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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

"Doing Something" in Ferguson, MO

As usual, Andrew McCarthy provides an erudite and level-headed response to the current goings-on in Ferguson, MO. One of the more dispiriting indications of just how far the Progressivist rot has gone is the eagerness of so many to throw aside basic civic traditions and Constitutional strictures in the name of "just doing something." Just doing something supersedes such trifling concerns as law, custom, tradition, and the basic integrity of our republican form of government. (The many unprincipled defenses of the President's recent usurpation of Congressional law-making authority are another recent case in point.) Much the same sentiments were advanced during the trial of George Zimmerman, with the ever-loathsome Michael Savage, no friend of the anti-Zimmerman lynch mob, seriously demanding on air that the mob be given "something" for their trouble, perhaps a mere manslaughter conviction.

As will no doubt be repeated with weary necessity over the next few days, the civic tradition we have inherited does not permit the criminal justice system to throw bones to a lynch mob. McCarthy ably dispenses with the pernicious argument that the Fifth Amendment should be ignored in such cases as these because it would somehow be cathartic for black looters and rioters, and more healthy for race relations in general, for Officer Darren Wilson to endure a public trial. Of course, such a trial would be a gross perversion of the courts' basic purpose and would enjoy all the seriousness and legitimacy of Frank Costanza's airing of grievances. What perturbs me most, though, is that this argument's whole premise runs contrary to reason and experience.

Simply put, the crowds of rioters and their race-baiting instigators, who would be the intended audience of such a show trial, are not in the first place moved by any serious concern for the truth. Listen to any of the "Justice for Michael" agitators, whether on television, radio, or in the street, and you will discover a remarkable paucity of attention to the evidence. It is not in the nature of a mob to be concerned with a dispassionate consideration of the facts. Expressions of outrage, while sometimes valuable in themselves, are not arguments, and what is most notable about the rabble-rousing side of such controversies is their determination to frame events in heavily abstracted terms. If the actual guilt or innocence of Officer Wilson--or for that matter, the guilt or innocence of the strong-arm robber, Michael Brown--are of no account to such people, then what point is there, exactly, in pursuing an "open," "public" proceeding whose purpose is nothing but the dispassionate presentation of the evidence?

The person who argues for a trial even in the absence of sufficient evidence that any such trial is warranted will not later be satisfied by any trial which does not result in a conviction. I am given to understand that the grand jury materials will be made public in the absence of any prosecution, which seems to me to be a very good thing. Those who are interested in the factual details of the case will be free to avail themselves of them and to reach their own conclusions, just as they would have been free to follow the daily testimony and court documents resulting from an actual trial. It is a foolish thing indeed, though, to presume that people who have no interest (or even competence) to judge such materials on their merits would be edified by the plodding machinery of a criminal trial lasting months or years.

Again, the protestors and agitators who are demanding a trial for Officer Wilson are concerned mainly with generalities (when they are not concerned mainly with the rush and ecstasy of mob rage). As has been observed numerous times, among the opinion-making elites whose business it is to manipulate words, cases such as these are merely a cipher for larger ideological preoccupations. That is why George Zimmerman was just white enough to serve as a stand-in for an actual white person, and it is why the flimsiness of the evidence against Wilson is of no real account to those who supposedly would be appeased by an adversarial proceeding like a criminal trial. When the essential priorities are myth-making and the "greater symbolic meaning of it all," the particular details of the case recede into irrelevance.

At bottom, we are dealing here with a straightforward instance of something primitive and familiar, that is, scapegoating. The Anglo custom of law was specially developed to check that primitive impulse. It is not only wrong, but actually quite pointless, to attempt to slake the unreasoning bloodlust of the mob using the vehicle of the courts.

Comments (32)

Sage, this is excellent. I have been doing no more than scanning headlines on Ferguson and had not realized that some (other than the so-called protesters), that is, some who actually pretend to be grownups thinking soberly, are literally calling for a legally unwarranted trial as a sop to the protesters! This is a terrifying descent into legal anarchy, and for people who pretend to be serious to propose it is a sign of the unraveling of the west that I find it almost difficult to fathom. You explain why quite admirably.

"The Anglo custom of law was specially developed to check that primitive impulse."

