tv News Al Jazeera August 14, 2014 11:00pm-12:01am EDT
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politician sounding the alarm about the islamic state. the conversation continues on the website. you can find us on twitter or tweet me. see you next >> hi, everyone. this is those. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. turning point, violent clashes over the shooting death of michael brown give way to a sense of calm as a missouri highway captain with ties to the community takes charge. >> police power, streets became war zones with the overpowering force in ferguson. what it says about the militarization of law enforcement. >> stepping down, prime minister
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al-malaki resigns in iraq. ushering in a new chapter in the country. >> the animator of alladin talks about his partnership with robin williams and how he was inspired to create the genie. >> you are looking at live pictures of ferguson, missouri where thousands of people ever taken to the streets again in protest and peace. it is a different story tonight. last night, armed officers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowd. scenes of chaos that made an american suburb look like a war zone. tonight, this picture said it all. highway patrol captain ron johnson marshing side by side and 50 bumping demonstrators.
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easy in charge after the missouri government put the state police in charge of security. we are live in ferguson tonight. what you are hearing and seeing? it has been largely peaceful, very loud, boisterous, a large crowd here, a steady flow of vehicles coming through this area. these streets have been blocked the last couple of nights. there is still a sense of tension here now. just a moment ago, just amy foments ago, we heard what sounded like small arms fire, pop-pop-pop. we took cover. it may have been fire crackerses. we're seeing helicopters, police helicopters shining a spotlight on this area. we started to hear pleas may be moving into the area. luckily, that didn't seem to be gunfire. it caused a little ruckus here and then activity resumed. the demonstrators continue to be
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boisterous, you saw a car drive across this lawn right now. without this police presence, the protestors feel free enough to stand up and talk and protest and be lawsuit and boisterous. we have not seen violence. >> we know some journalists that were arrested last night and you and your crew had a tear gas canister land almost on top of you. talk about what the police chief had to say about that today. >> well, the ferguson police chief defended what the officers did. they say that molotov cocktails and rocks were thrown at police officers, triggering their response with those rubber bullets and also with those tear gas canisters. we were about a mile from here, which is the epicenter of where the pro tests have been taking place. we were nowhere near the crowds. we were set up for a live location, lights set up, camera set up when all of a sudden we
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were fired upon by police officers first by rubber bullets, second by a tear gas canister. we identified ourselves as press, but that didn't make a difference. there were people further down the street, but nobody was throwing anything, there was no yelling or screaming and seemingly no reason to fire a tear gas canister in our direction but that's exactly what happened. eventually, we were able to make it back to our equipment and be evacuated from that area. >> you haven't heard much from the police chief about what happened to you or why it happened. >> that's right. he did say today that journalists who were in these crowds in this area in particular if they were in the crowds and the crowds were getting unruly that the police were using the appropriate force in firing those tear gas canisters and firing those rubber bullets, but we heard from people running from this area that they were given warnings to disperse. that was the only warning they
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were getting before they were fired upon. he defend that had action. we are hearing more of a reconcile ia tory tone. a lot of people have been complaining about the militarized police force, the swat teams and armored vehicles. we saw police today briefly come into the crowd and exit without a problem. it's a very different scene than 24 hours ago. >> i want to ask you one other quick question. if we can rerack the video of you last night, can you tell us what happened? it looks like the tear gas came up and you were disorientalled. what happened? >> that's exactly right. i was actually surprised,
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because we were nowhere near this location, so we didn't have gas masks or expecting to be fired upon. we were in contact with police officers on that street just before that happened. they moved out just a short time before we were fired upon. when that gas canister hit, we heard there were smoke bombs in the area at first. i didn't feel the effects of the gas initially, but the first thing i did was close my eyes. i didn't breathe in the tear gas very much and i didn't have it in my eyes. i ran with my eyes closed in the direction i thought would be most important to get away, but it took a moment to find out what that direction was. we're hing helicopters flying overhead, shining spot lights on this crowd, but we have not seen the presence of police coming this way yet, but hear that may be a possibility. >> is it possible for your photographer to show us the spotlights or the helicopter?
