When Ferguson, MO police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, the town erupted into violence. Law enforcement’s response to protesters and looters triggered a debate about police tactics and militarization. Race hustlers moved in. News commentators commented. And then . . . relative calm. The peace shattered last night, after person or persons unknown torched a makeshift memorial to the dead teen. “At least two protesters were arrested and some businesses were damaged Tuesday night,” usatoday.com reports. Reading between the lines at stltoday.com, it seems the cops have learned from their previous mistakes . . .

Windows were smashed at one shop and a fire was believed set at another business during protests in Ferguson Tuesday night.

At least three people were arrested early Wednesday morning as police moved in to break up protesters.

Early Wednesday, after police had blocked off West Florissant Avenue and the entrance to the Canfield Green apartments, shots were heard in the area. No one was reported hit.

Windows were smashed early in the evening at Beauty Town at West Florissant Avenue and Canfield Drive, and protesters gathered shortly afterward, reaching as many as 200 about 10:30 p.m.

Police officials, including Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar and St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson, went to the scene. The crowd eventually dwindled to about 50 to 75 shortly before midnight. A line of about a dozen police faced the remaining protesters . . .

Some Ferguson police in the area were wearing their new body cameras, but some were not. When asked, some said they had been on duty with their cameras on for as much as 20 hours and the batteries had died.

usatoday.com reports that the cops withdrew from the protestors, putting a parking lot between the two groups. The police’s restraint and improved command and control are all very well and good, but the potential for a full-scale riot remains. Police Officer Darren Wilson has not been charged in the Brown shooting – a sore point for “community activists” who’ve repeatedly and publicly pronounced him guilty of murder.

This ain’t over, and it will not end well.

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62 COMMENTS

  2. Nothing like experience to help you figure out what the best tactics are. Be assured that a couple of years of relative peace will result in all the lessons learned being unlearned. That is why we used to call the Joint Staff Lessons Learned database the Lessons Relearned database.

  3. This is just people acting trashy at this point.

    How about letting the justice system work, huh? Nope, nope. Instead folks would rather protest. Riot. Go toe to toe with city officials and judicial system employees.

    But I’m not condoning the burning of this kid’s memorial, either. I’m sure a nice bunch of “upstanding” folks took flame to that, too. Trash is as trash does.

    I’m telling you right now. This cop’s not gonna get charged and it’s gonna be a damned war zone over here in St Louis. My bug out bags are ready. Lol

    • There is nothing wrong with the protesting. They have the right to voice their opinion. It is the burning, looting and violence that is the issue.

      I remember reading after the initial violence that one of the main issues is the lack of opportunities in this community. After several nights of burning and looting productive, in some cases locally owned, businesses it isn’t hard to see why entrepreneurs aren’t beating down the door to invest in Ferguson. Who would open a business in a community like this?

      • Who would open a business in Ferguson? Exactly.

        I foresee a new ghetto in St. Louis, FAR surpassing the God-awful reputation of the arch-ghetto of East St. Louis, Illinois.

        Twenty years from now this place will be a war zone. Homes worth $10K. Poor, poor infrastructure. You name it.

        A damned shame.

        • I used to think the same thing: “What a damn shame.”

          After seeing the results of 50 years’ of race grievance politics in Detroit, I now say “Well, that’s what they wanted. So that’s what they got.” Let ’em live in the circumstances they created. The productive people will move away, the race-obsessed grievance industry will have another blighted community to call home and it will continue ever thus.

          At some point, the buildings in the inner core will be burned down and the land will return to farms or woodlands. Just as is happening in Detroit.

    • I will not take that bet. I was thinking the same thing. However what I wonder is who will get blamed? The candles or the police?

  7. It’s kind of reversed now; when blacks in the past got “out of line”; the whites would riot, burn down black businesses, attack black people and do some lynching.

    Now when white people get “out of line” blacks will riot, burn down white or Asian businesses and beat up white people, some times beating them to death.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    • I suppose but it doesn’t seam that this mob has cared too much about who owns what property. Pointed violence can be useful but random violence makes little sense when you are given the “injustice” reasoning. If they riot and burn for injustice you think they would see the irony of torching the property of innocent people…

    • Now when people get “out of line” blacks will riot, burn down their local businesses and beat up people…

      FIFY

  8. So the cops should do nothing to avoid looking militaristic or authoritarian? Got it. And does anyone think the burner was looking for an excuse to pillage? I think the race pimps won’t accept anything other than a murder charge for the cop. Even then it won’t help much. Good luck in Missouri…

    • I was thinking along the same lines; how convenient for the race agitators and hoodlums that the memorial went up in flames, interestingly in our video obsessed culture, without any imaging data as to how.