I don't know if that's true, but I'm more concerned about your language. When did "Anglo" become anything other than a prefix ("anglo-")? I see more and more people using it this way and I don't understand it. Is it short for "Anglo-Saxon" (meaning what exactly?) or "anglophone", or is it made up on analogy with "Latino"?

It's hard for a lot of people to admit that those who reflexively sided with Brown here are, like Martin's supporters, often literally too stupid or emotionally invested to understand what they're demanding. At my old job, there was a black woman who, among many interesting legal theories about Zimmerman, said it didn't matter that there were no witnesses to the 4 minute window of time in which the fight took place. She said all the state had to do to show premeditation was Zimmerman getting out of the car and pursuing him. That's how your typical rioter thinks like on this issue.

So when I explained to her that she was essentially giving the police the ability to put murder one charges on thousands of black men under a napoleonic guilty until proven innocent basis if she got her way, didn't matter. Didn't matter that if she got her way, death row would explode 1000% within 2 years and that within a decade death row would look like an industrial slaughter house for black men, most of whom would probably be objectively innocent.

The only saving grace is that most of the black men around her basically told her they sided with Zimmerman not because they thought he was innocent, but because they sure as hell didn't want to give the police even an inch on innocent until proven guilty or self-defense.

I don't know if that's true, but I'm more concerned about your language. When did "Anglo" become anything other than a prefix ("anglo-")?

Oh, I see, Jordan, your "concern" here is purely grammatical? As someone who loves the beauty of the English language, you don't want to see a mere prefix turned into a free-standing adjective, is that it?

Somehow, I'm guessing that's not it.

The use of the term "Anglo" in the main post is quite clear: American law is based on the long tradition of English common law. English common law, including such notions as due process and innocence until proven guilty, was to some degree codified in the U.S. Constitution, including that inconvenient part known as the 5th amendment with its requirement of a grand jury indictment. These traditions and concepts are distinctively Western and reached a pinnacle in England and America. The word "England" comes from the word "Angle-land"; hence, we are talking here about the Anglo-American legal tradition.

So now you know why the term "Anglo" was used. (At least, so I conjecture. I didn't write the post.)

Yes, that's it. My concern was entirely with the use of the term "Anglo", which I despise. It's bizarre. What's wrong with "English" or "Anglo-American", if that's what's meant? Why "Anglo"?

I have no beef with anything else in the post. I don't know if English common law was "specially developed to check that primitive impulse [to scapegoat]", but obviously that's not germane to the main point. With which I agree: that the "protesters" in this case have already tried and sentenced the accused and are not interested in any due process at all. They should not be given a sop. I am of the same mind about the ridiculous case of Sammy Yatim in Toronto, if you're at all familiar with it. It goes to trial next year.

Lydia, you're right about my usage, but Jordan is also right that it's at least unorthodox. It probably doesn't matter much, but Anglo-American didn't seem quite right since we're talking about the same tradition that is used throughout what is sometimes called the "Anglosphere." It's a tertiary point, but one I did hesitate over briefly before just saying "to heck with it" and moving on. Just getting something written through this head cold was enough for me.

MikeT, there's no doubt that the emotional investment you're talking about often produces a total cognitive break with the facts of the matter. Past a certain point there isn't much incentive to stop and take stock of new information as it becomes available. In dealing with the committed ranks of The Outraged, I've sometimes tried to drag the discussion back to what actually happened, at least in the case of George Zimmerman, because that seems to me to be the most sensible place to start when talking about the demands of justice, but I have met intense emotional resistance every time. There is a palpable frustration on the part of those who are determined to be angry over these things--"Why," they seem to wonder, "are you so damnably obsessed with the facts of the case? Don't you see there's a larger issue at work here?" Blacks I've encountered on Facebook and the like are particularly prone to operate on the suspicion that there is some kind of "trick" lurking behind any attempt to talk about the particulars. And really, who is going to don a mask and throw fire bombs over some supposed injustice on Tuesday, only to read some contrary court testimony on Wednesday and say to himself, "Whoops, my bad. Looks like Witness X was unreliable. Better reserve judgment from now on."

I hardly know what to do about it. There's this stark determination to talk about irrelevancies like Stand Your Ground laws even when they have nothing to do with the case at hand. So in the face of such irrationality, it seems pretty futile, and a bad exchange all-around, to trade our civic patrimony for the illusion of a trial that at least "makes the facts known." Rioters, race hustlers, and liberal columnists just aren't interested, and any result they don't like will be chalked up to the corruption of the system anyway.

