Tear gas, gunfire, arrests: on the streets with protesters in Ferguson
In Ferguson the calm of vigils and services held in memory of Mike Brown in this Missouri community on Sunday have been shattered, again.
At the height of the violence, police in riot gear fired tear gas, and threw stun grenades, accompanied by the piercing broken tones of an ear splitting sound cannon.
Protesters, police say, threw Molotov cocktails. They looted, engaged in vandalism, and fired weapons. Seven or eight were arrested.
The man on whom so much depends in Ferguson, Captain Ron Johnson, said at a press conference in a darkened car park, in the early hours of Monday morning, that these were not spontaneous protests, nor were they civil disobedience. He called them premeditated acts of violence toward business, property and people.
He’s suggested there would be additional measures – although wouldn’t clarify what. We now know the state governor is sending in the National Guard.
As for the protesters, it’s widely reported children were among those tear-gassed when police first pushed back, in the first part of the evening, hours before the midnight curfew was due to take effect.
That initial use of heavy force by the police infuriated protesters, who chanted “hands up, don’t shoot” in memory of the teenager Michael Brown who was killed more than a week ago by a white police officer.
Protesters decried the police response, one woman shouting at a line of riot police: “Why are we fighting one another in our country?”
Another man waved a Palestinian flag, saying: “It’s the same struggle. They’re killing them. It has to stop.”
He asked us, referring to the police: “Do they look friendly to you? No. They murder you.” He said it was ridiculous to set a curfew on the protests, sending the black community to bed for midnight.
For now, the streets are quiet. But no-one expects it to stay that way.
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