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>> sam, can you see the helicopter up above? i'm going to have him pan up so you are see the chopper up above, shining its spotlights. that's basically what we saw in the area that we were stationed in last night, before we were fired upon. the spotlight did shine on us, and so it would have made it even clearer, i would imagine that we were a news crew with a camera and lights set up, but again, that did not stop the police from firing rubber bullets in our direction and gas canisters, as well, fear gas canisters. >> thank you very much. i believe that with you there is joe netta slsy. she's been attending the protests since the weekend. is she there? >> yes. >> tell us what happened to you last night.
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>> ok. well, yesterday, we were out here serving water and supply to say all the people cleaning up and all the money was donated to us by my followers on twitter, and we came back after regrouping and eating and showering, we came back around at like 7:00, and it was people protesting, but then there was a brigade or a blockage with the armored trucks, right in the middle of west florescent, out with full gear, police with bo to knows. i witnessed them. i took a picture of one, i was infra gramming and they would be smiling and laughing until they saw me with my camera phone out and turn serious face when i was taking the picture. the sniper on the top of the -- >> were you shot on monday?
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>> yes. i was shot with a rubber bullet. >> what was that like? >> yes, with a rubber bullet on monday. it was in sane. i never was shot with anything in my life. i had on a jean jacket, so it kind of protected me a little, but it was a very sharp sting. it almost felt like someone threw something at me really, really, really hard, but very close, but i looked around and everyone around me was getting shot and running and then they immediately started throwing tear gas, and i've never had tear gas, either and i have asthma, and so i was running down the street, down nesbit, coughing and choking and i don't know how to combat tear gas. i was thinking water would work. nothing was working. i just had to calm myself down so i wouldn't have an asthma attack. >> what do you think of the
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appointment of captain ron johnson of the highway patrol to be in charge of security now? >> i think it's way better than having the st. louis police out here, only because as you can see, it's peaceful, everyone just trying to exercise their right a rally and protest. we're able to mourn through the streets like we wanted to for the past five, six nights without the interruption, without the hostility of staring a sniper down, without people screaming over the intercom to back away 25 feet or you, sir, you over there, you back up, without the police officers yelling crazy things at protestors, and i believe, he's been walking down the streets. i actually got a picture of him coming down here. >> we saw the picture. >> walking down the street, shaking hands, and yeah, he was
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walking down the streets shaking hands and talking to people and interacting with people and asking them how they felt about the situation, and so i think it's great. not only that, he actually is -- he matches the percentage of people who live down here, so it's good to see a black face down here that shows that they care and he's a man in power, and he can make sure that things go peacefully. >> we're very glad that it is a peaceful night and there's no tear gas or rubber bullets tonight. it's great to talk with you, thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> the police showed up looking to the protest looking ready for war. it raised concerns about the militarization of local police departments throughout the country. we have more on that. >> that's right, john, it turns
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out the pentagon has a surplus of military equipment left over after fighting two long wars in iraq and afghanistan. they've started giving that surplus to local police departments. >> it looks like a war zone, but this was ferguson, missouri, tear gas, rubber bullets, smoke and flash grenades all used against civilians, police confronting protestors in full battle gear. >> when you are talking about hostage takes or active shooters has spread over the country because a number of these federal policies and now that become the default use of force in many situations. >> the federal policy he's talking about is the defense department's 1033 program, which moves surplus war equipment to america's local police departments. the program started small. in the early 1990's, it supplied
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about a million dollars worth of equipment to forces each year, but it has exploded. so far this year, the value is already about $752 million, some $4.3 billion overall since 1997. the 1033 program has supplied police with machine guns to helicopters, grenade launchers and heavily armored vehicles. st. louis law enforcement agencies, those working in ferguson are among those who of received equipment through the defense democratic. now lawmakers are calling for the program, reigned in. time in time magazine, senator rand paul called police militarization a very big problem. washington has militarized precincts using federal dollars to help build what are essentially small armies, where