My apologies, Jordan. I was wrongly guessing that you were insinuating that the term "Anglo" was racist.

Sage, thanks again for the post.

Our country is in grave trouble. I'm afraid race is a big part of it, and in this case there is also the refusal to stop the anarchy with strong means. I saw someone on Facebook just now accuse a mutual FB friend of being "vitriolic" for saying the rioting is unacceptable and should be stopped by force. Vitriolic.

I wish now, I really wish, that we could go back to August and see that "militarized" appearance again by the police. It did the trick, and as far as I know, it harmed no one innocent. Of course there are reasons for concern about militarized police, etc. I voice them at times myself. But this is not one of those times. These wicked thugs need to be stopped, pronto.

On that subject, Lydia, Governor Nixon has come under some criticism for refusing to deploy the National Guard to prevent Ferguson from being burned to the ground. I can't know with certainty what his motives were, but it seems like a discreditable thing to restrain the Missouri Guard from performing its basic duty to keep order and protect the townspeople from ruin. It doesn't seem likely to me that he really believes all the claptrap about Ferguson being the new Selma; but there's little doubt he's aware that it's being portrayed that way in some corners.

There's been some idle speculation that Holder was pressuring him, but that's all it is--speculation. I don't think he needed that kind of pressuring, and it isn't obvious why Holder would apply that pressure to begin with. It's just as likely Gov. Nixon is a garden variety political coward, and that he'd rather Ferguson disappear from the face of the earth than play the bad guy in some Baby Boomer nostalgia play.

On that subject, Lydia, Governor Nixon has come under some criticism for refusing to deploy the National Guard to prevent Ferguson from being burned to the ground.

Someone enlighten me because I was under the impression that the National Guard was called out, but that they were ineffective and reminded one of the time when riot-police in England watched as people rioted and in one case someone practically begging the police to arrest him.

Scott, the source for that particular story is the local Fox affiliate. The Mayor of Ferguson told them this morning that his repeated requests for the Guard on Monday night went unheeded, though I understand the governor has finally caved and called up a couple of thousand Guardsmen. The Lieutenant Gov. had been pouring on the criticism and intimating that Gov. Nixon was caving to pressure from the Obama administration, which as far as I can tell is just something he tacked on for effect.

Even if the National Guard is called out, the Rules of Engagement likely prohibited them from being particularly effective. Odds are very low that the National Guard was authorized to do more than stand around and look tough because they're soldiers, not law enforcement. That means expecting them to just start arresting people is out of the question because that's not their training, nor their mission. You deploy troops to situations like this when you have the political will to start killing people left and right for disturbing the peace. The political will to use the National Guard the way it is designed to be used was not and is not there.

Ironically, if the federal government had responded to the 1992 race riot in LA by liquidating a few thousand rioters, that might have been the end of it.

My impression is that what Mike T says has already happened--that there were National Guardsmen there who just stood around while the looting went on. I admit that I haven't double checked this, but it's what I would also have expected. My prediction is that nobody is going to stop this looting and burning except perhaps in some individual cases private security. Otherwise, those who can't afford that are just out of luck. And too many don't care.

Notice, for example, that Christian blogger Denny Burk, who can be sensible about some things, literally has *nothing to say* in this post about condemning the pillage and violence. He says that his "African American brothers and sisters" are "on his heart," but one gets the distinct impression that the ones he has in mind are the ones upset about the verdict, not the ones whose businesses are destroyed.

http://www.dennyburk.com/a-few-thoughts-on-ferguson/

It's not all bad though. Voddie Baucham has finally spoken his mind in post-length form. About time:

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/thoughts-on-ferguson

Notice, for example, that Christian blogger Denny Burk, who can be sensible about some things, literally has *nothing to say* in this post about condemning the pillage and violence. He says that his "African American brothers and sisters" are "on his heart," but one gets the distinct impression that the ones he has in mind are the ones upset about the verdict, not the ones whose businesses are destroyed.

