An unarmed black teen was killed by police officers in Ferguson, Missouri Saturday night. The killing resulted in outrage in the community sparking protests and later violence and looting.
Michael Brown was shot on the evening of September 9th by Ferguson police as he was walking with friends from a local store. According to various reports, Brown was unarmed and had his hands in the air in the universal “I surrender” pose. However, according to authorities, Brown pushed an officer as he was trying to get out of his vehicle and subsequently reached for the officer’s weapon. However, witnesses state that Brown did nothing to instigate the shooting and appeared to be surrendering to police when he was killed.
A medical examiner will issue a ruling soon on how many times Brown was actually shot.
Saturday morning, a peaceful vigil was held in honor of the slain teen with protests gathering in front of the Ferguson Police Department. The scene was different Sunday evening as what began as a vigil for Brown turned into unrest ending with looting arson and 32 people being arrested.
Brown’s mother was visibly emotional and distraught while expressing her views to a reporter:
“You took my son away from me! You know how hard it was for me to get him to stay in school and graduate? You know how many black men graduate? Not many!” she said. “Because you bring them down to this type of level where they feel they don’t got nothing to live for anyway! (They feel) they gonna try to take me out anyway!”
Police were scene with riot gear at the vigil as various protesters kneeled before them to symbolize surrender. One of the officers can be heard yelling out to protesters to “bring it on you animals”.
The gathering heightened as the protesters became amore intense as windows were broken in stores and looting commenced. The QuikTrip gas station is where the incident was said to have occurred and that was also looted as well an ATM dragged out of the store.
(CNN)