Jimmy Muhammad, 32, said he and his colleagues had just fended off a gang of masked young men with guns who tried to break into his uncle’s store, United Mart, in the 10300 block of West Florissant. The front door was shattered.
“It’s bad,” said Muhammad, still gripping a pistol. Sirens blasted from all the police vehicles speeding by to other crime scenes. “I don’t blame the police, but they can’t keep up.”
Silas Chung, 53, didn’t get to his small store, Up N Up Fashion, in the 11600 block of West Florissant, soon enough to defend it.
“I feel bad,” said Chung, cleaning up the damage. “This world is getting worse and worse.”
via Violence breaks out near site of vigil for teen killed by police : News.
It never fails. There always be some idiots that will take advantage of a legitimate community action and turn it into a pillage and burn situation because they can.
At the end, it is you, your gun and the hope that the idiots understand it is not worth it to lose their lives to a bottle of booze or some other item. And to hide behind an honest protest is cowardly and demeans the intent of it.
UPDATE: If there was a doubt about the quality of the felonious jackasses looting, this was painted on the wall of a store burned down.
This was pretty predictable…and I don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of looting and rioting.
As long as people have a sincere greivance against the police, and feel like they’re not being heard, there will be escalation of their demonstrations.
And there will always be the opportunists waiting for the anonymity of the crowd to get away with looting, violence, and mayhem.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was part of the plan.
I seriously doubt this is a legitimate grievance against the police. And I seriously doubt that any of the rioters were previously but unsuccessfully trying to be heard.
It is, however, an excellent illustration of just how thin that veneer of civilization is.
So far I have not seen the neighborhoodroadblocks such as went up after Hurricane Katrina, but then I’m not keeping up with this too much. (BTDT too many times with the Civil Rights riots. Learned then that the only effective response is overwhelming force, and that generally speaking the elected officials and bureaucrats o not have what it takes to give the order for that.)
stay safe.