Chris D’Angelo As a native St. Louisan, the situation in Ferguson, Missouri has hit close to home, and left me feeling upset, confused and, at times, even angry. How did it come to this, and what will it take to
Chris D’Angelo
As a native St. Louisan, the situation in Ferguson, Missouri has hit close to home, and left me feeling upset, confused and, at times, even angry.
How did it come to this, and what will it take to end the mayhem?
Old friends still living in the city have posted images and videos reminiscent of a war zone — tear gas and flash grenades being thrown into crowded streets. African American children holding signs that read, “Don’t shoot!”
My father grew up in the nearby suburb of Jennings. One of his childhood friends still lives in Ferguson and, despite never owning one before, has resorted to keeping a loaded gun on his bedside table.
A friend of my mother’s recently told her she’s terrified to leave her home for fear of what may happen to it if she does. However, she also can’t stand staying inside it.
People are afraid.
“It’s nuts,” one St. Louis friend wrote me. “Basically every time you think it’s about to settle a bit, it blows up again.”
“Heartsick over fatal police shooting of unarmed youth #mikebrown in #Ferguson = a shot now reverberating nationally,” another posted on Facebook.
While details of the fatal shooting of unarmed African American teenager Mike Brown continue to emerge, a few things have become unmistakably clear.
First, as one article in Reuters put it, the shooting and subsequent protests “represent another troubled chapter for a metropolitan area with a painful track record on race.”
Today, as Reuters reported, St. Louis remains one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States, according to a study of Census Data by researchers at Brown University and Florida State University.
Secondly, is that the Ferguson Police Department has done nothing to help itself in the wake of the fatal Aug. 9 shooting.
On Friday, after a week of silence, police finally identified the officer involved in the shooting as Darren Wilson.
At the same time, they released photos and videos reportedly showing the 18-year-old victim’s role in the robbery of a convenient store earlier that day.
Later, however, the Ferguson police chief said Wilson was not aware that Brown was a suspect in the case when he stopped him and a companion “because they were walking down the street blocking traffic,” as reported by The New York Times.
“The manner in which Ferguson officials disclosed the information Friday, which included a police report on the robbery but no new details about last Saturday’s shooting, set off renewed anger among residents and quickly overshadowed the release of the officer’s name,” NYT reported.
People, including myself, need more information about what happened during the confrontation between Wilson and Brown, and not so much about the unrelated theft of cigars earlier that day.
Finally — and I say this from more than 4,000 miles away, having not witnessed the rioting for myself — it seems the choice of police tactics thus far has only added fuel to the fire.
I’m not saying police have an easy job here. Looting, violence and vandalism on the part of protesters can’t be tolerated. But neither can excessive and unnecessary force by police.
I think Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said it best: “We need to demilitarize this situation — this kind of response by the police has become the problem instead of the solution.
I obviously respect law enforcement’s work to provide public safety, but my constituents are allowed to have peaceful protests, and the police need to respect that right and protect that right.”
Thursday night was the first peaceful night in Ferguson in days. I hope to wake up to similar news this weekend. I think everyone in St. Louis — law enforcement and protesters — can do better to achieve peace in Ferguson.
