A violent crackdown by law enforcement authorities in Ferguson, Missouri, after protests over the shooting of an unarmed teenager by a police officer on August 9, has raised a national furore here, particularly after two journalists of major media outlets were arrested on Wednesday night and another television camera crew was hit with tear gas.
After Michael Brown (18), an African-American, was shot multiple times by an unnamed police officer following a scuffle near a squad car, residents of Ferguson took to the streets to protest what they believed to be police brutality, prompting a fierce crackdown by SWAT teams armed with military-style weapons including assault rifles and armoured cars.
Although some rioting and looting was reported on Sunday night, protests appear to have been largely peaceful since then, with no such additional incidents of vandalism reported.
However late into Wednesday night Ferguson landscape took on an eerie appearance of a fogged-over war zone, even as social media sites were flooded with images and videos of residents fleeing tear-gas-filled side streets, and photographs of individuals with injuries from rubber bullets.
Two journalists, the Washington Post’ s Wesley Lowery and the Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly, said on Twitter that police had assaulted and briefly arrested them for nothing more than filming the officers who entered the MacDonald’s eatery where they were working.
The serious nature of this situation prompted Dunja Mijatović, a Media Freedom representative of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to say that that these arrests sent “a dangerous precedent and must never be condoned… Journalists have the right to report on public demonstrations without being intimated by the police.”
A video also showed the police’s tear gas attack on an Al Jazeera television crew, including images that were verified as authentic by the media group on Twitter, and heavily armed anti-riot personnel could be seen walking up to the cameras that the crew left behind as they fled, then confiscating all the equipment.
Authorities also declared a no-fly zone over Ferguson, which, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, was “to provide a safe environment for law enforcement activities.”
However the Mayor of the nearby city of St. Louis, Francis Slay, said that he questioned many of the tactics used in Ferguson, “especially the arrest of journalists.” His thoughts were echoed by Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, who was quoted saying in a speech that she was working on “demilitarising the police response.”
U.S. President Barack Obama, who is holidaying in Massachusetts at Martha’s Vineyard, made a brief statement on Thursday morning, saying he was concerned over “violent turn” of events, adding, “Here in the United States of America police should not be bullying or arresting journalists who are just trying to do their job.”
However he appealed to both sides for calm, adding, “There is never an excuse for violence against police...or use of excessive force,” and urged, “Now's the time for healing.”
Although the President called for Ferguson police to be “open and transparent” about “heart-breaking” death of Mr. Brown, the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri has already initiated a lawsuit against the police demanding that they release all public records on the case, to which they are entitled under state law.
