What I Saw in Ferguson

Inside of a week, two black teen-agers have been shot by police and, in both instances, the bureaucratic default setting has favored law enforcement, fuelling a perception that the department is either inept or beholden to a certain nonchalance about the possibility of police brutality.

…When I spoke to Umana and Malik Ahmed, the C.E.O. of Better Family Life, they acknowledged that the anonymity of the officer may have something to do with the death threats, but said that it also would make it easier for the department to avoid scrutiny until an official narrative has been crafted. “Nobody out here believes that young man actually went for the officer’s gun,” Ahmed told me.

Although the following scenes sound like they are describing some place we are at with, this is the United States. Well, perhaps a better way to say it is that this is the United States where our domestic military is at war with the citizens they gold dominion over.

 

…Late in the afternoon on Wednesday, the armored vehicles rolled into place just beyond the charred shell of the QuikTrip gas station that was burned on the first night of protests. Police, some outfitted in riot gear, others in military fatigues, barricaded the streets. At least one of them draped a black bandana over his face; others covered their badges.

…Police stopped anyone but residents from entering, but the tear-gas also prevented the people who were already there from getting out. Umana invited me into his home; outside, clusters of protesters and journalists wandered the side streets, hemmed in for hours. One homeowner walked out of his house to find a spent flash grenade on his lawn. An armored truck rolled down the street, a flume of tear gas issuing from the back.