by the police as well as the looting that has been unraveling grounds and promised an independent investigation and that justice will be served will talk to some protesters now to find out exactly what kind of justice they're looking for and if they believe that an independent investigation will actually take place each year do you believe that politicians want to see real justice so that an end to put is put to this chaos that we've seen unravel here over these last days. as being gone known in america says america was built we can't even get

a cop's name or feel like this is not going to be a fair trial anyway when they show up with snipers with their their weapons trained on innocent civilians when they show up with mine resistant tanks. that kind of stuff doesn't fly and it defies everything the my fellow marines and i fought for when we were defending the constitution in iraq and afghanistan and elsewhere i believe in the outcome they outcome is god's will will be done is not amount this sound it's about doing the right thing by praying is for us to love one another because police accountability so rare do you believe this that this particular officer will be held accountable are really no no i really think they're doing everything they can for him not to be held accountable for now political statements about accountability justice and an independent investigation remains just words and not deeds this community intends to keep coming out onto the streets until those promises become reality of course the fact that people continue to

gather for peaceful demonstrations such as this one remain largely undiscussed and under reported while all of the attention is brought to some of the looting and vandalism that has taken place which some of these locals say really is a reflection of desperate measures in desperate times and r.t.e. ferguson missouri. and it seems it's not only the residents of ferguson who are under. attack it's journalists as well to reporters covering the unrest in the city were arrested and physically assaulted by police last night and those journalists were ryan riley of the huffington post and wesley lowery of the washington post the two reporters had been working in a mcdonald's not too far from the scene of the incident when a swat team stormed into the restaurant and demanded that everyone immediately evacuate soon after the two journalists began recording the police activity and here's a look at some of that coverage what's going on we're going on some videotape in

autograph are different from the right to be using hurry up let's hear oh he's going to let you know the senior. he's going to nothing it's time to go and look you know you know we were down about forty five seconds until. you get on board. to do we're going to now is this let's go over so john and i'm john edwards the door closed and i'm like i mean this is your cars are cars out here let's go it is what i was asking you not going to let you go let's go. that's when the journalists were told to stop the recordings and leave when they didn't the officer shoved lowery into a soda machine and slammed riley's head against a glass just before taking them into custody now upon being released riley had a scuffle with the officers as he tried to find out who arrested him and demand some accountability take a look so i just want to say to take

a sleigh over any toast really is what is there and i would really research because i'm sure we were told it was. a really only the name of officer i read they actually were dozen times the officer was on some go just to see you walking out the door to. now and a separate incident a group of reporters from al jazeera america were tear gassed as they attempted to film an ongoing protests after the journalists were driven away by the gas police then moved over to al-jazeera america equipment and began tearing it down and then pointed their cameras towards the ground to talk about what some people are calling an assault on journalism i was joined earlier by georgetown university professor chris chambers and i first asked him if he thinks these incidents could there could have been some kind of misunderstanding take a left i can't see how it could be

a misunderstanding first of all this is oppression one hundred one if you want to control the narrative you control first of all the people the protestors on the ground and then you control the people who are recording with the protesters on the ground are doing just as you were you know you control say eyewitnesses who might have camera phones etc etc who were there at the point of contact between the officer and mr brown who was apparently shot with his hands up according to all of the witnesses. and they have seized camera phones to that effect so you want to control the information or to control the narrative this is a good way to do it and what we've seen here are journalists being basically you can control the time place and manner of access to the press of that sit you know if you have to very compelling reasons to control that now if there's safety of the reporters are going to be attacked or they're interfering with some kind of ongoing police when is it their obligation to say ok i should turn my camera off and walk

away and do as the police is telling it well when you're in mcdonald's basically working on your story in a bunch of people and you're far from the from the actual action that's probably on the line of i think i'm ok right here they were not standing in front of the protesters these guys were in mcdonald's working on their story the al-jazeera. crew and other t.v. crews were out there trying you know off to the side but on a public street where they're allowed to be filming the police the police were actually shining lights on to the camera so the cameras could not record the action i think that here you have the police the government defining basically basically crossing the line not the reporters crossing the line from the area and and intruding where they should not have access which again is controlled by their own safety or if they are literally in the middle of a police action so the cops are in a shootout with somebody and somebody was a bomb or a gun and the reporters interposed themselves somehow or interfered these these

