FERGUSON

The protests in Ferguson had been going on for about 3 months and showed no signs of dying out. It was pretty clear the grievances of the protesters were resonating with the people all around the nation. People everywhere seemed to have the same complaints about local law enforcement. There seemed to be a general perception that police harassment was the norm in many communities. All the rage was coming out. Something had to be done to tamp it down.

So the decision was made to allow, even encourage, violence in Ferguson on Monday night. A series of events was put in motion to discredit the protest movement. Usually when there are protests no matter how legitimate the grievance, if there is violence the protest is considered a failure because the general public does not accept the legitimacy of violence as a form of protest. When violence occurs, the protest movement is rejected and it dies. An elaborate plan was put into place. There were a number of steps which could have been taken to reduce or even eliminate the possibility of violence. 

I think the fact that these steps were not taken was deliberate.

Simply put – they could have allowed protests but still protected property. It seems they chose not to – despite the Governor’s assurances that vandalism would not be permitted.

The first suspicious event was the announcement of the grand jury’s decision. Why was this done at 8 pm instead of 8 am? Nobody seems to know. In the daytime there would have been no darkness to obscure the actions of violent protesters. There could have been massive peaceful demonstrations which could have fizzled out by evening. People would have become tired of protesting and just gone home. There would have been much smaller numbers of hard-core protesters and troublemakers after sundown. So everyone could have been on the alert for any violence breaking out. 

Then there was the fact that the police were massed in front of the police station, where nothing was happening, instead of protecting the surrounding businesses, which were being looted and torched. The National Guard troops were sitting around smoking cigarettes, waiting to be called in. The police stoked protesters anger by allowing them to believe they would be permitted to demonstrate in front of the police station (where they had demonstrated many times before) but then ordered them to disperse, telling them it was an ‘unlawful assembly.’ If people are exercising their constitutional rights of free assembly to redress grievances, how can this be ‘unlawful?’ Who makes the determination that this is unlawful?

So I believe there was an intention to provoke violence in order to discredit the growing nationwide anti-police movement and make it go away. But that hasn’t happened. It seems the violence attracted more attention (thanks to the media obsession with violence) and galvanized people in 170 cities to protest on Tuesday. So now there is a massive nationwide anti-police abuse movement.

What will happen next?