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police department compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most americans think of as law enforcement. new legislation is proposed to demilitarize police forces. he quote our main streets should be a place for business, families and relaxation, not tanks and m16's. the act would stop the pentagon from giving police automatic weapons, armored vehicles, drones and other equipment. the bill will be form ally introduced in september, too late to change what's happening in ferguson. >> while the police forces are getting weapons, the big question is are they getting the training they need about using it properly in a non-military context. a lot of this equipment ends up in the hands of police swat teams and the aclu said 80% of swat team raised are just to serve search warrants. it's a question of overkill. >> all right, paul, thank you very much. >> leo mcguire was the sheriff
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in new jersey when he oversaw 550 law enforcement personal necessarily and joins us tonight. welcome to the program. >> glad to be here. >> can a situation change overnight literally by appointing an african-american to be in charge of security? >> well, in this case, we're almost a week into this conflagration and i'm sure that people are tired. i'm sure they're tired of looting, tired of being out on the streets all night, but this is a good move by the governor. >> why? >> right now, there's a degrading of connection between the community and local law enforcement. we've heard of some of the folks just on the news here talking about the st. louis county police department. so now, you have the state highway patrol come in, different face, no direct connection to the community,
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other than this particular captain having come from the community. it engenders a sense of trust immediately that someone in a higher authority, the governor cares about what's going on in ferguson. >> let's hear what captain ron johnson had to say today. >> i grew up here and this is currently my community and home. therefore, it means a lot to me personally that we break the cycle of violence, tension and build trust, showing the utmost respect for every interaction with every citizen. >> we've seen the reaction to the police department and to the majority white police department. what role does race play in law enforcement. >> it shouldn't have any role whatsoever, but we want to r the community in which we serve to the best of our abilities. unfortunately, it's difficult to get people to apply and be successful nationwide. it doesn't mean there's not great people in all wingbacks of
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life. we should be reaching out to them, asking them, helping them. >> there is a need for recruiting. >> recruiting, being involved in the community. a couple of things i heard very, very loudly. he made it percentage. he is from the community. he is one of them, forget his color. he could have been a white guy saying i grew up here, so i care what happens here and we need to engender trust on both sides. >> what do you do as sheriff? how did you reach out to the community that is african-american? >> it's a seven day a week job, frankly. you need to put yourself, the chief needs to get involved with the community. maybe they did, but didn't do enough. there's been a disconnect and this was a powder keg that's been brewing for quite some time, it seems. >> it does seem that we have seen these situations happen all over the country, one after another, and that there is a breaking point, and that maybe ferguson was the breaking point.
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what do you think? >> i think the police department or city of ferguson needed to do more to connect with the community, to listen to their complaints. there's poverty there, disconnect between the public safety and the local government, and the community, they need to be integrated within the community. you remember our own now u.s. senator cory booker who moved into the worse neighborhoods of newark, who was available to the people. that's representing on the street. >> how do you recruit police officers when african-americans don't trust police? >> it takes time. it takes time to get involved. for instance, i was at the baptist churches very, very often. when positions opened up, we would call them and say who do you have? bring them to us, get resumes to us. let's talk. let's keep a dialogue open. >> it sounds as you said a full time job and very, very important part of the job. >> it has to be. if you want to have a
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relationship, it takes time. this is not going to be fixed overnight. it's going to take time for the law enforcement community to connect with the community itself, to engender that cross trust. >> you've dealt with press before. talk what you saw last night rewarding the press. >> that was pretty tough film that you showed before of rubber bullets shot at potentially at journalists, and then probably knowing they might have been journalists and shooting tear gas their way. we have, again, it's about communication and relationships. we recognize law enforcement recognizes that the press has a job to do, but the press has to recognize that we have a job to do and they can't interfere or get involved or be an impediment to public safety. >> let's listen to chief thomas jackson talk about police defending themselves. >> if individuals are in a crowd taking the police, they need to get out of that crowd. we can't individually go in and