reporters are not interfering and that's that av that basically the concept of interference there's no interference here it's observation and the police don't want that so i think you know i don't see how this is a blurry line or anything gray i think you can sit back and look at this and say that you know the first amendment has been violated here and probably the police the their own internal rules of the police department as they've worked out with say local press in the st louis area as my family i haven't been trained to work or turn lights down they know what to do when encountering someone i know that most police forces have that you know in you know they have some sort of training they have something in their their rulebook along those lines but you know you have an extraordinary situation come up this police department is very separate from the st louis police department st louis county you know you have mostly white cops in a two thirds black community even though it's just it's two thirds but ninety percent

of the arrests the stops except for a have been on african-american citizens so this is a police department it's probably not used to dealing with the press and this sort of thing and they're not used to dealing with the press really zooming in on them you have you know alternate new sources of huff. post r t al-jazeera basically aiming a beam at them they're not used to that they're used to do it more large corporate mainstream outlets who are just going to really just cover perhaps play by the ruling by the rule talk to the public information officer generally say the local press is probably covered some officer friendly kind of events they're not used to this and they're not used to the social media coverage that especially african-americans are focused on this so that's another aspect there were social media has really focused our attention on this and we actually heard president obama speak about this very issue earlier this afternoon let's take a quick listen to what he had to say and here in the united states of america

police should not be bowling or arresting journalists who are just trying to do their jobs and report to the american people on what they see on the ground. put simply we all need to hold ourselves to a high standard so basically came to the defense of these journalists do you think that that was very strategic i mean do you do you think that he had to do that considering how much these protests have really escalated over the last thing on two levels one to buttress attorney general holder's efforts in st louis county on another it's you know it's up to the media outlets themselves to go after the police the federal government doesn't really get involved with trying to remediate the rights of news organizations so i think it was wise for him to you know back up the attorney general's investigation and provides you know the bully pulpit for the lawyers of these news organizations we already know the washington post as a lawyer it up and are probably going to go after this police department so i think

he's trying to provide some some some kind of support for the private efforts on that then and right georgetown university professor chris chambers as always thank you so much for coming on and weighing in. a lot of happened in the last five days and michael brown was shot and killed for a look at how the events in ferguson have unfolded from day one let's go to our tease milledge fan. high powered rifles flash bang grenades burning buildings a community under siege now live images behind me depict a war zone but this is actually ferguson missouri a midwestern town of about twenty three thousand ferguson police department a force of only fifty three unable to contain the growing chaos and rage from a community wounded by the slaying of unarmed eighteen year old michael brown in broad daylight on a sunny saturday afternoon by ferguson police. what started out as

a peaceful protest quickly evolved into civil unrest looting rioting but how did we get here how did we get to this. let's start with saturday august ninth michael brown an eighteen year old boy enjoying the last summer weekends before he was set to go to college he unfriended dorian johnson were just walking down the street in their hometown of ferguson headed to visit brown grandmother a visit that never arrived around two pm brown and johnson were approached by a ferguson police officer in his cruiser who shouted at them to get off the street the two young men commented that they were just a few steps away from their destination and this is where the confrontation began reports are conflicting from witnesses and other officers involved but what we do know is that moments later brown was left dead with multiple bullet wounds sunday august tenth ferguson p.d. and st louis county police hold

a press conference regarding the shooting with details that contradict eyewitness reports later that night vigils are held in anger sparked when the crowds learn of these discrepancies before long one hundred fifty officers arrive to quell the uprising looting and vandalizing and sue. now monday august eleventh the anger and crowds grow on the streets of ferguson and a quick trip convenience store is burned to the ground and police begin to fire rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds of protesters hundreds more take to the streets in anger spreads on social media the world now takes notice tuesday august twelfth the fighting and outrage catches national attention forcing president obama to make a comment as he asks an enraged community for peaceful protest the violence and heavy militarized police presence continues to grow even the f.a.a. issues this area of st louis a no fly zone following shots being fired at police choppers overhead now wednesday

august thirteenth armored humvees fires bullets numerous arrests shouting clashes molotov cocktails being thrown by the protesters police they respond with rounds of rubber bullets and bean bags and large crowds are gathering most of whom were peaceful save for the few that were causing problems many. with their hands up shouting don't shoot and that leads us to today today city officials finally speak the governor of missouri jay nixon he finally says a few words about the incident that led to this terrible scene obama addresses the issue again what's to come next more than forty years following the civil rights movement underlying racial tensions are bubbling to the surface and it can no longer be ignored from washington manila chan r.t. . traditional news networks on the ground in ferguson have been able to provide some critical information to the public but its social media that's taken

