Police crackdown in St. Louis

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has details about military officers, med students, and many, many neighbors being abused by police officers in St. Louis. Here is one such incident:

A documentary filmmaker from Kansas City, visiting with his wife, said he was knocked unconscious during the sweep. Drew Burbridge, 32, said he never heard orders to disperse until officers started to advance, banging their batons and chanting, “Move back.”

“I turned my camera off and asked if there was anywhere I could go, but I was denied the right to leave,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a part of this.”

Officers ordered him to turn his camera off and get down on the ground, and he complied.

“The only thing I cared about then was putting my arms around my wife,” he said. “I just, I just kept saying: ‘It’s going to be OK.’”

Burbridge said officers then grabbed him by both his arms and dragged him away.

“I just said: ‘I am a member of the media, I am not protesting, I am not resisting,’” Burbridge said.

An officer sprayed his face with a chemical, his head was forced into the ground and an officer ripped his camera from his neck.

Burbridge claims his hands were then bound by zip ties before two officers started kicking him in the back, neck, arm and legs while he lay restrained on the ground. He said he was knocked unconscious on the pavement for about 10 to 30 seconds.

After he came to, Burbridge said an officer lifted his head by his hair and pepper sprayed him in the face again.

Naturally (or rather, un-naturally), these events trace back to Ferguson and the protests there:

When all hell broke loose in Ferguson, Missouri, after the murder of a Black, unarmed teen, it was not clear, to the untrained eye, all of the intersecting forces that had collided. In the weeks— and months—following the murder of Mike Brown by Ferguson cop Darren Wilson, those forces became more visible.

Political disenfranchisement. A majority African-American city (nearly 70%) was being ruled by a minority white city council, school board, and police department.

Segregated housing. As Black residents from the City of St. Louis were pushed north of the city limits, municipalities like Ferguson steered them into particular neighborhoods and wards.

Failing schools. Mike Brown made it to graduation, but unbeknownst to most people outside of St. Louis, his high school was part of an unaccredited Black school district. His diploma was worthless in the real world.

Militarization of the police. St. Louis County police were trained by the Israeli military in counter-terrorism tactics. During the Ferguson Uprising, police departments unveiled their arsenal of military weaponry made possible with the support of the 1033 Program that donates billions of dollars in surplus military equipment to mainly urban police departments.

Labor solidarity. It was difficult to ignore the role of labor, especially once it was revealed that Mike Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, was a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). In the aftermath of the Ferguson Uprising, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka met with key leaders on the ground, and proclaimed that racial justice would be central to his labor organization. This gutsy proclamation has resulted in tensions inside the labor movement, tensions that will have to get resolved as the demographics of workers become more Black and brown, and more female.

International solidarity. In a matter of days after unbridled anger manifested on the streets of Ferguson, messages of unity from other parts of the world, in struggling against capitalism and globalism, took social media by storm. Most notable were words of advice and solidarity from Palestinians who instantly recognized the military tactics used on them daily. There were lots of hashtags connecting Ferguson and Gaza, and soon #BlackLivesMatter protests were happening in major cities around the world, from London to Tokyo ...

Excerpt from Jamala Rogers, FERGUSON IS AMERICA: THE ROOTS AND RISE OF UNIVERSAL RESISTANCE, featured in Charlie Derber, Welcome to the Revolution.