Intimidating, Unconstitutional Police Tactics In Ferguson Incited More Unrest, Says DOJ Expert Repor

[applegrove]

Intimidating, Unconstitutional Police Tactics In Ferguson Incited More Unrest, Says DOJ Expert Report

by Ryan J. Reilly at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/30/ferguson-protests-police-response_n_7698548.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

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WASHINGTON -- The aggressive tactics with which various law enforcement agencies greeted protesters in the St. Louis region last August following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, were deeply flawed and oppressive of citizens exercising their constitutional rights, according to a forthcoming report commissioned by the Justice Department.

The so-called "after-action" report covers the police response to protests in and around Ferguson in the 17-day period following the death of Brown, 18, who was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, then a local police officer, on August 9, 2014. The Justice Department's Office of Community Orienting Policing Services (COPS), which undertook the project in early September, is preparing to release the full report, which is around 200 pages long, in the coming weeks.

A confidential summary of the draft findings of the report was recently provided to the law enforcement agencies involved in the protest response and subsequently obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Huffington Post obtained a copy of the summary findings on Tuesday.

The report found that having St. Louis County police snipers perch on top of tactical vehicles and point their weapons at crowds of peaceful protesters in broad daylight was "inappropriate" and "served only to exacerbate tensions between the protesters and the police." Deploying armored vehicles when there was no "danger or peril to citizens or officers" -- as law enforcement was found to have done at times -- was seen by community members as an attempt to intimidate and threaten.


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