Justin Amash Calls Images From Ferguson "Frightening," Likens Situation to "a War Zone"

Earlier today, Paul Waldman wondered in The Washington Post why libertarian-leaning Republicans like Michigan Rep. Justin Amash didn't have anything to say about the situation unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri following the police shooting of Michael Brown. 

Tonight, Amash posted this reaction on his Twitter feed: 

Twitter

The situation in Ferguson is clearly not getting any less tense. Tonight, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery was detained in Ferguson while police were clearing out an area McDonald's. The run-up to the incident was captured on video, and that appears to have been part of the issue. In the video, which the Post put online this evening, Lowery is asked by an officer to stop recording, and Lowery responds that he has a right to record the officer. 

Watch here: 

 

Reporter Ryan Reilly of The Huffington Post was also arrested at the same McDonald's. Both reporters were reportedly released without any charges being filed after news of their arrests hit social media and the Ferguson police chief ordered the two to be set free. 

Washington Post editor Marty Baron released a statement on the incident tonight: 

"There was absolutely no justification for his arrest. He was illegally instructed to stop taking video of officers. Then he followed officers' instructions to leave a McDonald's — and after contradictory instructions on how to exit, he was slammed against a soda machine and then handcuffed. That behavior was wholly unwarranted and an assault on the freedom of the press to cover the news." 

Comments

[SusanM]

Is that a cop or a Colonial Marine?

[Vulgar Madman]

You beat me to it! It's Hudson!

[SusanM]

Game over man - GAME OVER!!

[Vulgar Madman]

Stay frosty.

[Idle Hands]

They do have nukes, knives and sharp sticks.

[GILMORE]

geesus, you took the words out of my mouth

This whole event seems to be one gigantic case of police taking a bad situation, and escalating it at every possible opportunity

yes, "prepare for the worst" but they seem to be trying to create confict and tension. hup hup hup hup GET SOME.

When you dress for a party, you bring the party with you.

[Corning]

Starship trooper?

[SusanM]

For those not getting the reference flip to about 2:25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn45pl8yXzk

[nike shoes, cheap nike shoes]

new balance outlet
new balance store

[Cytotoxic]

They fucked with a WP reporter? What idiots. That's not just little people that's playing with fire.

[Ken Shultz]

We should remember that our constitutional rights are only important to the Post insofar as pointing out when they're being violated doesn't reflect badly on Barack Obama.

Until Obama takes a position on what's happening, it's hard to know whether this reporter will be fired or praised by his proglodyte overlords.

I can't wait for Obama to weigh in on this. No matter what he says, it's going to go over badly. Who you gonna back, Obama: the looters or the fascist pigs? All the voters are waiting to find out.

And if he says nothing, everyone will hate him for that. Come on, Obama, and speak up. The country needs some of your messianic healing superpower, you fuckin' phony.

[Corning]

All that military gear should have "O" stickers on it.

Obama's stimulus payed for it.

[Ken Shultz]

Obama has made every issue in the world boil down to him in some way.

It's gonna be real hard for him to claim that this doesn't have anything to do with him--in one way or another.

He weighed in on the Zimmerman shooting; why hasn't he weighed in on this?

[Swiss Servator, spare a franc?]

He did - he called it a "tragedy". Nothing about the police acting stupidly, in this case.

[2Sirius]

Gosh, that would look just a little like a bullseye, wouldn't it?

[Corning]

That behavior was wholly unwarranted and an assault on the freedom of the press to cover the news

Oh yeah freedom of the press...cuz it is perfectly OK for cops to slam everyone else into soda machines to stop them from recording officers in public.

Fuck this "magical reporter" and his fantastical rights only his kind have. I am glad he got stomped.

[Brochettaward]

While I don't agree with this entire post, I do wonder if the other people arrested (I'm sure there were others) were also released. I sort of doubt it. They had bosses with a national podium ready to raise a stink, so special treatment.

Also, why were they being forced out in the first place? They are, from the looks of things, sweeping through the city in full military gear that they shouldn't even have. Combined with them in line moving on peaceful protestors, and this shit looks closer to the protests in Egypt than it does what you'd expect in the 'land of the free.'

[Corning]

While I don't agree with this entire post

I probably got carried away. Just pisses me off the smug elitism journalists have. Why the hell choose the words freedom of the press? A shit pot of other rights that everyone has was violated in the video and the description of what happened.

Furthermore freedom of the press was in regards to actual presses used to print text. It was not the freedom of the press to video record and investigate a public protest...those are the rights of any slob that were violated.

I am positive that reporter does not agree. He thinks reporters have some magical rights that simple people do not have bestowed on him simply because some company whose business is news writes his pay check. If he didn't then why use the words "freedom of the press"?

[Jerryskids]

He thinks reporters have some magical rights that simple people do not have bestowed on him simply because some company whose business is news writes his pay check.

Yeah, I have that little bit of not knowing who to root for here. The cop looks down on "civilians" because he thinks he, as a cop, is above the law and the reporter is all butthurt over the fact that the cop treats the reporter as if he were a mere "civilian" as well. How dare the warrior cop not respect the office of the reporter priest.

[Brochettaward]

I do agree with the above completely, and it's an important issue ignored after the NSA scandals when certain lawmakers attempted to define precisely who was and wasn't a 'journalist.' Because clearly the government should have the right to decide who gets constitutional rights and who doesn't.

I'm not sure if the fallback on media rights is always an issue as much as its a powerful card to play, though.

With a lot of this reporting, I'm still missing exactly what the pretext is for this police behavior. I don't think they have a right to clear a McDonalds just because. Was martial law declared when I wasn't paying attention? Or is it undeclared, and no one is bothering to articulate it?

What power and protocols do the police have when there's been rioting? Does anyone know?

Sorry for all the question marks. They are rhetorical questions, for the most part. This story is being covered non-stop, but the depth is incredibly shallow.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....77060.html

Compared to some others who have come into contact with the police department, they came out relatively unscathed, but that in no way excuses the false arrest or the militant aggression toward these journalists. Ryan, who has reported multiple times from Guantanamo Bay, said that the police resembled soldiers more than officers, and treated those inside the McDonald's as "enemy combatants." Police militarization has been among the most consequential and unnoticed developments of our time, and it is now beginning to affect press freedom.

Ryan Grim, the DC bureau chief who opines that the burgeoning police state is now intruding on "press freedom" rather than human liberty, is the same character who once referred to gun control advocates as "anti-massacre advocates." Presumably he believes that humanity was massacre-free prior to the invention of guns.

Comes as no surprise that he recognizes no relationship between the statist left's calls for civilian disarmament and the statist right's love of militarized police.

[JW]

"What!? How could this have happened? Why didn't anyone warn us of the potential disaster!?"

Cassandratarians, at your service.

[Cyto]

I would say "welcome to the fight", but having been down this road before I understand that the story will be "racist redneck police in racist town violate rights" rather than "Have we lost our ever-lovin' minds in this country?"

BTW, the police in this town seem to have a case of the terminal stupids. Instead of patching things up with the community they keep whipping it out to try and prove that theirs is bigger. What a bunch of idiots.

[DWC]

I think it's time to whip out the the Guy Fawkes masks.

[Xeones]

It cracks me up that an advocate of violence in support of Catholic theocracy is now literally the face of anarchish anti-authoritarian protest.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

I would bet a weather-worn, black leather jacket that fewer than half of the people who wear the masks in public know that the mask is anything other than a reference to a movie. The smart ones might know there was a comic.

[SusanM]

Especially since Fawkes (IIUC) wasn't much more than a second-banana in the plot.