What Should Ferguson Protesters Demand?
http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/21/what-should-ferguson-protesters-demand/
After days of marches in response to the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown, we asked our Facebook audience what they thought protesters on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri, should be demanding. We received over 1,200 responses.
Many believed protesters should seek the immediate arrest of Darren Wilson, the officer who killed the 18-year-old Brown, striking him with six bullets. A grand jury is hearing evidence in the investigation and will ultimately determine whether Wilson will face criminal charges. For the sake of fairness, many suggested that a special prosecutor be appointed, given the current St. Louis county prosecutor’s previous decisions, as outlined in Thursday’s New York Times editorial: A Fair Inquiry for Michael Brown.
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Many on Facebook called for ending the Pentagon’s Excess Property Program, which has supplied equipment meant to fight wars to police departments across the country — including Ferguson — with more than $4.3 billion in gear since 1997.
An overwhelming number of commenters suggested changes to the Ferguson police force, including the hiring of more African-American officers (currently there are three black officers and 50 white officers in a town that is 67 percent African-American). Another popular suggestion: the use of front-facing body cameras on police officers to document their interactions, which has been successfully implemented in the town of Rialto, California, among others. There, use of force incidents dropped by 60 percent and complaints against cops were down by 88 percent in the first year that police officers started wearing the cameras.
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