Well, what could he say about the violence? That something explains why they're targeting random businesses? That destroying the store of the guy who Michael Brown robbed and beat up because of police brutality makes any moral sense? And then the irony: most of the stores were minority owned! To address it would be to call attention to the fact that many of these protesters are the very beasts that they protest, that in this particular case rational people say "why can't both sides lose?"

Well, what could he say about the violence?

He could say that it is intolerable and wicked. He could say that his heart bleeds for the innocent victims of this evil behavior whether white or black and that he has zero sympathy for the looters and in fact hopes that they are brought to justice. He could say that the true Christian response is to call upon the government to do its job of punishing evildoers and protecting innocent, productive citizens. He could condemn the feeble response that has not defended the citizens of Ferguson. And he could comment on the pulverizing irony of the fact that so many of these innocent victims are in fact black, pointing out that this is the way in which the government is failing the black community--by not protecting them from criminal thugs. He could distance himself from various other Christian commentators (there are plenty) who have nothing whatsoever to say about the violence and whose hearts seem only to bleed for the fragile psyches of blacks who "feel hurt" by the grand jury decision.

You get the picture.

TME:

That is a truly superb article.

Lydia,

I meant that in the sense "what can a guy like him say about it?" Just saying those things would annihilate any claim of justification for the people who he "feels for."

I will add that if you can watch a mob attacking a business and destroying it and putting at risk the people inside and not even countenance the idea of the National Guard responding with overwhelming, deadly force against the mob you're no defender of civilization. Whatever you are, you love the barbarian more than civilization.

Even if the National Guard is called out, the Rules of Engagement likely prohibited them from being particularly effective. Odds are very low that the National Guard was authorized to do more than stand around and look tough because they're soldiers, not law enforcement. That means expecting them to just start arresting people is out of the question because that's not their training, nor their mission.

I have a gap in my knowledge, so maybe I just need more education. But it seems to me that the role of "put a stop to rioting" is a kind of a middle role between that of standard police work and that of standard soldiering. Stopping a riot isn't so much about locating and capturing a criminal or stopping a specific criminal action as it is about putting an immediate end to a distinct, broad sort of public behavior, regardless of whether all of the persons acted upon are legally guilty of any crime (sometimes they are innocent bystanders). The point of riot suppression isn't regular police work. But it isn't regular soldiering either: the people acted upon are your fellow citizens, and one presumes that their actions are that of a momentary anti-social attitude, not a deep-seated opposition to the entire government or polity (which would be insurrection or civil war, not a riot). Nor are they typically armed with high-end weaponry. The point isn't to KILL every person there, nor to ARREST every person there, the point is to nullify them as immediate threats to public peace: taking on a crowd and knocking them over forcefully with fire-hoses, rubber bullets, or shields and clubs, and yes breaking some arms and legs and heads in the process, and giving the police in the background the freedom to put plastic cuffs on them and cart them off to another location (i.e. something they are trained for) is neither basic police work nor soldiering.

And it also seems to me that state militia and national guards occupy a kind of a middle place between that of local police and the nation's professional standing army poised for defense of our country. So, why the heck not put the right training and the right ROE in the hands of the middle group? It has long been the case that governors are called on to employ their state-level authority to direct the militia to control large unruly crowds in emergencies, that's part of the tradition. So why aren't we putting anti-riot gear and anti-riot training and anti-riot ROE into place for state entities?

Well for one, the National Guard isn't a middle ground force. They are in fact real soldiers every bit as much as the Army Reserves. The other thing is that police and military trainers have long recognized that the two groups' objectives and training tend to be diametrically opposed.

The point isn't to KILL every person there, nor to ARREST every person there, the point is to nullify them as immediate threats to public peace: taking on a crowd and knocking them over forcefully with fire-hoses, rubber bullets, or shields and clubs, and yes breaking some arms and legs and heads in the process, and giving the police in the background the freedom to put plastic cuffs on them and cart them off to another location (i.e. something they are trained for) is neither basic police work nor soldiering.

All of this is outside of the training and mission of the National Guard. They are trained to fight wars, deal with disasters and collapse of civil order where the police are not capable of suppressing threats to the public peace. Everything you described fall within the ordinary training of many police forces, not military units.

The point of bringing out military units in cases like Ferguson is precisely to be a show of force, not be police auxiliaries. The threat implicit is that if the rioting spreads beyond the control of the police, the military could start liquidating rioters left and right to swiftly and brutally bring an end to the threat before it can spread to more areas.

