She waited more than three hours to ask her simple, yet haunting, question.
In press conferences and meetings with clergy, community organizations and protest leaders leading up to the St. Louis County grand jury decision in the Darren Wilson case, police commanders said they were prepared. They said police officers were going to respect people’s right to express their dissent and work with protestors to identify agitators looking to loot and destroy.
On November 24, after St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced the grand jury’s decision, months of discussions fell apart in minutes. Still today, the community is fighting for answers as to why the promised preemptive measures, Gov. Jay Nixon’s declaration of a State of Emergency and deployment of thousands of National Guardsmen and Missouri State Highway Patrol officers to the area did not protect Ferguson.
“We were told that the National Guard would be up at Buzz Westfall,” Howell said. “But that night, we didn’t have anyone there protecting our property. I’m in that subdivision that’s right where all the fire was.”
Howell said it was but for the grace of God that her home didn’t catch fire after McCulloch announced that there would be no indictment of Wilson, the now-former Ferguson police officer who fatally shot unarmed teen Michael Brown Jr. on August 9.
As outrage gave way to anarchy, more than two dozen fires were set and 12 businesses burned to the ground, while looting and vandalism impacted four square miles around West Florissant Avenue. Most of the damage occurred from West Florissant and Solway avenues in Ferguson stretching north into the neighboring municipality of Dellwood.
“I have a state of emergency!” Janiece Andrews shouted at the top of her lungs, bringing complete silence during the most chaotic moment at the Ferguson Commission meeting on December 1.
“I have a home in Ferguson,” Andrews said. “I have lived there for 20 years. I built a business in Ferguson to give back to my community. I invested everything I had into my business and my community, and so did my family.”
She owned Hidden Treasures antique and resale shop – and watched along with the world via broadcast news as her investment went up in flames.
“I did not receive a call to protect my assets,” Andrews said. “There is no back door on my business. If I had been at my business, I would have been burned alive – I would have been killed,” Andrews said. “I lost everything. And yet I have not received a call from the mayor of this city. I have not received a call from anybody.”
Apocalypse on West Florissant
The street was still smoldering the early Tuesday morning after the arsons as Missouri State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar spoke in somber, defeated tones.
“We didn’t expect this,” they both said at different points in their remarks.
In the thick of things – at around 10:30 p.m. on November 24 – West Florissant Avenue looked like the setting of a post-apocalyptic action drama.
Buildings were in flames. Cars were driving on both sides of the streets. People in masks were kicking in glass doors to pillage businesses. Looters – not to be confused with the peaceful protestors who kept the Ferguson movement alive since August 9 – would stop their cars in the middle of the street to snatch and grab goods once a business had been smashed open.
There was virtually no protective or enforcement response from police or Guardsmen. No fire trucks were called to the scene.
That night, police officials informed media that fire trucks were not called because there was live gunfire near the burning buildings, but they asked media not to broadcast that tactic for fear it would send the message that arsonists would not be stopped.
But that message was sent anyway by the actions of law enforcement officers.
A large group of police retreated to the pawn shop near West Florissant and Solway avenues, as the criminal element rampaged with little hindrance. A few officers parked in one of the shopping areas, but didn’t appear to leave their vehicles. The National Guard was nowhere to be seen as West Florissant burned.
“I was told the National Guard was in Clayton. Why weren’t they here?” Andrews asked at the December 1 Ferguson Commission meeting.
“I’m a citizen of Ferguson. I was depending on you. When someone told me everything was burning I didn’t believe them, because I went to a business meeting and they told me, ‘Don’t worry about anything.’”
Anthony Levine blamed Nixon, who called up the National Guard, for the failure to deploy them in a way that prevented destruction. Levine told the Ferguson Commission on December 1, “All this is a sham to divert attention away from the Governor and pass the blame and the responsibility of what happened to us on to somebody else.”
Ironically, at the end of December, Nixon would act to funnel money to the business district that the National Guard had let burn on his watch.
