My must read of the day is "Free societies require more of police than turning tough situations into militarized zones," by Mary Katharine Ham, in Hot Air:
I understand the need to address looting and rioting, and quickly. I understand that law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to do that. But perhaps when a police force, which must work with local communities to be successful, has already shot an unarmed person thereby inflaming the emotions of said community, they should approach the policing in the immediate aftermath with an overabundance of caution. Using rioting as an excuse for police abuses is just as problematic as using the original shooting as an excuse for looting. [...]
We ask more of police in a free society than creating militarized zones out of tough situations. This requires more bravery, more risk, more patience than being a cop in a society where cops can do what they like when they like with impunity. As a result, many Americans have great respect, sometimes reverence, for law enforcement. But when an official response, even to a tough situation, looks like martial law with federally issued no-fly zones, the state isn’t honoring its part of agreement in a free society. We should be willing to demand that they do, even in the face of immense danger. The deep respect many Americans hold for law enforcement should be a function of a free society asking more from those men and women and getting it, not a reason to excuse them when they give us far less.
Ultimately, I'll let you form your own opinion on what's happening in Ferguson, Missouri, but when you see pictures and hear about the Molotov cocktails, the looting, the militarized response, the tear gas and the seemingly unwarranted arrests, you should think about it in the context of the agreement we have with the police—and Mary Katharine Ham articulates it rather well.
Police should behave better than the average citizen, most do, and since the public pays them, it’s imperative that we strongly call them out if we see improprieties.
If the taxpayers won't be the keepers of the police who will be? It’s our responsibility, in a free society, to hold law enforcement officers to the standards they’ve set for themselves—that doesn’t mean every behavior from the protestors is excusable or needs to be overlooked, but we can expect more of the officers, and we should.