Last Night Ferguson P.D. Spit on Three First Amendment Rights and So Many of You Didn't Care

I watched in horror on both television and on Twitter last night as the Ferguson Police Department went on a rampage through the streets of Ferguson, Mo. doing whatever the hell they wanted. Everything that is but keeping the peace. In fact, the Ferguson P.D. was the only ones in the St. Louis suburb actually destroying the peace.

They were also destroying the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. You know the one so important that the Founding Fathers of our country chose to list it first.

They weren’t just destroying one aspect of the First Amendment either. The First Amendment gives American citizens the right to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.

Last night the Ferguson P.D. attempted to destroy three of those four things. I guess they simply ran out of time to get around to destroying freedom of religion.  

The entire thing started late last week when 18-year old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer. The incident was curious, and led to peaceful protests among the citizens of Ferguson. The Ferguson police department handled the situation completely wrong by not releasing the name of the officer involved in the shooting, even though it’s typically normal protocol to do so. This, along with other things like not interviewing the only witness to the shooting, led to a belief of a cover up.

For one night the peaceful protests got a little out of hand and led to slight looting, but the peace quickly was restored to the protests, as it should have been. Yet, the Ferguson P.D. sought to make things worse by continuing to refuse to name the officer who shot and killed Brown.

Numerous media, both local and nationwide, converged on Ferguson to cover the protests and the questionable tactics of the Ferguson P.D., who had begun to use tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters. The attire of the Ferguson P.D. started to look as if the police department where a group of United States military personnel waiting to do battle with terrorist insurgents, even though the protesters were merely armed with signs that read “don’t shoot” and many held their hands over their heads in protest (as they say Brown did in signifying he was no danger before he was killed).

Last night, the Ferguson P.D. ratcheted things up way too high by arresting media members covering the incident, Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly. The two were quickly released and the Ferguson P.D. wanted it to appear as if nothing has really happened. But, there are photographs and journalistic accounts that prove it did.

The Ferguson P.D. apparently not wanting the news of their idiocy to get out to the American public then tried to ban all media from the town. They forced satellite TV trucks to leave town and they even went so far as driving by an Al-Jazeera America news crew, dropped tear gas canisters by their feet and when the media ran for their safety the P.D. swooped in and disassembled their gear. There are photos to prove this on the Internet.

Proof as plain as day that the Ferguson P.D. was both abridging the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech.

They had been trying to abridge the right of American citizens to assemble in peaceful protest for days. The Ferguson P.D. threatened anybody protesting after dark would be arrested, even though the town had not set up a curfew. When people refused to give up their rights the Ferguson P.D. fired tear gas at them, fired rubber bullets at them and just all-around wreaked havoc on the streets they swore to protect.

When one African-American raised his middle finger toward officers a photograph was taken of a laser-targeted assault rifle trained on his back, obviously a significantly harsh measure to take for a simple hand gesture.

During all of this Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was nowhere to be seen; in fact he was prepping to go to the Missouri State Fair instead. Why worry about your citizens being bullied and criminally treated by their own police department when there is a foot-long corndog in your near future? President Barack Obama didn’t have anything to say about it until the morning after. He was on vacation.

Last night was a shameful night for America. A shameful night to be an American.

The news was adequately outraged. My Twitter feed filled with journalists, celebrities and people I do not know in real life was adequately outraged.

But, curiously my Facebook feed filled with people I do know was quiet. In fact, talk of what was going on or had gone on in Ferguson was frankly almost non-existent.

This is disturbing. I’m not saying these people should live and breathe what’s happening in Ferguson minute-by-minute, but they should at least acknowledge it, be aware of it, be outraged by it.

It’s one thing when they refuse to recognize it happening overseas, but this is happening less than six hours from where most of those on my Facebook feed live. And, it’s happening on American soil to American citizens.

This lack of interest on the part of those I know is not as disgusting to me as the Ferguson police essentially running their own government by their own rules for a few nights, but it’s still slightly sickening to know that so many people either don’t care or don’t have anything to say about such a travesty happening in their own backyard.

I want to be around people who are more outraged by what’s going on in Ferguson than by the announcement of Ben Affleck playing Batman or Facebook changing its appearance for the 100^th time.

Maybe that’s too much to ask for. But, maybe this is part of the problem.