FERGUSON, Mo.—There is apparently no real reason for the massive, overly-armed police presence on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson except as a deterrent to looting or rioting.
And in the opinions of most of the peaceful protestors, that means there’s no reason for such a presence at all.
Jack and Chris have been in Ferguson, Missouri, for most of the day. And a 7 p.m. tonight, while sitting at McDonald’s on West Florissant and Lane, where they have a reliable wifi hotspot, they suddenly learned what some of the problem over the past few days has been….since there hasn’t been any looting or rioting on that avenue, at least recently.
And from what they’ve seen so far, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be looting or rioting anytime soon…but the police presence, with SWATted-up state and county boys and who knows what else, isn’t comforting to anyone, even though the guys are reporting that the police are being friendly to protestors at the scene, as you can see from about an hour ago:
They even grinned for the guys shooting stills:
But the ones that were behind the QT (if I’m understanding the locale right) weren’t very happy to be photographed:
Notice all that gear? Why do they have that? It’s not like they have a whole lot to fear out there:
Maybe that shirt is ‘threatening.’ We’ve known of people in Lawrence County who’ve been TASERed nearly to death for a lot less.
Nevertheless, at a few minutes before 7, the riot gear-crowd blocked off both ends of West Florissant Avenue, where people have been peacefully assembling all day, because apparently, “dark” now equates to “threat.”
And so now, Jack and Chris are stuck on West Florissant—literally, as cops made it a point to block the car in—for no obvious reason, as it doesn’t appear that anything any worse is going to go on after sunset than it did all day.
Please hit the live feed; they’re having trouble with communications still, likely the doing of deliberate service disruptions, but they’re popping up feeds as they can. And stay with us…we don’t know when they’ll be back, but we’re going to cover this for several hours at least.