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| Screen grab from KSDK.com live video feed |
Police are out in riot gear tonight attempting to put a stop to the rioting that took place last night after the officer-involved shooting death of an 18-year-old black male in Ferguson, MO (which is apparently a suburb of St. Louis) that took place this past Saturday.
In the video below, the following is depicted:
Police over loud speaker (41 seconds into video): "Please clear the streets. Return to your home and get out of the street."
Officer yelling (57 seconds into video): "News media you need to clear out! This is your last warning! I'm telling you, get out of here! This is your last warning! Understand? You're putting my officer's lives in jeopardy!"
One of the members of the media says, "Let's back up. Let's back up" and the officer again yells something that is inaudible and again repeats: "You're putting my officers lives in jeopardy! You're putting my officer's lives in jeopardy! Get out of here!" At this point the media appears to be preparing to leave and the live video feed goes dead.
I'm not one to bash the police and, frankly, I don't appreciate those that do. In fact, I generally support nearly everything they do because I've never done their job and am pretty certain that I'd be a miserable failure at it. I appreciate the work of most law enforcement officers. What I don't understand in this video is how the presence of the media could possibly be putting the officer's lives in jeopardy. At a time like this I would think that having the media around would provide cover for the police because who would be stupid enough to engage with the police while the media is there with video cameras rolling? It seems to me that, especially right now, more transparency would benefit the police department, not less. It makes no sense to kick the media out. No sense to me, that is.
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