    • Not likely. There is always that one fool that will push a carrier to defend, and all hell would break loose. The MSM will paint it as racist gun nut executes peaceful protester…and the rest is history.

    • Yeah I think there’s hope. Out of control cops wearing jungle camo in a 100% urban jurisdiction would probably think twice about violating some rights if there was a real chance they’d get shot on the spot before their public union could save them.

  10. Most important take-away from that story…….

    …the need to buy spare batteries.

    Make sure cops everywhere are monitored, tracked, and recorded every moment that they are on duty.

    • That’s what I was thinking. Regardless of the outcome of the case involving the shooting, don’t the people living in the neighborhood of ferguson step back after breaking and burning property and ever think to themselves that maybe, just maybe this is why we can’t have nice things? I know it’s really the fault of a few, but you would think they would be turned into social pariahs and driven out of town.

  12. The town is lost, everyone knows why. It was chickens**t to torch the memorial, but the savages in Ferguson were just looking for an excuse to act criminally.

  14. Is it possible that the memorial to the “gentle giant” (cough, cough) was burned as a protest by one of the storeowners he assaulted, or one of the folks who owned a business that was torched in the first “protests”?

    In which case, should we be sympathetic towards THIS set of protesters who use fire to express their feelings?

    I mean, if fire is a legitimate form of protest for one group, why not for another?

  16. The grand jury is still sifting through facts, and I fully expect that Officer Wilson will be indicted (a finding of probable cause being probable).

    If that’s not enough for the people of Ferguson, then let them burn the town to the ground, and good riddance.

    • …nd I fully expect that Officer Wilson will be indicted (a finding of probable cause being probable)

      Out of curiosity: based on what evidence, and indicted of what crime?

      There are very few things known as fact:

      1) Brown assaulted Wilson
      2) Brown attempted to take Wilson’s firearm
      3) Brown fled after the assault
      4) Wilson gave chase
      5) All gun shot wounds on Brown are on his front
      6) Brown approached Wilson after Wilson gave chase, causing Wilson to have to backtrack while shooting

      There are various actual and claimed eye-witness accounts, many of which that have changed materially, that are of varying authenticity (and in some cases, dubious, if not demonstrably false), and with varying corroboration to known physical evidence.

      And finally: there is the fact that Wilson, with the approval of his lawyer, testified before the grand jury – something that would almost certainly not be done if the lawyer believed Wilson had any chance of being indicted.

  17. It was definitely the man! Pouring gas on our shrine to the Giant Thug Mike Brown! We need to riot! It was state sponsored ARSON!

    Because candles and plush toys couldn’t possibly self ignite.

  18. The Westside of Chicago NEVER came back from the 1968 riots. It’s not just white & asian store owners being targeted. It’s any business in Ferguson Missouri. How many black folks lost jobs so far? And how many outsider lowlifes are contributing to the criminal behavior?

    • Exactly. I would hazard that not a single ‘white’ business got torched. In recent incidents like the Rodney King riots, most of the damage was done to BLACK/minority property. As one poster put it, they’re crapping where they eat. Growing up in inner city Chicago, I wondered why there were so many burned out buildings in our neighborhood and so few stores and businesses. It was only later that I learned that ‘we’ ie the black community, burned them all up in race-riots. It made me sad to be black.

  19. Folks,just for you I am taking my life in my hands. I have planted my ass on a barstool in Ferguson Mo and am enjoying a very fine crafted oatmeal chocolate stout. Just to give you an on the scene report. I hope to survive long enough to finish this beer and maybe a couple more. S Florissant Road never seemed better. Next maybe I’ll go to W Florissant for some bbq at Reds or some soul food at Sweety Pies. The Horror.

  20. Long story, short: people were too stupid to realize the inevitable outcome of putting a bunch of candles in such close proximity to a large assortment of easily flammable items – then when the inevitable happened, they video-recorded it instead of trying to put it out, and then blamed it on the police.

  21. Why do you automatically assume foul play or that “persons” did anything? The “memorial” was a pile of garbage and half-empty liquor bottles, surrounded by lit candles. One could have fallen over.

    First instinct- blame a white man then steal some hair weaves.

    • Alan Keyes, Alan West, Thomas Sowell, Condoleeza Rice, Mia Love…and those were just the ones that popped into my head in the time it took me to click “reply”.

  28. I am pretty sure that all one can do now is Laough at these idiots in Ferguson.
    Come on now, destroying a business in YOUR community because some one
    set something on fire.
    There is no excuse for behavior we continue to see in these mainly one race towns.
    I am still waiting for the asian, the mexican, the polish etc. towns to destroy a business
    in THEIR community.
    So what is it about this one that is SO special.

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