It’s Not Just Ferguson: Austin’s Problem With Police Brutality..............

[doxydad]

While national attention is focused on the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, researchers and advocates in different cities across the country are pointing out the obvious—this problem is larger than one town.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/08/18/just-ferguson-austins-problem-police-brutality/

[MADem]

1. Out of tragedy comes the promise of a better day. The focus on this issue is WAY past due.

I have noticed in the last decade and a half, that police no longer feel the need to be polite to people in many instances. The willingness to be assholes as a FIRST resort seems to have increased.

I remember the days of the "pigs" (which was the default term for anyone under the age of 30 to describe a police officer) back in the sixties and seventies and I also remember how that bad reputation became rebranded in many places and police got, if not totally helpful, a bit less hated.

Since Nahn Wun Wun, the default has been that people must a) Praise the police for their service; b) Eat the shit they deliver, not challenge their "authori-TEH" in any way. This has led to some unfortunate interactions and people of color and the economically disadvantaged take it on the chin first and hardest.

I hope the good that comes out of Ferguson is that police departments are forced--perhaps by the federal withholding of goodies--to confront their overreach and stop acting like assholes.

That simple graph at your link really tells it like it is--good article.

[Enthusiast]

2. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

It is a nationwide problem, no question about it.

[HereSince1628]

3. And this is the sort of problem that is amplified by resonance

In every media market in America people are aware of local examples from every recent year.

Citizens are literally surrounded with examples of it. Maddening examples of it.

The memories reside just below the surface of our collective consciousness, a nation's worth of shared traumatic memories, archived in living history in large and small communities across the country.

"A few bad apples" doesn't work to explain it away. There is a national root cellar full of homeland security going rotten with preparations to suppress the citizenry.

After years of anticipating the use of crowd suppression, the response available for local authorities to field is suppression and more and greater suppression.

It's pretty clear the people of Ferguson have had enough of it. It's also evident that the media see's the Missouri Establishment's response as too much.

It remains to be seen if an entire nation so heavily invested in the artifacts of insecurity can simply walk away from the attitudes that feed the insecurity.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. Never been to Austin but I've heard it's a Progressive town. If so, what the hell happened? nt

[hobbit709]

6. Our wonderful police chief has a strong authoritarian streak.

Ever since he took over they've been acting like storm troopers with everyone.

[Heidi]

5. Kick!