Ferguson, Missouri people keep demanding justice

This video from the USA says about itself:

17 August 2014

In this video, St. Louis residents speak to the WSWS about the implications of police violence amid the ongoing protests against police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

By Thomas Gaist in the USA:

Police tear gas protesters, threaten journalists as crackdown continues in Ferguson, Missouri

18 August 2014

The crackdown in Ferguson, Missouri intensified Sunday night, as St. Louis County police fired tear gas at crowds of peaceful demonstrators assembled near the site of the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was shot multiple times last weekend by a police officer. Brown was kneeling and unarmed at the time.

The police, who were clad in combat gear and escorted by armored vehicles, began firing sustained volleys of gas canisters into the crowds hours before a midnight curfew that has been extended indefinitely under the orders of Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and the Missouri Highway Patrol.

At least one journalist covering the events was threatened that he would be shot if he did not stop filming the police actions.

Police posted claims on Twitter around 9:15 p.m. saying that officers had been attacked by demonstrators and that “tactical units” were being deployed.

Rubber bullets and sound cannons were also deployed against the crowds, according to reports. The curfew, now in effect for the second night in a row, was ordered by Missouri’s Democratic Party Governor Jay Nixon late last week.

Numerous children and youth were present at the demonstration, as confirmed by reporters from the World Socialist Web Site who were on site during the hours leading up to the police assault and by multiple eyewitness reports from other journalists.

Live tweeting from the street, journalist Amy K. Nelson wrote that “the tear gas is relentless,” saying that “multiple tear gas cops” told her they “weren’t going to let up.” Nelson quoted a man walking through the crowd carrying his daughter, who said, “It’s not even curfew yet and they’re firing tear gas and the baby almost got it.”

Video posted on the web showed a police officer screaming “Get the f*** out of here” and turn off his camera light or “you’re getting shot” at a journalist from Argus Radio. The reporter, Mustafa Hussein, reported that the cop was pointing a gun at his face when he made the threat.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

US police enforce Ferguson curfew with smoke and tear gas as residents protest killing of Michael Brown

Monday 18th August 2014

Protesters shout: ‘We have the right to assemble peacefully’ as officers don gas masks

Police used smoke and tear gas to enforce a curfew on protesters early yesterday morning in Ferguson, Missouri, where an unarmed black teenager was killed by police last week.

Seven people were arrested during the night in the St Louis suburb. Campaign group More claimed that all seven were arrested after being “dragged out of cars, some parked in their own driveways.”

Police swarmed the mainly black area in armoured vehicles shortly after the curfew started, claiming they were responding to reports of a break-in rather than seeking to enforce the dispersal order.

Hundreds of protesters left peacefully before the curfew took effect but many refused, chanting: “No justice! No curfew!”

The crowd bellowed: “We have the right to assemble peacefully” as officers began putting on gas masks.

A man was shot and critically injured during the night and a police car came under fire.

Police had appeared to back down from the combative approach they took immediately after the shooting that led to running battles between riot police and protesters.

But tensions flared again on Friday night after police revealed that the officer who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown was Darren Wilson, a white officer, and Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency in Ferguson on Saturday.

They also released subsequently disputed CCTV footage alleging that Mr Brown had robbed a corner shop shortly before he was shot — although Mr Wilson didn’t know that at the time.

Governor Jay Nixon announced early Monday that we was calling in the National Guard to occupy Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb that has been the site of ongoing protests since the August 9 police murder of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager: here. And here.

Nearly two weeks after the police shot and killed a 22-year-old man holding a toy gun in a suburban Dayton Walmart store, government and store officials are still refusing to release surveillance tapes and other evidence related to the murder: here.