On Aug. 11, hundreds of members of the Ferguson community assembled outside of the Ferguson Police Department demanding justice for the murder of Michael Brown. He was shot and killed by Darren Wilson of the Ferguson police department on Aug. 9.

Brown was shot between six and eight times, 35 feet from the officer (claimed by police). Worst of all he was surrendering; he had his hands raised and he was unarmed. This is completely outrageous to me, but this is not the first time something like this has happened.

Actually, police brutality and use of excessive force is fairly common here in America. In this country, we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Nowadays, it seems like you’re guilty until proven innocent. We give police firearms in order to serve and protect the community, but now they are using them to kill members of the community. Now don’t get me wrong, not all police are like this. Actually, many police are very respectful, responsible, and lawful. Either we live in fear of these bad police, or we do something about it.

When we take a look at how the police department is handling these protests, we can see that they are going way overboard. Given that there were a few incidents of looting on the night of Aug. 10 at small corner shops and gas stations, I can see why the police would want strict involvement. But much of the looting was blamed on the community, while actually many members of the community came to help the shop owner clean after the looting. Many of the first protesters were allowed to continue peacefully, but as the protests continued to grow throughout the week, police began to become more unlawful; arresting people with unjust cause, tear gassing peaceful protests, and intimidating reporters.  There were more than ten arrests made throughout the week of protesters and two journalists. Many of the protests continue to grow because of the lack of transparency with the department.

On Wednesday Aug.13, two journalists were arrested and removed from a McDonald’s on charges of trespassing. This video shows it all, the corruption of the department, the lack of transparency and the unjust arrests; and this is not the only video like this. The reporters were released later with no charges or explanations.

The police are not only arresting the citizens without just cause, they are going way overboard with tear gassing crowds; as shown by the video on ksdk.com, Al Jazeera America crews hit with tear gas. As you see in the video, the Ferguson police shoot a military grade tear gas canister at an innocent Al Jazeera America film/news crew, then take down all of their equipment for no apparent reason. This is one of the more outrageous videos of the Ferguson brutality. It is obvious that the Al Jazeera America crew is not breaking any laws, and even if they were, that does not warrant the right to shoot military tear gas at them. I think this just shows how corrupt the department is… so corrupt that they don’t even want cameras on them, but luckily someone was filming the whole thing. If you didn’t already know: it is legal in America to record the police in public. If the police keep complaining about unlawful protests wouldn’t they want the cameras there to capture it? No, because the protests are lawful. They just don’t want the public to see the excessive force being used by the department.

It seems to me like the police are just completely disregarding major laws that make us free Americans. The police can’t just keep going around intimidating reporters and arresting people without  just cause. The Ferguson police department is hugely corrupt and something needs to be done about it. Today we see things in ferguson returning to normal. Browns family has begun to accept their son’s death, although nothing can ever replace their loss. The family now calls for the arrest of Darren Wilson immediately.

videos:

Police attack & arrest news reporters at McDonald

Al Jazeera America crews hit with tear gas