Are the Police in St. Louis Upholding the Law?

When a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri shot Michael Brown, he unwittingly unleashed a torrent of fury in the black community there. Brown was 18 years old and unarmed, and the because the police department divulged very little information about how the shooting occurred, except to say that Brown tried to grab the officer's weapon, his death remains one of those inexplicable cases in which a white cop has killed a black kid.

To compound the problem, the police have refused to release the name of the officer involved. So many death threats have been leveled against him that it's easy to see why the department would seek to shield him, but it reinforces the image of the police getting protection that Brown and others like him do not get.

It's also difficult to understand the highly militarized response of the police to protests. Images coming from the scene do not reinforce the idea that the police stand for law and order, but that they stand for violence and power. It is, of course, their job to prevent serious disruption of the city, but these are not the pictures anyone wants to see. High pressure hoses, noise cannons, tear gas and anti-riot tanks are the tools of dictators, and their use here does not serve the city of St. Louis or the people who live there.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

When Fox News commentators condemn the police and defend protesters, you know something has gone over the top. 

Reporters from the Washington Post and The Huffington Post say they were arrested and then released without explanation. A St. Louis alderman was arrested and says he was dragged from his car. These things reflect a lack of discipline and training on the part of the police there, and do nothing to dispel the notion that Brown was probably killed without real justification.