Well for one, the National Guard isn't a middle ground force. They are in fact real soldiers every bit as much as the Army Reserves.

I did say I could use some educating. But this doesn't do it: the Guard isn't the very same thing as regular army units, it is different. So, while it is made up of "real soldiers" (and I never meant to suggest they weren't real soldiers), it is not used in all senses in exactly the same way. Here is the kind of educating I was hoping for:

The Guard is made up of 54 state/territorial commands with the Gov. as the commander in chief during state functions, this is why they are included in the oath. This is also why they can offer better ed benefits, but not all states do this. The Reserve is made up of 1 single command.

The Guard is usually spread out over the state, where the Reserve is moving towards single facilities that house multiple units.

State laws govern some aspects of the Guard, such as punishment, where as the Reserve is governed by the UCMJ.

As posted before, the Reserve doesn't have any combat arms (few minor exceptions) but they have most if not all of the medical, psyops and civil affairs units. The Guard has a mix of combat, combat support and combat service support.

The Reserve you can be mobilized to fill another unit from somewhere else in the country for deployment. The Guard, this will only happen in your state.

Regular Army units cannot be called up by the governor, and cannot normally operate inside the US against US citizens. National Guard units can. So while Guard units are made up of real soldiers and can be called up for (real) war, they are conceived differently in their organizational structure and the history of their use is different.

The tradition behind the governor's status as commander of the Guard units is that they DO in fact sit as something between the national army poised for defense and police. For example, 95% or probably 98% of police training is for situations where citizens retain full civil rights, but Guard (and regular Army) units train for situations where full civil rights are NOT present - such as overseas in a declared war or occupation, or here at home where martial law declared in a city so they can quell a riot.

In any case, I said "state militia and national guard" because I was not trying to limit my comment specifically to the National Guard units (i.e. erected under federal law), but also units created under state law as well.

deal with disasters and collapse of civil order where the police are not capable of suppressing threats to the public peace. Everything you described fall within the ordinary training of many police forces, not military units.

To me this sounds self-contradictory: "collapse of civil order" is exactly what we are talking about here. So if "Everything I described fall within the ordinary training of many police forces" then I guess I did not adequately point toward "collapse of civil order" when I meant to, because that was the whole point.

The threat implicit is that if the rioting spreads beyond the control of the police, the military could start liquidating rioters left and right to swiftly and brutally bring an end to the threat before it can spread to more areas.

Well, sure, you can threaten that, Mike, but your thesis is talking right past my thesis: If the only possible operational action of the unit called up is to "look dangerous" until it starts killing people right and left as if they were enemy soldiers on a field of war, then you have missed the opportunity for a middle kind of operational action: that of beating (mostly) unarmed rioters into submission without killing them. With, of course, the threat of worse violence to come in the background if needed. If nobody has trained to carry out this kind of operation, (and that includes both state militia and national guard units), then somebody has missed the boat. If nobody has the GUTS to carry out that kind of operation, that's a failure of leadership. But you cannot discount the very concept of that kind of middle operation merely because nobody has trained for it.

And it is simply not plausible to simply state that the ordinary police are adequately trained and equipped for it. They are trained to prevent / stop acts of crime and violence on the small scale, and they are also trained to KEEP the peace in large events where the crowd has been peaceful but might get unruly if there is no law-and-order presence. They are not really all that well prepared to successfully wade into a crowd of 3000 rioters over a 20 block area and RE-ESTABLISH peace. Yes, I would ask my police to do just that if I had nothing better to try, of course. And I would expect them to make the attempt to LIMIT the growth of the problem around the edges of the riot even without direct orders. Just as I would expect them (and any decent citizens) to make an effort to retrieve innocent civilians from a being targeted by a mob if possible. Sure. But few departments can field enough men to tackle such a task as directly and forcefully putting a stop to a large riot, and the bulk of their training (to respect civil rights) probably hampers them anyway.

Or at least, I would WANT police trained so well to respect civil rights that they cannot easily switch gears into full attack mode. Which, I might add, has been a major theme of yours here, Mike, so I am not at all sure I could construct your ideal policeman who both treats all citizens as his boss and paymaster and who can then turn on a dime and quell a riot by heavy-handed violence in disregard of who is innocent and who is guilty.

