Sirens, helicopters and commanding voices over megaphones could easily be heard in the homes surrounding the streets within walking distance of West Florissant after a third day of protesting against the senseless killing of unarmed teen Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson police.
The looting and property damage that occurred along the street a day before didn’t continue, but things were by no means business as usual.
“Go back in your homes,” police dressed in full combat gear shouted while pointing guns in residential backyards – before following through on a threat to release another round of tear gas.
Some did. Others couldn’t.
According to several reports, plenty had come from other areas to participate in protests and were stranded. Intersections leading to West Florissant were blocked as police from a host of municipalities were on guard.
What could best be described as a “by any means necessary” approach to ensure crowd control seemed to be the agenda for Monday night.
Residents and media were collateral damage.
Reporters coughed their way through live coverage and sought cover from rubber bullets before ultimately being told to “fall back.”
While the approach was effective in curbing the acting out of aggression on area businesses and neighborhoods (at least in North County), it fueled the fire of growing tensions between the young people in the area and the police – which was brought them to the streets of West Florissant in the first place.
Social media channels were transformed into hubs for citizen journalism. 140 character play-by-play spot news features flooded Twitter. Facebook and Instagram were filled with images shared to showcase what was often described as excessive force by police.
Video shorts were shared through Vine and Instagram as well with people in the trenches – 21st Ward Alderman Antonio French and rapper Tef Poe were among the most consistent among those on the scene not tied to a media outlet, while KMOV’s Brittany Noble and 100.3 FM’s Tammie Holland caught hold of the story early on.
Thanks to his constant presence and consistent social media posts, French has emerged as a national source for the turn of events. He has appeared on CNN and MSNBC.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, the community doesn’t know exactly what happened but those people that do think they know what happened have been very angry over the past few days and that anger is very palpable,” French told CNN Monday morning.
By Monday evening, police behavior made for the hot topic among those on the scene.
French’s photo and video footage from his Twitter account was being disseminated by socially conscious celebrities, blogs and web sites.
He showed tanks, guns drawn and a dense cloud of tear gas that had protesters running for cover.
By this point French was joined other outlets from across the nation had reporters on the scene –the Washington Post and New York Times were among them.
From these news institutions came as much illustrations of being caught in the crossfire of police’s methods to maintain order as capturing the tension and frustration from a community reacting to yet another senseless death of an unarmed young black man at the hands of the police.
Monday morning the image of the Ferguson QuickTrip engulfed in flames and businesses gutted by angry looters were among the most compelling and definitive. Tuesday morning it was the burning eyes of those overcome with tear gas and the visible wounds of those hit by rubber bullets of police.
It was by no means a happy medium.