a front seat in both getting the information out and helping to organize the resistance in the aftermath of brown's shooting we've seen everything from witnesses to citizen journalists to world observers taking to social media in order to find and share the story and with journalists now even being limited by the police it's made platforms like twitter facebook and even vine all the more valuable to talk about this earlier i was joined by r.t. web producer andrew blake and i first asked him how critical social media has been and galvanizing all of these protests. you know it's really weird that we're seeing this now in the united states where twitter was developed whereas several years ago this is what was happening and other parts of the world were oppressive regimes were stepping in and trying to silence people that were protesting whatever be it the government or police activity and that's why we see those oppressive regimes

try to cut back on social media use with things like twitter so what we're seeing this now in the united states is i don't want to say a step backward it's something that other parts the world people are kind of laughing at us because this is like this is why twitter took off the way it did to a degree in other parts of the globe but what social media is doing more than just driving these protests social media and as we were saying earlier is actually what's what's showing the world these protests when we're living in an environment where the media isn't even going in there and isn't allowed to have their cameras right up to the police officers marching down the streets with guns and tanks and stuff like that who else do we have left if it's a citizen journalist holding up a smartphone or with a digital camera or walking around with their i pad trying to stream something those are the people who are relaying what's happening to the rest of the world and it's very courageous of them and those people i think are doing just as much in terms of putting the rest the world in ferguson showing them what's happening is

they are letting people in ferguson coordinate these activities but it is absolutely instrumental in first things like oh there's tear gas on this corner or you know you're not allowed to walk into your house if you live on that side of the street social media if you're on the ground in ferguson is doing an instrumental job and actually just keeping people safe it has certainly been instrumental in it harkens back to the occupy protests i would i would say we've seen a lot of hot hashtags launched as a result of this many of them sort of racially motivated dealing with the issue of race can you talk about what's out there well i mean this is something that we believe seen for the last couple of years where. it's really unfortunate this. keeps happening where there's a young black kid who's who's now dead because someone else did something stupid and whatever way the media chooses to portray it we're often unfortunately see this in a negative light and so that did spawn a couple hashtags particular there's one that started all over the internet this week hashtag if they gunned me down i believe it was people trying to say well you

know if that was me out there if that was me lying around lifeless on the street what picture would they play of me on the news the next day when they're trying to justify it when they're trying to protect the police and say that oh you know everything and you're right it's who that person was yeah so we saw that one we actually saw people with the hashtag don't shoot don't shoot me which you really shouldn't have to advertise on the internet or with a sign or a hashtag or you really should never actually ever have to tell a police officer don't shoot me because they're there to protect and usually the action associated with that is you know putting your hands up and you say don't shoot and i think we see a lot of people in the protest doing that right they've been walking down the street with their arms up so you know well it's without it would really comes down to is a misery is not prepared for a protest like this and they're certainly not prepared for the response that's happened on the internet absolutely and i have only thirty seconds left but on line hackers have been really instrumental to you can you talk really quickly about that yeah

a couple different factions of the actors collective anonymous have been targeting various law enforcement entities do you know it's really weird to characterize any sort of attack on any sort of particular group because the case of anonymous this is this amorphous internationally dispersed collective anyone can take claim for anything but. they are without a doubt people are targeting law enforcement websites or trying to take them down by sending them illegitimate traffic crippling websites i've been told that you know they're actively trying to disclose information about private officials in order to bring that information to light but that's something that perhaps maybe the police should do. definitely hacktivism at its best and you're blake artie's web producer thank you so much for coming on. we've seen a lot of pictures coming out of the protests in ferguson police wearing riot gear holding machine guns and looking an awful lot like the u.s. military and that's because today they are a lot like the military not only have they been trained using some of the same

tactics but they've also been authorized over the last few years to receive a surplus and military gear from the pentagon and that means local law enforcement agencies are using weapons found on the battlefields of south asia and the middle east to discuss this a little bit more i was joined by john whitehead president of the rather first in-situ he has a long studied and written about the idea of a rising police state in america and i first asked him if the ongoing situation in ferguson resembles that evolution. of course yeah everything you're saying for the military here on the books so called police know they look like military personnel by the way they do not like placement to the military vehicles the high tech rifles all of asia using the us a culmination of a long process that began quite a while ago but has really accelerate or over the last five or six years especially under president obama whatever actually the handout from the pentagon on the part

