21 days ago, Canfield Drive looked like a regular blue-collar street. The city blocks which it spans in Ferguson, Missouri hold a working class neighborhood where nearly 100% of residents identify as black, according to the 2010 Census. Though the city’s median income is $37,134, Canfield Drive’s median is far lower. The street overlooked an apartment building complex where families lived their daily routines. It was an American Everytown of a sort.

20 days ago, that changed when Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown at least six times. Canfield Drive cradled a body killed needlessly and too young. Protests started that night – a small fraction of them violent.

But the neighborhood’s face truly changed when the police arrived. 19 days ago, the streets around Canfield Drive were crushed by military-grade tanks that took the same route that blue-collar Americans drove to their homes after work. Though the gear-wearing officers represented a small fraction of law enforcement there, the media was still able to procure shots of tear gas and confrontations that looked like a war zone.

Yes, those images are by no means representative of the protest movement that night. But the fact that any military gear at all was introduced to an already flammable situation sheds light on our country’s trend towards force instead of conversation.

There are sixteen-year-old student journalists in Missouri who have sent in requests to the Student Press Law Center for advice on covering the Ferguson story.

Here’s what they’ve been told: Tell at least five people where you’ll be and when you’ll be back. If you’re not back within 20 minutes, they should start calling local holding centers. If they take away your cell phone, you’re probably not going to get it back for a while. And you should have five phone numbers memorized or written on your arm in case of emergency.

This is not advice you give to people exercising their right to cover a story. This is not advice you give to teenagers. This is not advice that belongs in a country where policemen are policemen, not soldiers.

WashingtonPost reporter and researcher Radley Balko offers the following statistic: “In my own research, I have collected over 50 examples in which innocent people were killed in raids to enforce warrants for crimes that are either nonviolent or consensual.”

On the first night of protests, suppression was understandably a priority. If the police had failed to show authority in the face of needlessly violent protesters, they wouldn’t have been doing their job. But Balko’s research shows that officers wearing military gear are predisposed to engage in violence, and the overlap between domestic and military law enforcement is too blurred for comfort. And the lack of openness from Ferguson police in addressing Brown’s death, to prioritize tanks over talks, reflects their lack of comfort with their local community, a characteristic that no police department should have.

Two days ago, Canfield Drive saw hundreds of roses laid along its central dividing line, like railroad tracks of sympathy. The persistence of the community in the face of tragedy is a reminder to remember the humanity in this situation, the ties that bring together communities. And the police should be one of those ties, not a strangling force.