After analyzing thousands of pages of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, CNN's Barbara Starr and Wes Bruer
released a very disturbing report on Friday morning. In it, they reveal that the National Guard saw protestors as the enemy:
As the Missouri National Guard prepared to deploy to help quell riots in Ferguson, Missouri, that raged sporadically last year, the guard used highly militarized words such as "enemy forces" and "adversaries" to refer to protesters, according to documents obtained by CNN.
The guard came to Ferguson to support law enforcement officers, whom many community leaders and civil rights activists accused of using excessive force and inflaming an already tense situation in protests that flared sporadically from August through the end of the year.
The National Guard's language, contained in internal mission briefings obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, is intensifying the concerns of some who objected to the police officers' actions in putting down riots. They broke out after the August 9 shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by city police officer Darren Wilson. A grand jury declined to indict Wilson in the case.
"It's disturbing when you have what amounts to American soldiers viewing American citizens somehow as the enemy," said Antonio French, an alderman in St. Louis.
The weight of this revelation cannot be overstated.
While any protestor in Ferguson would tell you that they certainly felt like they were viewed as "the enemy" by police and the military, it's now a matter of official record and this is not okay. American protestors must never be viewed as adversaries, but as citizens to be protected.