of all that security of all is not there you're so down a bit under george bush but it's really accelerated under president obama for whatever reason and we're seeing pictures of police officers and events m.s.l. resemble a military operation in iraq or afghanistan what brought us to this point where local police forces are resembling our military and the way that they look in their actions well first of all all the equipment the spending given out basically free from the pentagon on the part of whole and security i mean the farm hold and secure is giving out amaranth's to local police departments they're minor assistance armor protection vehicles they use in afghanistan they're basically tanks that and all the other thing that i've talked to police that they are concerned about best is the training their training policemen the very militarily and in the police academies across the country and actually swat teams by studying the military units the other factor is that a lot of the returning veterans from overseas are becoming police officers so what

you're getting is what the founding fathers of master george washington all warned about a standing army they say never do this because they experience what would be the tyranny of a standing army used to when you post a policeman america had a round outfit on and maybe a firearm sometimes they were armed now you're saying i'm with high tech waffles you have the part of homeland security arming themselves with palm point molex which while a international law but social security administration by all of what most in passing about forty one locations across united states. as evelyn change we thought we do have a standing army now it's the local police working with federal agents and then some of the cases where involved are people's homes get raided it's local police working with federal departments like the f.b.i. department well let's hear it and they're all decked out in this military gear and then in some ways the way that they're dressing is actually causing this tension. yes i show the book of going to wolves what they call the psychology of compliance

a number of studies show that once you put on that gear as a policeman in your training you start acting like a military unit like you're in a patrol and unfortunately what happens is the psychology changes and a lot of these local police know when they're approaching a house for a swat team or a it's like they're moving in allow kyra that's what you have that's what the studies show and they've been confirmed recently by other studies that show the same thing and then the psychology has a lot to do with it it's like a psychology of intimidation how did it go how they it's how they view the citizen last that he not as supposedly were the masters and they're the servants but you know at first when they're telling people to back off twenty five feet in this they're volleying their free speech rights you have a right to walk up to a civil servant and say sir why are you doing this why you're here there pointing guns at people and chasing them away that's not a policeman a more again that's the military and that's what we're dealing with and that a lot of people are are vulnerable because they don't even know what their rights

are in these situations but you know how can we begin to really roll back this kind of militarization that we're seeing with then and these police forces is it even possible at this point are we too far too far gone as possible but again i think local citizens in their community get out of their city councils and creating oversight police oversight committees where one of the swat team rangers stuff we're seeing in ferguson they need to back them down they be held accountable mostly say to seize operate basically any way they want the local city councils and politicians just let them go. as i've written a number of instances i've seen the local citizens get they get down that local city council meeting they get their size and they say we're not moving until you change this thing if not you go see a charity in this country this is this is the face of the government the day what you're saying in ferguson is only going to get worse if we don't back off all right john whitehead president of the rather for an institute thanks for weighing in

thank you. and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america check out our website r t dot com slash usa and follow me on twitter and amir a david for now have a great night. drama is the chance to be ignoring the. stories others use in their senior. citizens changing the world right now. to make sure the states. from around the globe. dropped to. fifty.

i'm not sure exactly when the us decided to play the role of captain hero and come sweeping in when terrible genocides are happening around the world but let's be real here it's a line of crap the us actually sucks at stopping genocide and it only intervenes when it has something to gain a foreign policy magazine just did a great speech outlining the history of american intervention into global genocide called the big lie americans tell themselves and the facts speak for themselves this is how it breaks it down in the eight hundred eighty s. the us supported belgium claim on the congo which resulted in the murder of millions of congolese teddy roosevelt president at the time said intervention would be in the style over the early part of the twentieth century the us did nothing to

stop japan killing everyone in east asia turkey's genocide in armenia or the large scale killing of people in places like southeast asia by europeans colonizers and don't try to point to the us is role in ending hitler's horrible genocide because it was hitler who declared war on the us not the other way around everyone like to forget that the us has humanitarian intentions were an afterthought richard nixon and henry kissinger supported pakistan's actinic cleansing in east pakistan in the early seventy's where at least three hundred thousand people died and when the largest genocide in the twentieth century happened in cambodia in the seventy's by the khmer rouge which led to the deaths of millions the us didn't. it was more interested in playing political games with russian the chinese the foreign policy article calls that inaction and morally indefensible dance when saddam was killing

hundreds of thousands of kurds in the eighty's the us didn't even bother to impose sanctions half a million killed in rwanda in the ninety's the us didn't even blink so let's get one thing straight stopping genocide is not a core interest of the us nor has it ever been so if we should stop trying to sell everyone that line of crap all of our stupid kids is crying save our girls or saved our fur or embracing what the us needs to do in syria if cetera et cetera they all just need to stop is specially because all it does is give persecuted people a false hope that something can didn't hero is going to charge out of the us to save them the reality is that's not going to happen unless those persecuted people who.