n fact the majority of the equipment we get is never actually used (thank goodness, it’ll be a very bad day when some of the HAZMAT stuff gets used for instance) and hopefully won’t be until it expires or is declared excess/obsolete and disposed of.

I’m going to address your points one by one.

1) “…tanks and tear gas came out before any violence had occurred.” No, they didn’t. There were no tanks in Ferguson. This is not semantics. Tanks are purely aggressive vehicles designed to kill other vehicles and people. MRAP armored vehicles are built to protect people inside. I was a tank crewman in the peacetime army and later rode in plenty of MRAPs overseas. An MRAP is not a tank, period. Calling it a tank is objectively wrong, and suggests its purpose is to kill rather than protect.

And armored vehicles were in Ferguson before the violence broke out because that violence was easily foreseeable. Huge, violent and destructive race riots based on perceived unjust police actions have a long history in America. The LA Riots were the best predictor of what would happen in Ferguson. While I agree that the police response seemed to be overblown, I completely understand why police in and around Ferguson prepared for the worst.

Also, just to clarify, I make a distinction between the Ferguson protestors and Ferguson rioters. I’m not criticizing anyone for simply protesting.

2) Regarding the pumpkin festival in NH: National Guard troops won’t be called out to spontaneous riots that are relatively short-lived. National Guard troops can’t be called up in an instant. This is something else I have personal experience with. I’ve been called up for a hurricane and for the space shuttle recovery mission in 2003. In both cases units took at least a day to assemble. For the space shuttle mission we took only a day to respond because most of our units were already at drill when the shuttle came down, and were already on alert when we got the order.

Guard units aren’t like they were in the old days. Many units now have soldiers spread out all over the state rather than all living in the same town as their unit armory. My current unit is in a large city; out of my entire company, only about five soldiers actually live in that city. If we get called up it’ll take at least a day to get the company together, armed and equipped and able to respond. The Ferguson riots were long anticipated and violence was expected if Wilson was acquitted; city, state and local officials knew long beforehand that they’d likely need Guard troops, and had plenty of time to plan their mobilization.

Here’s one report from before the grand jury verdict, showing that law enforcement officials from the city all the way to the FBI were sharing intelligence on planned violent protests long before the protests actually started. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/07/us-usa-missouri-shooting-plans-idUSKCN0HW1TF20141007

3) “The citizens of Ferguson are poor and had been routinely subjected to racist or classist bias on the part of their law enforcement. The collegiate rioters in Kentucky and New Hampshire were mostly affluent and arguably had not sustained prolonged maltreatment by law enforcement.”

Maybe true, but a different subject. I wrote about the response to the riots, not the reason behind them.

4) “The college kids were rioting because their team lost or, in New Hampshire, just because it was fun to cut loose. In Ferguson the protesters were there because of a perceived injustice that, to them, was just one in a long history of same.”

Again, maybe true but not what I wrote about.

5) “I think it’s safe to argue that the police in Kentucky were not terrified of their mostly white, mostly affluent, mostly juvenile rioters. And so did not behave as if they were terrified. Ferguson police may have been afraid of their protestors. Only they know for sure.”

It’s also objectively true that the Kentucky rioters weren’t shooting at police officers. Some of the Ferguson rioters were. And the Ferguson protestors certainly didn’t turn in the rioters shooting at cops.

Does that mean the Ferguson police were “terrified”? Not necessarily. You can have an objective, real understanding of the fact that your life is in danger without being terrified. Been there, done that, many times.

Here’s information about shell casing recovered from one single parking lot in Ferguson after the riot. The web site name might throw you off, and the source cited is anonymous, but the report itself is believable.

“In the Red’s Barbecue parking lot alone, sixty-six shell casings were recovered.
21 of them were from a single AR-15.
The remaining shell casings originated from seventeen separate firearms using extractor markings to ID.
That means in ONE PARKING LOT, there were 18 different guns that fired a total of 66 rounds at or near responding Police and Fire Units.”

http://tacticalshit.com/report-front-ferguson-aftermath-crime-scene-statistics/#

6) “But they also wanted to make sure they did not lose their heavy artillery. If you’ll recall that was a condition of them receiving the armored vehicles etc. They had to use them in a certain period of time.”

Nonsense.

Please cite some evidence that the police “had to use them in a certain period of time.” Armored vehicles are provided to police departments for emergency purposes. If no emergency occurs, the federal government doesn’t take the vehicles back. They don’t want them back. They’re giving them to police departments because we have too many and they don’t want to scrap them or leave (more of) them for extremist groups overseas. Please post this order commanding the Ferguson police to use the vehicles no matter what, or lose them.

And armored vehicles aren’t “heavy artillery”. Those vehicles don’t have integral weapons. Using a term like “heavy artillery” is deliberately inflammatory and inherently dishonest. It’s not a matter of “perception being reality” either. If you perceive an unarmed armored vehicle is heavy artillery, your perception is wrong.

I disagree with you on many thing Maya, but I respect your intelligence and opinion. And I expect better from you on this.

A similar situation to the sports-related has arisen in conjunction with a pumpkin festival in New Hampshire. In that case the mostly white college kids vandalized businesses and burned cars, not just sofas. Still no National Guard, no tanks, no riot gear.

It may not be racism, however, it may be simple classism instead. The citizens of Ferguson are poor and had been routinely subjected to racist or classist bias on the part of their law enforcement. The collegiate rioters in Kentucky and New Hampshire were mostly affluent and arguably had not sustained prolonged maltreatment by law enforcement.

There is another difference in these situations. The college kids were rioting because their team lost or, in New Hampshire, just because it was fun to cut loose. In Ferguson the protesters were there because of a perceived injustice that, to them, was just one in a long history of same.

I think it’s safe to argue that the police in Kentucky were not terrified of their mostly white, mostly affluent, mostly juvenile rioters. And so did not behave as if they were terrified. Ferguson police may have been afraid of their protestors. Only they know for sure. But they also wanted to make sure they did not lose their heavy artillery. If you’ll recall that was a condition of them receiving the armored vehicles etc. They had to use them in a certain period of time.

All in all, I’d say there are a variety of reasons for the differences in which these situations were handled —unconscious or conscious racial bias may be one of them.

I am sick of seeing local news items being inflated into Dreyfus Affair national crises one after another. And no accountability for any of it. The media has become such a a driver of problems in our society and I honestly have no idea what is to be done with it. The current system is atrocious but all the alternatives I can think of are just as bad, even worse, or just unrealistic dreaming.