I'm not posing any deep questions. But I asked myself what I'd like to see if this was going on in my community.
I went looking to find out where the hell the mayor is in all this. The mayor's name is Knowles.
He is, after all, the Big Boss. He could order the local police to go home. He could tell the county cops to go away. He could be in the streets talking to people.
He could be dressing down the officers who arrested the Huffpo and WaPo reporters -- in public. Along with the police chief, who clearly hasn't explained to everyone concerned -- his employees and the "guest" employees from regional law enforcement -- that they are not to mess with reporters.
He could order the police chief to put the clown(s) who pulled a city alderman out of his car to be put on leave -- or to ID them if they're not local and have them reassigned immediately by their superiors.
In short, he could be a leader and lead his town. But it appears he's MIA, and eleventy layers of "law enforcement" are involved, and they all think they are in charge.
I'll drop in two excerpts from the most informative item I could Google.
Check out this quote, which really appears to show how far out of touch he is. Parse it. Is it really a question of "they" "not liking" police?
“The African-American community — youth in the African-American community in particular — has something against law enforcement in many ways,” Knowles said. “They don’t like law enforcement, and they don’t think law enforcement likes them.”
Maybe this guy isn't smart enough to be a real leader.
As far as a regional tribal cop culture, check out the police chief's CV:
Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said 50 of the city’s 53 police officers are white. He said he made recruiting and promoting black officers a priority when he took over four years ago after a three-decade police career in St. Louis and St. Louis County.
Police department essentially all-white where the community is 70 percent minority -- as many have already pointed out.
And 30 years in the metropolitan police forces. We know where his loyalty lies. It's inevitable.
On the plus side, he surely knows all of the higher-ups in the region, and he should be working with the mayor to get them out of the way and out of the town. There's an astonishing lack of common sense here. It's a given that massed cops who have not been given strict directions are going to start messing with reporters and with local elected officials.
Source: http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/...