Ferguson death seen as U.S. tipping point
There was little violence after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer last July. Peace prevailed when at least four other unarmed black males were killed by police in recent months, from New York to Los Angeles.
Then Michael Brown was gunned down in Ferguson, Mo. And waves of rioting have convulsed the St. Louis suburb for days.
The response to Brown’s death turned violent because of a convergence of factors, observers say, including the stark nature of the killing in broad daylight, an aggressive police response to protests, a mainly black city being run by white officials — and the cumulative effect of killing after killing after killing of unarmed black males.
“People are tired of it,” said Kevin Powell, president of the BK Nation advocacy group, who organized peaceful protests after the Florida neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman was found innocent in Martin’s killing.
Powell is headed to Ferguson as an organizer and peace activist after the killing of Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old who was shot by white police officer Darren Wilson. Battles have raged in Ferguson almost nightly, with stores looted, police firing tear gas and rubber bullets, people tossing Molotov cocktails, and dozens of arrests.
When police first confronted protesters with armored military vehicles, assault weapons and dogs, it reminded Powell of images from the 1960s civil rights movement.
“Just a reckless disregard for the safety of the community they’re supposed to be protecting,” he said. “They just don’t care, it feels like they don’t care at all.”
Brown was killed Aug. 9. The riots erupted Aug. 10, when more than two dozen businesses were damaged and looted. Some of the rioters, according to media reports, are hardened, violent young men who speak of seeking “justice,” which is often confused with revenge. Some are coming to Ferguson from out of town, whether to show solidarity or fight the crackdown, or possibly by the media spectacle. Police have reported arrests of people from New York and California.
“It feels like a turning point,” said Blair L.M. Kelley, a history professor at North Carolina State University. “I think because so many black men die at the hands of the state.”
Kelley and Powell both said that the nature of Brown’s killing fueled anger: He was shot six times in broad daylight, in the middle of the street, in his own housing complex.
The last riots over an unarmed black death were in 2009, when Oscar Grant was killed by a white officer while lying face down on a train platform in Oakland, California. Hundreds of businesses were damaged, cars were overturned and smashed, and more than 100 people were arrested.
Similar circumstances led to unrest in Cincinnati in 2001 and St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1996. One of America’s worst race riots was in 1992 in Los Angeles, after the acquittal of four white officers who beat black motorist Rodney King.
“Riots erupt when all other options have been closed,” said Cathy Schneider, an American University professor who studies race riots. “When people really feel vulnerable in the face of police violence and local authorities are totally impervious to community demands.”
Ferguson is 67 percent black; the mayor, city council, school board and police force are almost all white.
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