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say excuse me, sir, are you peacefully protesting, are you throwing rocks or molotov cocktail? if the crowd is getting violent and you don't want to be violent get out of the crowd. >> our reporter was not in a crowd. he was by himself and he had been told by police to go to that safe place. you know, i think a lot of journalists were surprised by this. the washington post reporter arrested, the huffington post reporter arrested at mcdonald's and then released. how do you cool those sort of situations? >> mistakes are going to happen. this is an incident that doesn't happen every day, doesn't even happen once a year, this is the first time that ferguson has had to deal with such a large, large issue and not many of us have to deal with that, fortunately. you ever to be prepared to protect civil rights as well as protect the life and property, including your own. if you have press in the area, you have that dialogue. that local police chief should
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be walking a presser once an hour to make sure the press is getting what they need from you so they don't have to be in the middle of those crowds. >> mike viqueira joins us live from washington. the president talked about what's happening in ferguson. >> the president taking a break from his vacation came out and it was interesting, a very measured, you might say subdued president obama didn't want to in flame the situation at all expressed the need to eliminate violence on both sides of police lines and he said what had become obvious over the course of the last 24-48 hours, that emotions were raw. the president did meet with his attorney general, eric holder and they talked about the balance between public safety and the right of the public to peacefully assemble. he had to phone call with the governor there, jay nixon just before the dramatic change in broach was announced that led to a more peaceful situation there
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tonight. the president stressed a need for everyone involved to take a step back and to find a way to come together. >> there is never an excuse for violence against police, or for those who would use this tragedy as a cover or vandalism or looting. there's also no excuse for police to use excessive force against peaceful protests or to throw protestors in jail for lawfully exercising their first amendment rights. here in the united states of america, police should not be butting journalist trying to do their jobs and report to the american people what they see on the ground. >> the president stressed the local police had the responsibility to be open and transparent about what happened that led to the unrest and violence we've seen in ferguson. >> mike, thank you. just ahead, other news, the israel-hamas ceasefire appears to be holding. why officials say this is a real
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opportunity for consensus. iraq's prime minister steps down. what it means for both iraq and the united states. more from ferguson, as well, after this. after this. >> there blocking the door... >> ground breaking... >> we have to get out of here... >> truth seeking... award winning investigative documentary series... deadly force only on al jazeera america
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ceasefire. it's the longest since this war began and it seems to be holding. there's a level of optimism, coming from palestinian officials especially, officials with hamas held a press conference earlier today and said that there was a real opportunity to meet agreement. we have not heard that before. israeli cabinet officials were meet to go night, getting briefed by prime minister benjamin netanyahu. they will return to cairo on sunday to try and hammer out an agreement by midnight local time monday evening. this cups as we're learning for the first time the united states has put higher level controls on requests by israel for ammunition. every time israel fights a war that lasts longer than a few weeks, it needs u.s. ammunition. a few weeks ago, it came to the pentagon, the military went to the pentagon and asked for nine-millimeter ammunition, tank rounds and illumination rounds
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for mortars, the pentagon approved that within two or three days simply because in part, it didn't need higher level approval for that kind of request. since then, state department officials, it ahouse officials have said that the approval process should be more stringent. since then, they were temporarily changed the pros by which israel must go through to get more ammunition. the bottom line, despite some tension between president obama and prime minister netanyahu and despite leaks in the media both here and the u.s., describing that tension, bottom line is the united states has supported israel through this war, john, publicly and crucially has given israel the ammunition it has needed to fight the war. >> that's nick schiffron reporting from jerusalem. iraq's prime minister al-malaki resigned, withdrawing his candidacy for another term in office. he announced his support foal abadi, the man already
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comcast business. built for business. >> this is aljazeera america, i'm john siegenthaler in new york. we have live pictures from ferguson, missouri tonight, large but peaceful protests in the street. the sharp turnaround from a night ago when heavily armed police in riot gear fired fear gas, smoke bombs, rubber bullets. in ferguson tonight, much calmer as the stated highway patrol took over security from local police. we are live in ferguson with more. give us a sense of the mood there now.
