"As simple as training your dog"

Here are cops in Ferguson, MO tonight threatening to shoot people for filming them.



Here is the result of a second autopsy on Michael Brown's body.  The independent examiner determined the unarmed boy was shot 6 times.

One of the bullets entered the top of Mr. Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said.

Mr. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front.

It's disappointing that this is still going on after a full week.  Obviously the decision to impose a curfew hasn't helped matters. The police description of events is suspicious.  The "premeditated coordinated instigators" line sounds dubious as do the multiple references to "Molotov cocktails" which one always hears knocked about in these situations. 

And even if you believe the police version of these events, they haven't exactly reacted to that in a smart way.  For example, if you really think a crowd is armed with fire bombs, launching tear gas canisters at them (which spark on impact) is probably a bad idea.  As I'm typing this, CNN is reporting that the National Guard has been called in.  That probably won't go well.. although it also can't go much worse. Or maybe it can.

The 131st Bomb Wing is a unit of the Missouri Air National Guard, stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base, Knob Noster, Missouri. If activated to federal service, the wing is gained by the United States Air Force Global Strike Command. It is an associate unit of the active-duty 509th Bomb Wing, which falls under the Eighth Air Force.

The 131st Bomb Wing is the only Air National Guard wing to fly the B-2 Spirit, as well as the only nuclear-capable Air National Guard bomb wing.

Ok but we still can be pretty secure in our belief that this won't end with the nuking of St. Louis.  This is not to say it ends well, though.



By November, Republican congressional candidates will celebrate police "heroes" and realize a fundraising windfall from it. Already the foundations for that are being laid.

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Frustrated with the national coverage of protests surrounding the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teen who was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a few dozen people showed up in downtown St. Louis on Sunday afternoon to show solidarity with the officer who killed the 18-year-old.

Since officer Darren Wilson shot Brown on Aug. 9, there have been nightly protests in Ferguson. But the counterprotesters said they wanted the country to know that not everyone supported the Ferguson demonstrations, and wanted Wilson and his family to know that there were people who backed them.

The protesters gathered outside KSDK-TV, a local station that they said has been biased in its coverage of the controversy.

Beyond that, the most likely result is something like what we always see after such shocks: Limited to zero police accountability combined with a general acceptance that strong-arm tactics are a thing people can expect to see in the future.  Or as the pro-police demonstrators put it,  we're being trained to put up with it.

"They're going to keep pushing the envelope," he said of demonstrators who've gotten violent during protests in Ferguson. "There's no reason to stop. ... It's as simple as training your dog. If you don't tell them stop biting, guess what, he's going to continue to bite."