The Ferguson, Missouri thread

[Callisto]

The story from day 1 one that I've seen was him turning around and putting his hands up after a shot went past or hit him in the back, then getting Rambo'd in the front.

[Skyylya]

The autopsy clearly shows he didn't take any shots in the back. And the problem with the stories from day one is that they are completely unreliable. I've read the entire thread and it's one theory and conjecture after another. People need to wait for the facts and right now they don't support a fleeing suspect being gunned down. They show a stupid kid arguing with a cop, getting into a tussle, hitting the cop in the face and the cop exercising very poor judgement to shoot the kid because of it instead of a less lethal takedown.

[Salodin]

Was this semi automatic or what? Cause man, that looks like the cop held down the right trigger and pulled his joystick back.

[Chun Liroy]

We're still arguing about the Mike Brown case before all the facts are out? Oh.

Let's not talk about the police militarizing and using LRADs and tear gas on civilians that are peacefully protesting and threatening to shoot at media members.

LRADs were said to never be used on civilians when they were first implemented and tear gas is a chemical weapon banned in war, but used on our own people.

[Skyylya]

We must have different idea's about peaceful considering the looting and molotov's getting thrown around.

[SephYuyX]

Cause man, that looks like the cop held down the right trigger and pulled his joystick back.

lold

[6souls]

Live stream - http://new.livestream.com/timcast/events/3295551

[Chun Liroy]

The people looting are completely unrelated to the protest. They're opportunists taking advantage of the cause.

Did you miss the other night when protesters tried to protect the buildings they were attempting to loot?

[Skyylya]

I didn't miss that, I saw that. This whole situation is fucked though and regardless of whether it's the protester's looting or not the violence is still taking place. If the peaceful people were smart they would get the fuck out and let the looters get dealt with. The fact that they are getting involved is what's making it worse.

[6souls]

LRADs were said to never be used on civilians when they were first implemented and tear gas is a chemical weapon banned in war, but used on our own people.

Illegal in War, Legal for "domestic law enforcement"

The State Department stockpiles it at embassies around the world. Aren't chemical weapons like tear gas illegal?

Yes, but only in war. The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention doesn't apply to domestic law enforcement. (The United States was a major proponent of the exemption, fearing that the convention might be interpreted to prohibit lethal injection.) The most common lacrimator used for riot control is a compound called 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile , or CS. (It's not actually a gas so much as a powder that's usually mixed with smoke to create an airborne agent.) CS has no long-term effects when used properly, but the treaty still bans its use in battle since it's difficult to distinguish from more dangerous agents in the fog of war. (You don't want the other side to think they're being attacked with, say, sarin, and respond in kind.) It's also considered inhumane to deploy CS as a means of weakening enemy soldiers so they might be killed by conventional means—although that didn't stop the United States from using tear gas to flush the Viet Cong out of tunnels and then bombarding them as they fled.

Signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention are free to manufacture riot-control agents— defined as chemicals that cause short-lived irritation or disabling effects—as long as they report their holdings to an international body and don't make so much that their stockpile is inconsistent with domestic use. When deployed in open spaces, the effects of tear gas are indeed temporary. Victims may experience crying, uncontrollable blinking, burning in the throat, sneezing, coughing, retching, and sometimes temporary blindness—but all that should subside within hours.

In enclosed spaces, however, the chemical agent can have much more serious effects. When police plan to use tear gas grenades to flush suspects out of a house, they start by comparing the dose of CS with the volume of the building and calculating a "lethal concentration time." That's the number of minutes it will take before most people inside would die from exposure. If the lethal concentration time is nearing, and the suspects haven't yet emerged, the police start breaking windows for ventilation.

It's not entirely clear how many people have been killed by CS. Amnesty International said 50 Palestinians died from inhalation in the late 1980s—prompting a brief suspension of tear gas sales to Israel—but those conclusions are disputed. The FBI used CS in its raid on the Branch Davidian compound (PDF) in Waco, but the ensuing fire left it unclear how, exactly, the cult members were killed. Such incidents have prompted a search for less toxic crowd-dispersing chemicals such as malodorants, but none has proven as effective as tear gas. Russia appears to be moving in the other direction, using the powerful opiate fentanyl to incapacitate rebels during a 2002 hostage crisis. That approach ended up killing more than 100 innocent people.

The United States is so enthusiastic about riot-control agents that it has a standing Executive Order reserving the right to use them on the battlefield, in spite of the Chemical Weapons Convention's prohibition, to protect convoys or prevent the use of civilian shields. While the U.S. hasn't invoked the order since ratifying the Convention in 1997, Donald Rumsfeld made news in 2003 when he raised the possibility.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...s_illegal.html
http://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons...tion/articles/
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...834487,00.html
http://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons...-and-criteria/
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0392/9203069.html
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/pdf/heinrich.pdf
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in527614.shtml
http://www.archives.gov/federal-regi...der/11850.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81564,00.html

[Not Kuno]

Live stream - http://new.livestream.com/timcast/events/3295551

That one seems far from everything? The one I'm watching is http://crooksandliars.com/2014/08/wa...-go-full-rogue

wait nvm it seems to have changed. Yours is better now

[Quicklet]

Those LRADs are absurdly loud.

[tyven]

So autopsy says shots prob weren't from close range cuz no gunpowder on big homie.

[Weegion]

And wtf is an 8 year old doing out in that mess to get tear gas'd anyway. Lock up his/her parents.

"Their fault for bringing their kids to a battlefield"?

[Chun Liroy]

I didn't miss that, I saw that. This whole situation is fucked though and regardless of whether it's the protester's looting or not the violence is still taking place. If the peaceful people were smart they would get the fuck out and let the looters get dealt with. The fact that they are getting involved is what's making it worse.

You're really dense, man.

[Skyylya]

I could say the same for you if you think that people proclaiming to want to peacefully protest are putting themselves into the fray. That's just idiotic for people to do. They are escalating the situation and making it worse. I'm not saying the police aren't over-doing it, I'm saying that the people are stupid for not backing down, letting things settle and resuming things in a more peaceful way.

[Not Kuno]

So is FB really purging #Ferguson posts?

[Quicklet]

https://twitter.com/AmyKNelson/statu...19606208741376

watching. residents come out of their homes w hands up and they are lined up like a firing squad on Canfield road

[Salodin]

Live stream - http://new.livestream.com/timcast/events/3295551

Watching this, most exciting thing is how badly I want those gas prices... People are just walking around like "so what now?"

[archibaldcrane]

Was this semi automatic or what? Cause man, that looks like the cop held down the right trigger and pulled his joystick back.

Um, virtually every pistol, and every police pistol, is "semi automatic".