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>> it seems to be thinning out. we had large crowds throughout the day. there's a steady stream of vehicles coming through this area. earlier we reported what sounded like gunfire, turned out it was firecrackers. we're start to go finally see crowds thin out. we've got to remember what's really sparked this was the shooting death of michael brown by a police officer, a ferguson police officer on saturday night. that started what became days of unrest, nights specifically here in this very area, right behind me. you can't see it, but a gas station was one of the ones torched and there was rioting here on sunday and unrest through the week, as we've been reporting witness the missouri highway patrol has taken over the jurisdiction here, taken over the security here and taken a very back seat approach as to
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what we've seen over the last few days in terms of armored vehicles out here. a lot of what we saw last night involving the police some criticize as a heavy handed response, shooting rubber bullets and tear gas canisters into the crowd to say disperse them. we have not seen any of that here tonight. >> can you step out of the way and let us see what's going on here? it looks like there are more cars than we've seen and the crowd's still there. >> absolutely. so, what you're seeing right now is a lot of the motor vehicles. over the last few nights, the police have cordoned off this area, you could come in here on foot or if you were a resident, you could get through this area, but these vehicles coming through this area were not allowed. the traffic has been thick but not stopped or obstructive. at times, we've seen people from the crowds, the protestors coming up to help guide these cars through the area.
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at one point, we even saw police officers responded for a very brief moment to take care of a woman who had fallen in the crowd. the protestors surrounded the officers, the vehicles, but otherwise pushed the crowd back away from the police officers so their vehicles could exit calmly and clearly. so far tonight, what we've seen, peaceful and organized and it seems the protestors feeling much more comfortable here tonight without that heavy contingency of police that we've seen. >> i think what's most remarkable about these pictures compared to last night, i almost haven't seen a police officer in any of the shots there. >> you are absolutely correct. it's really sort of turned into more of a boisterous environment. the tone here is very different. it's a little tense, but not nearly as tense as it's been the last few days. if we look at some of the
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pictures from the last few nights, where we would see this line of police officers in riot gear in full rye got gear and then see the armored vehicles with police with high powered rifles driving through the area, the tension was very, very taut. here, i don't know if you can see, if sam could pan over, there's a gentlemen in a white tee shirt right in the middle of the road and helping to make sure that traffic continues on. these crowds are coming back over and over again, continue to go honk their horn and voice support for michael brown and his family and the for the years and decades of sort of racial segregation that they feel they've been victimized here in the st. louis area. this is a much bigger protest what it comes down to why they are out here and hoping for the change they've been looking for. >> everyone's glad it's a much more peaceful evening tonight and we're glad that you and your crew are safe tonight, as well.
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you've done a great job the past few days. diane is in ferguson in the heart of the protest. >> i'm standing in the middle of the road in the heart of the protest. there are easily 2,000 people here, pretty crazy crowd. to my left, people chanting, holding candles. there are people behind me, people to my right. everything has been peaceful so far. we've not seen any evidence of people throwing bottles, throwing bricks. we also have not seen very much in the way of law enforcement. we're very surprised we haven't seen policeman directing traffic, because people have been crossing the roads and it could be a dangerous situation, but so far, everything has been peaceful. >> there were protests all across the country tonight, rallies over the death of
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michael brown that spread across the nation. thousands gathered for peaceful vigils. we have a report in los angeles. >> this gathering is south los angeles is one of more than 90 vigils across the country, calling for a nationwide moment of silence in salad dart of the events unfolding in ferguson, missouri, the shooting death of michael brown and civil unrest that erupted in the days following that shooting. people are angry, demanding answers. they have been chanting, no peace, no justice. they have been saying it feels like it's open season on latinos and blacks and say across the country, the violence must stop. >> how do you find acceptance in a land that makes it clear that you aren't wanted from the day that your born? >> i think we can get together peacefully, but i think that what happened in ferguson was the result of a culmination of events and people being at the
