NewsOne Now Audio Podcast: "Less-Lethal" Gun Attachment Being Tested By #Ferguson Cops

Summary: #Ferguson Cops Testing New Non-Lethal Weapon Six months after the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Ferguson police are testing a less-lethal gun attachment in an effort to prevent unwanted shooting deaths. The attachment being used by Ferguson police officers is manufactured by Alternative Ballistics is a one-time use device that is supposed to knock a suspect down, not kill them with one caveat. The manufacturer can no guarantee that the person shot by one of the projectiles will not be killed. Currently there are five Ferguson police officers testing the device on the streets. Once the trial period is over, the city will make a decision whether or not the entire police department will be equipped with the less-lethal attachment. On Friday “NewsOne Now” guest host, Mo Ivory and the Straight Talk panel discussed the use of the so-called less-lethal gun attachment being used on the streets of Ferguson on a trial basis. “NewsOne Now” panelist Ray Baker shared his view on the device and the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers. “Ferguson Police Department is ready and willing to engage citizens as if they’re in combat. As long as the police department has this idea that they’re in combat, it’s going to be problematic no matter what the device is.” Baker continued, “The attachment itself seems to be a very poor idea as a way to conduct police activity.” Baker agreed with critics of the device and also pointed out a critical flaw in this approach to less-lethal force saying, “To take the time to put the attachment on to the front of the gun is going to be problematic. He later stated, if a police officer is not in a life or death situation where they want to subdue someone, “they probably should not be using their gun in that situation anyway.” Dartmouth College To Launch 10 Week #BlackLivesMatter Course #BlackLivesMatter grew from a hashtag to a movement and is now a college course at Dartmouth College. Starting in the spring, the Ivy League college will launch a 10 week, 10 professor #BlackLivesMatter class examining race, violence and inequality throughout history as well as through the prism of Ferguson and similar events.  On Friday, “NewsOne Now” guest host Mo Ivory, Republican Strategist Staci Johnson, Political / Lifestyle Blogger, Dru Ealons and Ray Baker of Ray Baker Media discussed the significance of the storied Ivy League institution offering the class and if it should be instituted on college campuses around the nation. Baker told Ivory there is no need for Howard University and other HBCU’s to institute a #BlackLivesMatter course because their “entire function is #BlackLivesMatter.” He later added, “Some may want to celebrate the #BlackLivesMatter course at Dartmouth, I’m disappointed that it is happening now. In that course they are going to talk about redlining, housing discrimination — how that’s lead to the prison industrial complex. If Dartmouth is supposed to be among the premiere universities in our nation and the prison industrial complex is ruining large swaths of our nation, why are they just now talking about this?” Ivory said, “Every time something is done in our country or around our educational system that is marked as an improvement for African Americans we can say ‘it happened too late, it should have happened before.’” She continued these courses should be a part of American Education. “Police brutality did not start with Ferguson … #BlackLivesMatter did not just happen when that (shooting death of Michael Brown) happened in Ferguson.” All that and more in this edition of the NewsOne Now Audio Podcast.