or what the military would use when doing crowd control.
All in all, an impressive performance — much kudos to Kelsey Atherton, be sure to read his whole piece on Storify — and follow him on Twitter.