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limit, like what can we do, we're all going to get killed at some point, we're an malls, you know? it's not right, but i can understand rye it's happening, you know? >> this woman holds a sign that it is justice for michael brown and the crowd gathering is start to go hold hands as a sign of solid dart. i saw another woman earlier holding a sign that says i am michael brown and one woman over there holding a sign that says being black in america is a hard task. i can tell you there has been a small police presence here. i've seen a few officers inside the park but for the most part, the officers and the squad cars, they have been staying off of the ground, staying a few blocks back. while the people here are directing their anger and frustration at the police, they say they are really calling for police not only in ferguson, missed ms. but say peace throughout the country. >> that's jennifer london reporting tonight. los angeles wasn't alone. we look at other cities where demonstrators wanted to express
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their displeasure about what happened in ferguson. >> heads up, don't shoot. >> there were plans for people in 90 cities to observe a national moment of silence, honoring michael brown. some call it a day of rage, but so far, few signs of confrontation. under the arch in st. louis down the road from ferguson, hundreds marshed with clergy. in portland, more than 200 people gathered forming a circle holding hands. in chicago, they raised their hands, a reference to what witnesses said brown was doing when he was fatally shot. they carried posters supporting browns family. here in new york, times jair was the setting for another peaceful demonstration, one with a heavy police presence. >> i think it's beautiful everyone gathered here in solidarity, however, i feel it's not really going to bring much of a change. >> there were groups in places like montgomery, alabama where a
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vigil was held to remember the fallen teenager. >> outside the federal building in miami, demonstrators called it a national problem. >> we're now seeing what's going on in ferguson and realizing there's no time like now. it's time to stand up. >> police arrested eight people there. in new orleans, hundreds turned out to raise their voices in protest. aljazeera. >> leonard pitz junior joins us tonight. thanks for being here. >> thank you, sir, i'm glad to be here. i, you know, you wrote a column about michael brown and you essentially said this is not about michael brown's death. what is it about? >> well, i said it's not just about michael browns death. there is a context here and i think some of the demonstrators and the people that you were
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talking to in your previous segment alluded to it. this doesn't happen in a vacuum. there is a content of oscar grant being shot on the subway platform in oakland. there's the context obviously of trayvon martin, jordan clark, i believe was the young man's name, the man who just died after a chokehold confrontation with new york city police, et cetera, et cetera. this is not an isolated event. that's what i think triggers so much anger and so much rage in people. this is a problem that we have and have had for a long time. unfortunately, it seems to take a tragedy and it takes street theaterrics, whether marches or sadly violence to get attention to it. >> the country is not taking into effect of the different
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justice systems. the statistics are simply staggering and obscene and nobody seems to notice and care, apparently because we are so whetted to this idea that black equals crime. it's almost as if we think it's a strand on or part of the d.n.a. you get situations where you have african-americans accounting for 15% of drug use or drug crime in this country, which is fairly on par with our percentage of the population and yet in this jurisdictions, you have african-americans accounting for up to 75, 80, 90% of the people doing drug crime, drug time, i should say. that's obscene, and yet it's happened for so long, that we tend to accept it as something that's normal. it absolutely is not. it's not normal, it's not fair and it's not true to what we say we're supposed to be about as americans. >> there were a number of people
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that praised your column and the comments i saw in the st. louis newspaper. one of them pointed out, was opposed to some of the things you said and suggested that african-americans in the community need to put forth some effort and turn your situation around, quit tolerating black on black crime, quit burning down neighborhood resource, quit looting stores. what do you say to that? >> first of all, i don't defend anyone burning down resources or looting stores. that said, when we try to have a discussion, that's one of the road blocks we routinely encounter, this whole idea of the follows dichotomy. we can't talk about this, because you be should be talking about that. that's a lie. that's sort moral cowardice.
