Last night, police in Ferguson, MO were lobbing Super-Sock cartridges into the crowds gathered to protest the fatal shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown. Brown was shot eight times, witnesses say he had his hands in the air. He was shot several times in the back.
A Super-Sock cartridge used in #Ferguson last night – "can result in serious or fatal injury" http://t.co/ATpCtqliIl pic.twitter.com/dnmWWSStPt
— Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) August 14, 2014
At the same time, police were tear gassing reporters with Al-Jazeera America and taking apart their video equipment so they could not record the police’s actions.
Image of #Ferguson cops gassing @ajam crew &dismantling their gear is bad. The video is worse: http://t.co/zBDSoB89N0 pic.twitter.com/f6BnEzJpm4
— Neetzan Zimmerman (@neetzan) August 14, 2014
They were also arresting Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery, and Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly. The Federal Aviation Authority declared Ferguson a no-fly zone, preventing news crews from filming aerially.
The shooting comes not long after Eric Garner, another black man, was killed during a choke-hold arrest in New York. Last year an unarmed man called Jonathan Ferrell was shot ten times by a North Carolina police officer. “People are asking: ‘Is it open season on us?’,” says Delores Jones-Brown, director of the John Jay College on Race, Crime and Justice.
The Civil Rights Act is 50 years old. These two pictures were taken 50 years apart. Behold our progress. #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/8PNn8eteO2
— Jackie Summers (@jackfrombkln) August 13, 2014
