Darwin Claims Famous Ferguson Rioter

One of the Ferguson rioters good Samaritans immortalized in an award-winning photograph has died. According to NBC News, Edward Crawford shot himself while riding in the back seat of a moving vehicle. At least that’s the story as told by the guys in the front seat at the time.

“The victim began expressing he was distraught over personal matters to the witnesses,” said the police department’s Public Information Officer Leah Freeman. “The witnesses heard the victim rummaging in the backseat, then heard a gunshot and observed the victim had sustained a gunshot wound to the head.”

During the 2014 Ferguson riots, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer snapped a striking  image of the patriotic Mr. Crawford. The iconic photo caught the moment he helped authorities by tossing a burning device away from an orderly troop of widows and orphans on their way to Sunday school. Undoubtedly good people risked great injury to themselves while simply going about their business had it not been for the quick-thinking bravery of Mr. Crawford.

Shockingly, he did not receive an award for his heroism. In fact, the local constabulary arrested him. The charges? Throwing a flaming object towards police and knocking a police officer to the ground. Mr. Crawford did, however, garner an interview with the Post-Dispatch in which he discussed his civic-mindedness.

Here’s what he told reporters at the local paper per NBC News:

But Crawford told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2015 that he was trying to protect people from the tear gas. and that police were 30 or 40 yards away: “I can’t even throw a baseball that far, let alone a burning can of tear gas.”

“I didn’t throw a burning can back at police,” said Crawford. “I threw it out of the way of children.”

Mr. Crawford no doubt should have been given the key to the city for his selfless good deed.

Sadly, with Mr. Crawford’s death, we’ll never know what other good deeds he may have done for the community.

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77 COMMENTS

  2. He did his civic duty and no doubt saved countless future victims of crime and mindless violence when he killed himself in that car. So, yes, give him the key to the city. And bury it with him.

  6. I actually knew this guy and he did indeed throw it away from children….in the midst of chaos it’s hard to think clearly, he was probably just thinking got to get this away from the children….i don’t know for 100% but it’s a thought

      • I agree with that, but at the end of the day there was kids there and he helped out

        • I don’t think I would admit to knowing him, or any other POS that was out there after dark. Especially on the front lines. The only decent people were attempting (successfully I might add) to defend them and theirs from the human garbage that was burning buildings to the ground, shooting at the firemen who were attempting to save the businesses, and looting the rest.

          Let’s just assume he did actually do it to save some kids. Let’s remember what everyone in that mob did the rest of the night. I do feel sorry for the overwhelming majority of Ferguson residents, they are decent folks and had nothing to do with any of that crap. I have heard from far too many of them, “Why didn’t the police stop this? Why wasn’t the Natty Guard brought in? With ammo for their guns?”

          First step after the QT was burned should have been fire hoses and dogs. The second step should have been bullet hoses and body bags.

        • Uh huh, couldn’t have just kicked it to the side and hustled the kids to safety. He had to pick it up and hurl it back at police with all his might. Go take your bullcrap elsewhere.

      • The domestic terrorist organization BLM got its start that night. What most folks don’t know to this day- but it was started by white people. And it wasn’t started because of police brutality or justice reform. It was started for the sole purpose of engaging the minority voters in the last presidential election. They didn’t expect the backlash. It was severe. The reverse racism was so clear that even white democrats that voted twice for Obama turned away from the Democrat Terrorists™. The election happened 7 months ago- and we don’t hear anything from BLM anymore. Why? Because the white people pushing it have no reason to. The election is over and the analytics are easy to decipher. It was a losing strategy. I feel bad for the cops that got murdered along the way. Not an ounce of empathy for garbage like this guy in the story.

        • Christ almighty there is NO SUCH THING AS REVERSE RACISM!!!! Racism is racism and these days it’s more the minorities that are racist against white folks. It’s not reverse racism. It’s still just plain ‘ole racism.

        • I’m (fairly) sure we all know that, it’s just been pushed so long and that the only people who even can be racist are white, that many of us (myself included) have fallen into the trap from time to time.

    • Yeah.
      And he knocked the LEO down because the LEO was illegally targeting a child (black, of course) with his firearm.
      All of this begs the question: Was he in the riot because he thought that maybe, just maybe, some children might be there, and he could do this heroic act to save them?
      Somehow, I seriously doubt that.