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we often say we need to increase the involvement of african-american fathers with the home, get dad back to the dinner table. i am in complete solidarity with that. i've written articles and a book on that. the thing is after we get dad to the home, back to the dinner table, dad still needs a job and dad needs to be able to get to that job without being stopped by some police officer on a charge of existing while black. >> go ahead. >> it's not this either or that we like to pretend and that the person you're citing would have us believe. it's a both and situation. >> i want to show you some of the most dramatic i am manuals from ferguson last night and get your comment on. it they were captured by a university of missouri law student, who is saying he owns a small web company and it's a
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radio station. he recently bought cameras to live stream concerts, but this week, he's been live stream be the unrest in ferguson to hundreds of thousands of viewers and he talked about the experience in our first person report. let's listen. >> i am the owner of argus radio.com. we saw that the press was being ran out of the area. >> we've just been told by the st. louis police department to turn off our cameras. we will not be turning off our cameras. we will continue to broadcast. >> we decided to utilize what we had in an attempt to give the world a firsthand account of what was actually going on after our local media stations cameras had been turned off. >> this is a final warning. >> from the moment that we arrived and started broadcasting, you could feel the tension in the air between the
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police line and the protestors, and as the night progressed, the tension thickened. the demonstrators par took in several different chants. >> this here is a war crime. >> stay here all night. >> there had been one gentleman who had thrown a glass bottle that broke well in front of the line. no officer was hit by it. about five minutes later, they started deploying the gas. n gunfire ] >> they're firing on to the crowd. ow! they are firing rubber bullets. >> then at that point, it turned into behavioral a free-for-all. >> they are continue to go advance down the street. the crowd continues to disperse, as the st. louis county police department continues to fire
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rounds into the crowd. >> how important was it for the american people to see what the police department was doing in ferguson? >> i think it was exceedingly important for the american people to see what was going on in ferguson, because again, another road block that we tend to run into is that people don't want to, you know, people who are invested in believing that we don't have a separate but unequal criminal injustice system really will resist any eyewitness account or any statistic or whatever that you bring them that suggests otherwise, so i think it's very important to bring them, you know, images from these places. by the same token, one of the things that i've learned sadly in my career is that even eyewitness acts accounts and video that proves a point graphically and you would think in arguably sometimes does not
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sway or persuade people who are again, heavily invested in that other point of view. >> it appears that the governor the state of missouri must have been watching and or listening. is it possible that appointing a captain, captain ron johnson, an african-american with a missouri highway patrol could actually be responsible for this turnaround tonight? >> i don't know. i hesitate to say how much or how little for that matter his race plays into that. i tend to think that for whatever degree, that his, you know, his being african-american like the major city of the demonstrators has to do with it. there's something to be said that he chose a lighter touch. he did not have military grade equipment on the street and officers in military gear, and he marshed as i understand with the demonstrators. i think all of that also played a role. frankly, from what we have had last night and for the nights before, you could have had the
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same thing with african-american officers. there's absolutely no reason that you could not have had a large contingent of african-american officers out there and not had the same thing. one of the things we sometimes fail to understand is that this is about structural, you know, entities. this is about structural entities and the way they treat african-american people. it doesn't automatically get involved because you put an african-american person inside of that structure. it is the structure itself that's the problem. >> clearly, there was a change tonight and apparently a very good one and good outcome so far. amen, as well. leonard, it's great to see you, thanks for taking your time and staying up lately with us. >> ferguson is home to 21,000 people, today the center of a national debate on race and freedom of speech. how did it get there? paul beban takes a look. >> this all began saturday afternoon when 18-year-old
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michael brown and a friend were walking down the street in ferguson. the details are in dispute, but their encounter with a ferguson police officer ended in brown's death by gunfire. crowds quickly began to gather at a scene. on sunday, those crowds became more emotional while monitored by growing numbers of police officers in riot gear. looting broke out and 30 people were arrested. on monday, police officers tired tear gas and rubber bullets on protestors and the first day of school was canceled. the f.b.i. announced that it's investigating brown's death, tuesday, the f.a.a. put in place a no fly zone over ferguson to provide a safe haven for law enforcement. police planned to release the name of the officer but decided against it out of concern for his safety. last night, police used tear goose, as well as flash and notice grenades. journalists were caught in the
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crossfire, including our aljazeera team hit by tear gas. today, president obama called for calm, saying there's no excuse for excessive force against peaceful protests and missouri governor jay nixon put the state highway control in charge of security in ferguson. john. >> paul beban, thank you. a twitter account for the the group anonymous was suspended after tweeting a name. he claimed it was the officer who shot and killed michael brown. police say it was the name of a dispatcher. anonymous uses the internet to retaliate against what it sees at injustice. >> here's the thing to understand about the group anonymous. they're not a group in any formal sense. there are no tee shirts or formal breakfast or secret handshakes. it's a rotating cast of hackers that come under that name to pull off audacious bits of
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digital activism. when they decided to go after the department of justice in 2012 or city of ferguson this week, there's no hope of defense. a term democratic or city authority is only as safe on line as the people paid to protect their sites, so that's usually a couple of staffer people, there's maybe some contract help from a company, but anonymous is like an organism. it's a swarm of volunteers that draws in new resources and tools as needed. it's not limited by budget or the working hours of the day. it's resilient and a network of smart folks in constant communication via chat rooms and on line forums who enjoy being disruptive on line. you can't pay people to be faster than that. anonymous has gotten good at a few things, the first identifying vulnerable sites. it uses search engines to determine what sites are vulnerable to certain attacks. they produce lists of sites and
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vol nybbles, this gives up password. this gives up user names. a group of computers essentially bam barres a website with traffic until it choke to say death. anonymous has helped refine the use of a ready made program for doing that, low orbit zion cannon, designed to stress test websites, when they can't find the information they want but still want to send a message, they just overwhelm a site and that, as we've seen is the message right there. >> that's jake ward. now this case is grabbing attention not just in the u.s., but worldwide. this map using twitter to show how many people are talking about a topic. it lights up every time someone mentions ferguson. we'll be right back.
