Jessica Durando

USA TODAY

In a segment on the use of tear gas in the Ferguson, Mo., protests,

CNN international anchor Rosemary Church asked why police are using this strategy instead of others to disperse crowds.

Church went on to ask Tuesday, "Why not perhaps use water cannons, at least it's not something that is going to have the same kind of effect."

Images of civil rights protesters being blasted with fire hoses during the 1960s still resonate strongly among the American public.

The response on Twitter has been overwhelmingly negative toward the anchor.

MSNBC digital producer Jamil Smith said on Twitter, "I get that she meant well, but no."

Emma Jordan-Simpson, an executive pastor at Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, posted, "We must not tolerate media calling up water cannons, dogs, gas chambers or other weapons used to brutalize oppressed peoples."

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