Quelling riots of a reasonable size is something that police have been trained to do for decades, if not longer. Let's not lose sight of the fact that the Ferguson PD is now a minority of the police forces assembled there. There are, for example, at least 100 federal agents confirmed to be there and that's not counting the units on loan from various localities and the heavy state police presence.

The police are supposed to start from a minimum of violence and escalate as the situation requires. SWAT units represent the upper end of what police are expected and allowed to do since the governing philosophy of SWAT is that they are to either suppress purely by an expression of overwhelming force or simply kill the targets outright which is why they were supposed to be used on active shooters, hostage takers and things of that nature (ie where "dead or alive" is legally acceptable).

Handling riots falls in between ordinary police work and SWAT scenarios in most cases. You probably don't want to respond to a riot at a university after a football game the same way you would Ferguson since the rioting tends to be of a different character. A key difference being that in cases like Ferguson, unlike at a university, the rioters will likely turn on the police and try to harm or kill them if they think they can get away with it.

One does not need to turn a military unit on a rather severe riot and simply say "go forth and slaughter" to make a point. The Guard could operate in a combined arms capacity with the law enforcement agencies, wherein the Guard provides backup to the police units on the scene. The threat to the rioters that, should police lose control of the situation the Guard will start shooting anyone who is posing a severe threat to life and property, could be a powerful deterrent.

OK, so I went looking for information on police training for riots. Here's a good sample:

Riot Police Careers

One of the most challenging things law enforcement officers are called upon to do is control large crowds of hostile or agitated individuals. Whether these are protestors, picketers, or rowdy sports fans, police often have difficulty effectively managing crowds that far outnumber them. In order to successfully manage these types of situations, law enforcement agencies have developed Riot Police Units that use specialized weapons and equipment to disperse crowds or maintain law and order.

Riot Police Job Description

Riot police jobs involve performing the following duties:

Disperse riots with tear gas, rubber bullets or water cannons
Identify instigators of violence and arrest them
Maintain security around businesses, government facilities or installations
Control crowds through megaphones and horseback officer instructions
Investigate crimes, acts of vandalism or unruly behavior

Apparently "Riot Police Units" get extensive training that regular police do not. Read the descriptions of the events that might call for their use: protestors, picketers, rowdy sports fans. I submit that at the low end, breaking up rampages at the local brewery's beer fest and keeping a large protest under control are well within their capacity. Of course, a protest isn't about violence, it is at root about delivering a message. Dealing with a stadium of 100,000 unruly and disruptive fans could be a stretch, but will be possible given that (a) not the entirety of the 100,000 are out for violence, and that (b) the cause of unrest isn't the police themselves. At the far end, dealing with thousands of rioters bent on delivering mayhem especially to police is a job that can easily stretch the capacity even of a trained Riot Police Unit. Of the 5 duties mentioned for them, 4 of them are insignificant to dealing with such a riot. The first one on the list is, of course, the exact sort of think I was saying that a Guard or state militia unit could do. And, of course it is simply true that giving specialized riot training to Guard or state militia units, or to a specially organized Riot Police Unit, is pretty much a distinction without a difference: in either case, you are training special units of people to be ready to set aside the usual standards of police violence (restrained by full civil rights) for special cases (with, as you yourself asked for) different Rules of Engagement. And it isn't something the average policeman has been made well prepared to accomplish. The difference between asking the governor to call in his specially designed and trained Riot Police Unit or calling in a specially formed and trained state militia is pretty much an irrelevancy.

I submit that at the low end, breaking up rampages at the local brewery's beer fest and keeping a large protest under control are well within their capacity.

Nothing I've seen has suggested that Ferguson was much beyond this except in that it was multiple rampages happening at the same time. That said, what is important to remember is that the police presence was massively expanded in Ferguson. Thus the police should have been able to respond in force to at least a large number of them.

Back during desegregation, local police without this level of formal training had to and did respond to white rioters without much of a problem. Much of this training is just a further professionalization of police that has happened over the last several decades (just 50 years ago, a college degree was highly uncommon among police).

