There are a lot of tropes in our political culture for obscuring the real nature of what happens in cases like Baton Rouge, and before it in a long string of cases going back to Ferguson, the Rodney King beating, and on into the mists of the past. What they all obscure is the structural…

Back in August 2014 a man named Michael Brown was shot by a police officer, Darren Wilson. Brown was unarmed and found himself in the hostile climate that exists between people of color and the police. His resulting death was the spark that lit the fire. Protests for #BlackLivesMatter began in earnest, people rallied for…

Oath Keeper presence in Ferguson has been an issue boiling beneath the surface since the 2014 riots. Members began showing up when community hostility spilled over into the streets; Oath Keepers appointed themselves protectors of Ferguson property from looters. Reception was mixed, but some members of the community welcomed them and allowed them to patrol their storefronts.

C4SS Feed 44 presents Nick Ford‘s “Cops are Afraid? Good.” read by Chad Nelson and edited by Nick Ford. “One statistic missing from this picture is the number of citizens gunned down by police officers per year. That’s largely because that statistic relies on the willingness of police departments to hold themselves accountable and self-report these incidents….

The Huffington Post‘s Ryan J. Reilly reported last week that two officers were shot during a protest in Ferguson, Missouri. The gathering in question was spurred by news of Thomas Jackson’s resignation as police chief. Jackson quit after the Justice Department released a report revealing racial biases, revenue-driven policies and the criminalization of Ferguson citizens writ large…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “State Justice Failed Michael Brown. People’s Justice is Just Getting Started.” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. The consequences for cops who draw public attention due to their extreme levels of brutality, in this new age of citizen journalism, is instructive. The people are more than happy to administer…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “The Inherent Flaw of the Criminal Justice System” read by Dylan Delikta and edited by Nick Ford. The protesters who utter such concerns about the validity of a state prosecution of a police officer have their finger on an issue that market anarchists have long recognized. Government checks and balances are a…

La procedura seguita dal gran giurì riguardo Darren Wilson, l’assassino di Michael Brown, dimostra quanto sia fittizia negli Stati Uniti la separazione dei poteri. Gli unici a farlo notare, purtroppo, sono quelli che protestano per le strade nel Missouri… sempre che abbiano la fortuna di poter dire la loro per due minuti in un’intervista da…

Oltre tre mesi dopo la morte di Michael Brown, avvenuta per mano di Darren Wilson in pieno giorno a Ferguson, nel Missouri, ecco che arriva il verdetto del gran giurì. Non ci sarà un processo, nessuna giustizia per il suo crimine dai tribunali di stato. Wilson non sarà processato mai, tanto meno condannato. Ma nel…

Ironically, the shooting death of unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown by white Ferguson, MO, police officer Darren Wilson is a distraction from the racist police brutality that ravages America. Whether or not Wilson shot Brown unjustifiably, and whether or not Brown provoked the shooting by grabbing for Wilson’s gun, the police — and the government…

The grand jury proceedings for Michael Brown’s killer, Darren Wilson, show us just how fictional the United States government’s system of checks and balances is. Unfortunately, the only ones who appear to be pointing this out are the protesters on the ground in Missouri — that is when they’re lucky enough to secure two-minute- interviews…

More than three months after Darren Wilson executed Michael Brown in broad daylight in Ferguson, Missouri, the grand jury’s decision is in. No state prosecution, no justice from the state’s court system, for his crime. Wilson will never be tried, let alone convicted. But in the real justice system, this is not the end for Wilson — it’s only…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Thomas L. Knapp‘s “Ferguson: Nixon Would Make a Solitude and Call it Peace” read Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. I lived near Ferguson for 12 years. I drove an ice cream truck up and down its streets for two summers. I seriously considered renting an apartment in Canfield Green, the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Trevor Hultner‘s “No, a Soldier Cop on Every Corner Does Not Sound Great” read Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. The most obvious statement to make at the outset is that neither jaywalking nor suspicion of petty theft nor running away from cops are crimes punishable by death anywhere in the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “The United Police States of America” read Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. Historian and political scientist Mark Neocleous explains that the “term Polizeistaat, usually translated as ‘police state,’ came into general English usage in the 1930s,” increasingly used at that time to describe totalitarian governments such as…

In Ferguson, Missouri, USA Michael Brown was gunned down by a local police officer and a wave of protests rightfully took over the town, demanding justice and an end to police abuse and militarization But what about the Brazilian Fergusons? In Brazil, police are routinely abusive, especially against poor young people from cities’s peripheries. Their use of…

It’s been interesting to watch information go back and forth on the shooting of Michael Brown, and to watch people’s reactions to that information. After initial reports that Brown had been shot in the back, early autopsies showed that the bullets actually entered through the front (one shot which grazed the hand may have come…

A morte de um jovem negro desarmado em Ferguson, Missouri, e a brutal resposta da polícia local aos protestos fez com que a mídia merecidamente passasse a examinar as práticas dos policiais nos Estados Unidos. Várias entrevistas revelam histórias de perseguição policial constante, mostrando que o tratamento desproporcional dispensado às minorias é generalizado. Trata-se, infelizmente,…

The killing of an unarmed young black man in Ferguson, Missouri and the brutal response of police forces there to protesters brought down much needed media examination of the practices of police forces in the US. Several interviews reveal stories of constant police harassment, showing the singling out of minorities by law enforcement to be a…

O Departamento de Polícia de Ferguson liberou seu relatório sobre a morte do adolescente Michael Brown, um documento editado que, segundo o advogado Tony Rothert, da União Americana pelos Direitos Civis (ACLU) viola a lei do Missouri por omitir informações essenciais. A morte de Brown pelas mãos de um policial provocou demonstrações apaixonadas, debates sobre…