As the US\u00a0waits to hear whether a Missouri police officer will face charges for killing unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the FBI is warning law enforcement agencies across the country that the decision \u201cwill likely\u201d lead some extremist protesters to threaten and even attack police officers or federal agents.<\/p>\n
Peaceful protesters could be caught in the middle, and electrical facilities or water treatment plants could also become targets. In addition, so-called \u201chacktivists\u201d like the group \u201cAnonymous\u201d could try to launch cyber-attacks against authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe announcement of the grand jury\u2019s decision \u2026 will likely be exploited by some individuals to justify threats and attacks against law enforcement and critical infrastructure,\u201d the FBI says in an intelligence bulletin issued in recent days. \u201cThis also poses a threat to those civilians engaged in lawful or otherwise constitutionally protected activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FBI bulletin expresses concern only over those who would exploit peaceful protests, not the masses of demonstrators who will want to legitimately, lawfully and collectively express their views on the grand jury\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
The bulletin \u201cstresses the importance of remaining aware of the protections afforded to all U.S. persons exercising their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within hours of the FBI issuing its bulletin, some police departments across the country issued their own internal memos urging officers to review procedures and protocols for responding to mass demonstrations.<\/p>\n
Still, the bulletin\u2019s conclusions were blunt: \u201cThe FBI assesses those infiltrating and exploiting otherwise legitimate public demonstrations with the intent to incite and engage in violence could be armed with bladed weapons or firearms, equipped with tactical gear\/gas masks, or bulletproof vests to mitigate law enforcement measures.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its new intelligence bulletin, obtained by ABC News, the FBI says \u201cexploitation\u201d of mass demonstrations \u201ccould occur both in the Ferguson area and nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a recent interview with ABC News, Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey said people in \u201ccommunities of color\u201d often \u201cdon\u2019t view us as people who really have the right to enforce laws or tell them what to do,\u201d\u00a0and sometimes it\u2019s because of \u201cthe way they\u2019ve seen us conduct ourselves in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
In particular, African-Americans are disproportionally represented in crime. According to the FBI, 4,379 blacks were arrested for murder last year, while 3,799 whites were arrested for murder \u2013 even though census numbers show there are six times more whites than blacks in the United States.<\/p>\n
Source: ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the US\u00a0waits to hear whether a Missouri police officer will face charges for killing unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the FBI is warning law enforcement agencies across the country that the decision \u201cwill likely\u201d lead some extremist protesters to threaten and even attack police officers or federal agents. Peaceful protesters could be … Continue reading “FBI warns about extremists as Ferguson awaits verdict”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[1039,9695,3915,9816,4270,140],"class_list":["post-16921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-fbi","tag-ferguson","tag-jury","tag-michael-brown","tag-racial-tension","tag-violence"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16921"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16924,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16921\/revisions\/16924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}