    • Barry, with all due respect, you do not wear a mask to riots unless you intend on doing something illegal and want to try to hide your identity. There are no children any where near him in the photo and if there were, he would only have had to kick it away a short distance. He was not a hero but just another rioter taking advantage of the situation. But I am certain that you would not have first hand knowledge of the situation as you appear to be a responsible and fine citizen who would never have been at a riot scene. I base my comment on the individuals who(m) you know (knew).

    • Once he realized this photo would ID him I’m sure he decided that was the moment he was saving children. LOL. And he mistakenly threw it back at the police too.

  8. If that really was a grenade and not a Molotov cocktail, it looks a whole lot more like thermite than tear gas. Cop grabbed the wrong one on the way out the door? I would probably never pick up a lit thermite grenade. Actually, I definitely would never do that.

    • Looks like the stuff the FBI used to toast the Branch Davidans. Imagine a few dozen of those in a large wood framed structure.

    • Picking up a lit thermite grenade would prevent you from ever picking anything up again with whatever fingers you used, since your hands will have at best charred stumps. Tear gas uses solvents, some of which are flammable, and will not melt through steel like thermite will. Based on what I’ve read, he wasn’t a bad guy though.

    • I have never heard of thermite grenades being part of a LEO’s loadout, except in certain, very rare scenarios.
      During a riot? What possible use would there be for them to be issued?
      What the pic seems to show is a gas grenade.

  9. *the following is a joke*

    He needed some gun control, to stop him from killin himself, he needed a background check, he needed a “cooling off” period before he had access to that gun, he needed to be on a commonsense (HAAHHA) gun registry. The poor man finally closed the mythic gun loophole, by completing the circuit.

    In all honesty, suicide, if that is what it is, is terrible. As bad as life can get, just do some happy smoke, go dancing with wild 20 yr old girls, just get outside of your own head for a bit and you will be amazed at how quickly life gets back to being beautiful!

    • If the “suicide” was because he was distraught, depression was probably there.
      Depression, like alcohol, lies to you.
      Alcohol says, “You’re better with me. You’re more handsome/pretty with me. People like you more with me.”
      Depression says, “No one else will understand. There’s not much you can do. Maybe death is the only way out.”

      Of course, we only have the word of the “witnesses” as to what happened. The “witnesses” aren’t named, so we have no ides as to their credibility. Where the gun came from might be known from tracing serial number, but how this gun came to be in the car may never be known. Who was actually holding gun also may never be known.

    • he died
      As one that had been studied in his death,
      To throw away the dearest thing he owed
      As ’twere a careless trifle. –Malcolm, in Macbeth, Act I, Scene IV

      And it is truth, that the same disregard for his own life by a young man can be either noble or shameful, depending on the cause that in his mind demanded the act. We seem to have a run on the shameful version lately.

  11. I’m sensing a little bit of “sarcasm” in this article. Hmmmm……maybe it’s just me? ?

  12. Good, one less violent thug poisoning this nation. I’d say at least he’d have some good organs. But ghetto trash like that always end up having some disease or something.

    You know once upon a time I was such a kind person. But 8 years of ‘hope and change’ burned that out of my like a half dozen runs of chemotherapy.

  15. Damn lucky he didn’t catch those dreds on fire right then. Anybody remember what happened to Michael Jackson in that Pepsi commercial?

      • Richard said the explosion and fire was the result of dunking oreo cookies in a glass of milk.

      • Actually, before the invention of crack, people (like Richard Pryor for instance) did this thing with coke called “freebasing”,.Without getting too org-chemy, it’s taking the cocaine hydrochloride (which is what some folks snort) and removing the salt part leaving the base form of the alkaloid – which passes more easily through the blood brain barrier – getting you more high, faster. Not to mention smoking v. insufflating gives a lot more surface area of ingress.

        Anyway, one would use some chemicals (not teaching a class) and then some others, which were quite flammable. Naturally, when you need/want that high, you’re often lacking in patience for those flammable chems to evaporate.

        Which is what happened to Mr. Pryor.

