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Ferguson Ablaze After Michael Brown Verdict: 'This Is a War Zone Now'

By Paul Lewis and Jon Swaine, Guardian UK

25 November 14

Grand jury’s ruling in the Michael Brown case sparks scenes of frenzied looting, violence and burning in Missouri and across the US

ires were raging when a man with a scarf wrapped around his face walked out of the smoke and looked around him in disbelief. “All they had to do was give us justice and look at this,” he said. “This a war zone now.”

Chaos broke out on Ferguson’s West Florissant Avenue after it was announced that Darren Wilson, a white police officer, would not be charged for shooting dead Michael Brown, a 18-year-old African-American, earlier this year.

“It feels like someone took a pitchfork, stuck it in a fire and put it right in my stomach and then twisted it,” the man in the bandana said of the grand jury’s decision.

Outside Papa John’s Pizza, a man in a military-style balaclava scuffled with a woman who was trying to stop him from breaking in. Six men climbed out of the broken window of the next building, a tax office. Across the road, people were emptying Fashions R Boutique. Thick black smoke billowing from three blazing auto parts garages blurred the silhouettes of looters.

Seconds later, three armoured personnel carriers marked Swat emerged from the smoke. Officers carrying assault weapons clung on to the sides. Police officers in green military-style fatigues pointed their rifles at men and women who scattered into side streets.

Two looters were pinned to the ground. “We were just looking inside,” one of them, a woman, told the armed police. One officer shouted at a reporter: “Back up! This is a secure area.”

It was one of the few examples on Monday of police exerting control over crowds of mostly young men and women who rampaged through the streets of Ferguson, Missouri.

Despite National Guard soldiers arriving last week as reinforcements, and months of preparation in advance of expected protests over the decision on Brown’s death, police were unable to contain disorder on the fringes of the city.

In a bid to quell the unrest elsewhere in Ferguson, they flooded streets, firing teargas and hornet’s nest sting grenades, which disperse rubber bullets and a toxic chemical powder.

Those efforts occasionally prompted crowds to melt away into side streets, but they quickly reappeared in groups of a hundred strong and more.

At 1.30am, amid escalating unrest, Jon Belmar, the St Louis County police chief, told a press conference: “Unless we bring 10,000 policemen in here, I don’t think we can prevent folks that are destroying a community.”

He said police had arrested 29 people. There were no reports of deaths, but several reports of injuries.

In surrounding towns, groups of people were casually walking in and out of mobile phone stores, supermarkets and pharmacies and looting. Often they seemed to be burning down the buildings once they were empty.

A block north from where the Swat teams made their brief stop, a woman and man stood in front of a burning building, arms aloft. “This is America. I am a citizen of America,” the woman shouted. “I want justice and peace.”

She was interrupted by a man walking past. “Don’t burn this down,” he said. “Let’s go burn down their neighbourhoods.”

He didn’t say who “they” were, but throughout the looting, arson and the attacks on police there was a thread that seemed to unite the protesters in their violence. Brown’s name was mentioned occasionally. Often anger was expressed with the more succinct “fuck the police”. Some of those taking part in the riots stepped aside to explain their actions.

“What is going on here is real simple,” said DeAndre Rogers Austin, 18, who was with his two younger sisters. “We told them no justice, no peace. We didn’t get our justice, so they don’t get their peace. We’re fucking shit up over here. Plain and simple.”

The violence in Ferguson began shortly after 8.15pm on Monday outside the police department, scene of countless protests and demonstrations in recent months. Hundreds had gathered for the grand jury’s announcement, and many clustered around a car that had been parked in the middle of the road, blasting NPR’s All Things Considered through the roof.

The radio show carried a live feed of a statement on the grand jury’s decision by Bob McCulloch, the St Louis County prosecutor who oversaw the case. The car windows were open and people stood on the roof listening through the sunroof.

McCulloch was only seven minutes into a 20-minute statement when most protesters felt they had the gist. Wilson was not going to be indicted. Dozens got into cars, swearing at police and speeding north. Minutes later, shop fronts and restaurants were attacked and two police cars were set on fire.

“I don’t care if you mad,” said a woman trying to stop young men hurling metal chairs at the windows of Cathy’s Diner. “That is unacceptable.”

Police fired teargas canisters into the crowd, dispersing them north. During one chaotic scene, protesters carried a woman they suspected of suffering a heart attack toward a line of riot police. Video showed officers responding by firing teargas and rubber bullets at the group.

A shopping strip mall further north, near Hereford Avenue, was the scene of frenzied looting. Dollar Tree, VP and Beauty Supply were ransacked. Shop N Save, which had a line of burly security guards inside, was left untouched.

Moments later, the crowd had switched to a branch of Walgreens, a pharmacy chain. Cars were pulled up and trunks filled with detergent, cigarillos, towels, candies, bottles of bleach. When word went around that someone had torched an aisle, scores more looters rushed in. They entered even as smoke came billowing out of the doors.

More looting and rioting broke out across other suburbs of St Louis through the early hours of Tuesday morning. In Dellwood, a row of parked cars were set alight beside a gas station that was on fire. By the early hours of Tuesday morning there were reports that Dellwood’s City Hall was also in flames.

Nearby, a large branch of Boost Mobile was being gutted by looters, despite having been boarded up in anticipation. One plank of plywood had been pulled off. Another had been graffitied with the message “Free Phones”.

Teargas was also fired during clashes between police and protesters in the Shaw neighbourhood of St Louis, where 17-year-old VonDerrit Myers was killed by a police officer in October. Protesters claimed that police raided a cafe that was designated as a “safe house” and fired teargas inside.

Gunshots were fired throughout the night. When the sound was close enough, riot police and reporters crouched or shelter behind cars and buildings.

When the noise was more distant, the clashes continued unabated, a popping sound in the distance. Police said least 150 gunshots has been fired by rioters by 1.30am. Many more were heard subsequently.

St Louis County’s police chief, said that firefighters had to pull out of some areas because “gunfire got too bad”.

“What I’ve seen tonight is worst than the worst night that we had in August,” said Belmar. At least a dozen buildings had been set on fire, he added, and an elderly man carjacked and run over.

“We have no loss of life. But I am disappointed the evening turned out this way.”