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>> we continue to follow the story out of ferguson, missouri tonight and ron johnson is now in charge of security. he is in ferguson, missouri. it was ever that was announced today by the missouri governor. he joins us tonight. captain, it's good to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> how did tonight go? >> it was a productive night, the night actually went well. >> what change -- i'm proud -- we communicated a little bit better. i think both sides have communicated better. both sides got to express their feelings about what has taken place since saturday evening. i think we built a little trust this evening between law enforcement and our community. >> you talked about your connections to this community, and the importance of your new job here. can you tell us, did you set out
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to communicate and connect with the community right away? there were pictures of you marshing with the crowd. >> yes, i thought it was important to get out and feel the pulse of our community and for them to understand that since day one, there has been an understanding of the pain and concerns. i felt the best way to do that was stand alongside and hear concerns add we marched and walked down the street and just show that i am a part of this community, and not to speak from a script, but from too feelings. >> yet, there's still anger below the surface. what did you hear? >> there's a lot of questions, a lot of distrust. you know, i told them trust is something that's hard to build, and we'll build it step-by-step and i'll do everything i can to gain their trust, all the law
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enforcement personnel will do the same thing. we're going to rebuild the trust and those questions that they have, we're going to do daily press conferences and try to answer those questions and provide information on what's going on within this community and what we're doing. >> some blame the st. louis county chief and ferguson police for some of the problems. >> i'm here to talk about today and how we move forward. the easiest thing is to look at the past and we're going to move forward today and make positive gains and heal some old wounds. >> captain, is there any chance that the name of the police officer who fired the shots will be released? >> i do believe that those
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dynamics will change within the next 24 hours. i believe there is some discussion in that arena, talking about how to disseminate and put that information out, and at this point, i think we'll see dynamics change within the next 24 hours. >> there's been a lot of discussion about the militarization of america's police force he is and just based on the pictures we saw from ferguson over the last several days compared to what we saw tonight, is there a problem with the way the police department presented itself? >> i think there is a perception. police vehicles or armored vehicle, those are the vehicles that are used in different situations that we have, uniforms have the same look and appearance as military uniforms, so they do have that look, but those are the uniforms that we
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wear to protect our citizens when we have high risk operations and the uniforms that we tend to wear throughout the country for tactical teams and so when you look at times we're in today, that i could see the perception as looking like a military. >> you held up a picture of michael brown, i've got about 20 seconds here. can you tell us what the message was here tonight? >> i didn't want anyone to loose focus. sunday night when i was here, michael brown's mom was here talking with the naacp, and i looked at her face and her sorrow. i just don't want that to be lost. i want her to know that it's about her loss of her son. >> captain, thank you very much, good luck to you. >> america tonight's next. his.
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>> this, is what we do. >> al jazeera america. other america tonight, live coverage from missouri as tensions rise. our personal coverage from the scene of the killing of an unarmed young black man, gunned down by the police. now a community rises up. an "america tonight" special, flash point, ferguson.
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