It's tempting
to file this exhaustive report from policing experts under the "no shit" category, but it's also a vindication for the women and men on the ground in Ferguson who lived through these egregious abuses.
Law enforcement officials responding to demonstrations and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown last August used a variety of inappropriate tactics and strategies that often exacerbated tensions, according to a report by policing experts that the Justice Department is releasing this week.
The assessment finds that deploying dogs for crowd control was "provocative," positioning snipers on top of armored vehicles during daytime protests "inflamed tensions," tear gas was "deployed inappropriately," and law enforcement used unconstitutional policing strategies that suppressed First Amendment rights. Such strategies "had the unintended consequence of escalating rather than diminishing tension," the report states.
While this report feels nearly a year late and obviously cannot undo all of the trauma experienced by protestors and residents, we can only hope that it somehow informs future policing of protests moving forward. Although I'm a full-fledged optimist, I must admit I have little hope that this report will be honored or even deeply acknowledged by the law enforcement community.
This isn't an assumption, but is based on the fact that the spokesperson for the (white) St. Louis Police Officers Association, Jeff Roorda, has already called the DOJ report a "flimsy tortilla that bursts open when you take a bit" that was written by a "band of marauders." No, that wasn't a slip earlier when I said (white). Black and white officers have their own separate organizations and spokespeople in St. Louis.