I will also say that I am hesitant to expand the training and use of rubber bullets and bean bags because they are fairly problematic. If you shoot someone with a rubber bullet, you can easily kill them depending on where you hit them. I'm not sure switching to rubber bullets from live ammunition is psychologically sound. It's often tempting to more readily deploy less than lethal weapons in questionable circumstances or more aggressively than is warranted. Experience with tasers has shown this to be the case as police often use tasers in situations where shooting someone would be legally indefensible. (And tasers are hardly "non-lethal." In fact, they can be rather lethal with the elderly and people who are highly intoxicated)

By the way, this story puts the response by authorities in a very bad light. If a handful of black civilians with pistols and an AR15 or two could do this, it puts the entire government response to shame.

https://publicintelligence.net/national-guard-domestic-law-enforcement-operations-guide/

The actual rules of engagement. Not that I expect Mike T to be constrained by legalities since he wants to liquidate thousands of rioters, but at least an awareness of the legal situation would by a welcome surprise.

...would be a welcome surprise.

You learn something new every day! I concede that on a few points I was wrong, however the National Guard can be ordered to shoot rioters and looters as were the orders from the governor in the aftermath of Katrina according to various media sources.

Found this rather interesting

(6) Level Six – Deadly Force. National Guard forces may use deadly force when it can be justified by extreme necessity. Deadly force is force that a person uses causing, or that a person knows or should know would create a substantial risk of causing, death or serious bodily harm. There are four requirements for the use of deadly force:

(a) Lesser means of force have been exhausted or are unavailable.

(b) The subject must have the ability to cause you or another serious bodily harm or death.

(c) You or another must be in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death.

(d) Its use should not significantly increase the risk of death or serious bodily harm to innocent bystanders.

The law actually provides the National Guard the latitude to shoot rioters and looters if in the state's estimation they are posing a risk to the lives of those on the receiving end. It wouldn't be hard for a state official to argue that the violent intentions of a mob storming a business in the middle of a riot would be something that a reasonable person would say put their lives at risk given the volatility of the situation and likely mindset of the mob.

I agree with that. I fully agree that a use of deadly force, including National Guards shooting rioters, is justifiable in situations like that. I never thought that was in doubt here - it seems to me so obvious as to not even bear worrying about. The issue for quelling a riot in the optimal manner is, however, finding that level of force that can achieve peace short of lethal force, if there is such a possibility. And the use of National Guard in domestic support to police generally allows for a range of options short of lethal force for many riot situations. The trick is to create a balance of forces with other tools than lethal force so that more options are available, and more options are plausible, in putting a stop to the riot than that of large amounts of shooting. Because however much it is true that lethal force is justifiable in dealing with some rioters (in terms of what such a rioter can justly demand given his own disregard for justice and peaceful safety), it remains true that lesser force can sometimes restore peace and would be preferable.

It wouldn't be hard for a state official to argue that the violent intentions of a mob storming a business in the middle of a riot would be something that a reasonable person would say put their lives at risk given the volatility of the situation and likely mindset of the mob.

Almost anything can be perceived as a "risk" - driving a car on the highway is a risk to life, the actual standard instead of your imaginary version is imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death.

And it wouldn't be hard to argue that such a threat exists when a mob attacks a store occupied by employees and possibly patrons as well.

One of the most egregious things about Ferguson IMO is that most people even really care about Mike Brown versus the myriad, far more obviously unjustified police conduct toward blacks. Three young black men made headlines for being killed in suspicious circumstances. You have Eric Garner who was choked to death for selling loose cigarettes and then slapping the hands of a cop trying to arrest him (ie Garner was not a thug, but rather something closer to a white collar criminal as his crime was mainly tax evasion). Then there's John Crawford who was shot in a Walmart because he was carrying a pellet gun around the store while he shopped--a pellet gun he was buying from that same Walmart. Then there's the 12 year old boy in Ohio who was shot dead despite the caller telling dispatch that he thought the gun was a toy (which it was).

In all of those cases, you have factors which make the police look pretty bad. Garner shouldn't have even gotten the attention of the NYPD. Selling loose cigarettes used to be something that the NYPD and other big departments used to turn a blind eye toward in exchange for the small time perps ratting out big time offenders. Crawford was gunned down without even a chance to surrender. The boy in Ohio shouldn't have even been shot since the cop was close enough to close the gap between them before the boy could "brandish his weapon."

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