        The More You Know – :rainbow:

  17. Yeah. It’s unfortunate, but these movements are unrealistic – a lot of people can’t comfortably afford to be out doing that stuff. You kind of have to be pretty wealthy and/or connected to live the neo-lib ideal. Not necessarily a real trustifarian, but at least have a six figure house with white picket fence to retreat to. Otherwise you’d be living chaotically, from hand to mouth with legal problems you can’t handle.

  18. The murder rate in the Ferguson/St. Louis area will drop accordingly with the timely passing of this POS “Son of Obama” and pal of St. Swishers. Good riddance, let me know where they dump his remains so I can urinate and defecate upon his grave.

  19. Quite a few of the thu… er… citizens associated with the rio… er protests in Ferguson ended up dead under mysterious circumstances. Weird how such upstanding, moral individuals would all fall prey to what looks like gang and drug-related violence.

    Such a shame, they were doing such a good job burning the city into non-violence.

  20. I am kind of glad he self destructed eliminating the cost to us taxpayers who were working instead of rioting while waiting for their government handouts. No coincidence right? BS.

    • LOL because TTAG is more like “the truth about hillbilly Internet tough guys”

      • PC, that’s a cheap shot, no? TTAG is, above all, notable by the diversity of its viewers and commentating participants. That photo is here for the same reason we’ll see many things alight on the 11 O’clock news….’If it burns, it earns.”

        • TTAG is full of racism in the comments and authors no. I’m just poking fun but TTAG has zero credibility and is completely biased.

      • “To be a Chicano is to be proud, and drive up and down the boulevard, in big cars, low to the ground.”

  23. You jackwagons are out of control. This is a story that never should have been published here. The guy commits suicide and this is the crap you say. Yeah, none of these comments are going to come back to gun owners.

    Now sub in bob owens for the person you’re talking about.

    Grow up!

    Really @Farago, this is where this blog is going?

    • Not only did he allegedly kill himself but without a doubt all the other nice, church going boys in that car have some degree of permanent deafness from the gun shot.

  24. So what’s the firearm angle here? Seems like this post is either celebrating a suicide or celebrating a homicide. Isn’t this the evil cousin of waving the bloody t-shirt? Was this guy like a convicted killer/pedophile/Nazi? Seems in very poor taste, the sort of thing I would expect the antis to do.

  26. I’d say that the chances he was murdered by the wholesome, upstanding citizens in the front seat hover at around 99%.

  27. I agree with the “not for this site” and the “disrespecting a needless death by suicide” comments. Other than the fact he “used a gun”, rather than a knife or a rope or chemical, etc, to kill himself, what does it have to do with The Truth About Guns? And, agree with the overall issue of Ferguson or not, I have to admit it is a striking image he managed to record.

  28. Aside from the fact that this article has no business being posted here, what does Darwin have to do with someone committing suicide?

    • The comments don’t seem celebratory to me. Just expressive of how indifferent we are about the death of a degenerate. If anything is being celebrated, it is that nothing at all was lost.

  32. really enjoy the gun articles….no so much racist right wingers enjoying someones death….

  33. I just have one question, was Mr. Crawford a hobby anarchist or did he just get caught up in the moment? Alas, we will never know. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.

  34. Interesting how many comments are panning this post. Even more interesting is that I have no idea who the people are who are so concerned about this post.

    Wait. Isn’t “concern” an adjective? Yes, I seem to recall that word used in connection with grotesque creatures who live under bridges.

  35. Damned shame, just seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh well, let us name a park after him. I guess a lot of suicide people just jump in a car with their buds and do it in the back seat? If it was accidental he should have brushed up on his firearm safety, Too late.

  36. His form is really bad. Stride length is too short, head in a bad position, hips are not leading, his elbow is low causing his arm to drag, and he really flies open on the front side. I suppose he was the only relief pitcher they had available that night – I can’t imagine what his ERA must have been.

  38. Snark & sarcasm aside, he was photographed throwing an incendiary device (Molotov cocktail) not a tear gas canister as was misreported in the publisher’s photograph subtitle.

    The same publisher printed an image showing an actual tear gas canister on the ground dispensing clouds of gas. Device form and function, as shown between images, is entirely different.

    No brainer.

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