August 14, 2014 by David K. Sutton
Your Constitutional Rights Are On The Line In Ferguson
If you value your freedom, you should care about what’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri.
It’s not all right – scratch that – It’s unacceptable for police to treat the public like criminals. It’s unacceptable to hassle and then arrest journalists for covering a story. It’s unacceptable to launch a tear gas canister at a news crew because they have a camera pointed at you. Maybe if you stop pointing your guns at innocent citizens, they will stop pointing their cameras at you. And last, It’s unacceptable to then dismantle that news crew’s lighting and camera equipment after you forced them to flee. Yes, that happened, and there’s video and photos.
You can talk about the violence of a few bad apples in the protests, but that does not justify a blanket show of force against an entire community. In a democracy, the police are supposed to show restraint. At the very least they should be professionals and only use the force necessary to neutralize a situation. And so, there are police officers in Ferguson who need to be fired, and maybe even criminal charges brought against some of the police officers involved in the worst of the brutality.
I say it again, the police in Ferguson are out of control, and if you don’t think so, you don’t value your constitutional rights.
