US approved Ferguson no-fly area to keep press out – IOTW Report

US approved Ferguson no-fly area to keep press out

AP-

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government allowed police in Ferguson, Missouri, to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace for nearly two weeks in August for safety reasons, but audio recordings show that local authorities instead wanted to keep news helicopters away during violent street protests.

On Aug. 12, amid demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Federal Aviation Administration managers struggled to redefine an earlier flight ban so police helicopters and commercial flights at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport could fly through the area — but not others.

“They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,” said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police Department in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.”

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7 Comments on US approved Ferguson no-fly area to keep press out

  1. Question: Was it because they didn’t want the nation and world to see the protesters acting like zoo animals on the rampage? Did they want to keep the narrative that they were sincerely protesting a wrong and not just an excuse to loot and cause mayhem?

    I’m getting tired of the government and news media trying to engineer the facts of the stories.

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