On December 29, Nixon announced his approval of an amendment that added West Florissant to the St. Louis Transportation Improvement Program of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments. This made $2 million in federal funding and a $500,000 local match available for preliminary engineering on the West Florissant Avenue Great Streets project. This “transportation improvement project within the cities of Ferguson and Dellwood,” Nixon’s office announced, “includes portions of the avenue from I-270 to Buzz Westfall Plaza” – the very stretch of West Florissant ravaged by arsonists and vandals during the second State of Emergency that Nixon declared in Ferguson.
Special to the NNPA from The St. Louis American
In press conferences and meetings with clergy, community organizations and protest leaders leading up to the St. Louis County grand jury decision in the Darren Wilson case, police commanders said they were prepared. They said police officers were going to respect people’s right to express their dissent and work with protestors to identify agitators looking to loot and destroy.
On November 24, after St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced the grand jury’s decision, months of discussions fell apart in minutes. Still today, the community is fighting for answers as to why the promised preemptive measures, Gov. Jay Nixon’s declaration of a State of Emergency and deployment of thousands of National Guardsmen and Missouri State Highway Patrol officers to the area did not protect Ferguson.
“We were told that the National Guard would be up at Buzz Westfall,” Howell said. “But that night, we didn’t have anyone there protecting our property. I’m in that subdivision that’s right where all the fire was.”
Howell said it was but for the grace of God that her home didn’t catch fire after McCulloch announced that there would be no indictment of Wilson, the now-former Ferguson police officer who fatally shot unarmed teen Michael Brown Jr. on August 9.
As outrage gave way to anarchy, more than two dozen fires were set and 12 businesses burned to the ground, while looting and vandalism impacted four square miles around West Florissant Avenue. Most of the damage occurred from West Florissant and Solway avenues in Ferguson stretching north into the neighboring municipality of Dellwood.
“I have a state of emergency!” Janiece Andrews shouted at the top of her lungs, bringing complete silence during the most chaotic moment at the Ferguson Commission meeting on December 1.
“I have a home in Ferguson,” Andrews said. “I have lived there for 20 years. I built a business in Ferguson to give back to my community. I invested everything I had into my business and my community, and so did my family.”
She owned Hidden Treasures antique and resale shop – and watched along with the world via broadcast news as her investment went up in flames.
“I did not receive a call to protect my assets,” Andrews said. “There is no back door on my business. If I had been at my business, I would have been burned alive – I would have been killed,” Andrews said. “I lost everything. And yet I have not received a call from the mayor of this city. I have not received a call from anybody.”
Apocalypse on West Florissant
The street was still smoldering the early Tuesday morning after the arsons as Missouri State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar spoke in somber, defeated tones.
“We didn’t expect this,” they both said at different points in their remarks.
In the thick of things – at around 10:30 p.m. on November 24 – West Florissant Avenue looked like the setting of a post-apocalyptic action drama.
Buildings were in flames. Cars were driving on both sides of the streets. People in masks were kicking in glass doors to pillage businesses. Looters – not to be confused with the peaceful protestors who kept the Ferguson movement alive since August 9 – would stop their cars in the middle of the street to snatch and grab goods once a business had been smashed open.
There was virtually no protective or enforcement response from police or Guardsmen. No fire trucks were called to the scene.
That night, police officials informed media that fire trucks were not called because there was live gunfire near the burning buildings, but they asked media not to broadcast that tactic for fear it would send the message that arsonists would not be stopped.
But that message was sent anyway by the actions of law enforcement officers.
A large group of police retreated to the pawn shop near West Florissant and Solway avenues, as the criminal element rampaged with little hindrance. A few officers parked in one of the shopping areas, but didn’t appear to leave their vehicles. The National Guard was nowhere to be seen as West Florissant burned.
“I was told the National Guard was in Clayton. Why weren’t they here?” Andrews asked at the December 1 Ferguson Commission meeting.
“I’m a citizen of Ferguson. I was depending on you. When someone told me everything was burning I didn’t believe them, because I went to a business meeting and they told me, ‘Don’t worry about anything.’”
Anthony Levine blamed Nixon, who called up the National Guard, for the failure to deploy them in a way that prevented destruction. Levine told the Ferguson Commission on December 1, “All this is a sham to divert attention away from the Governor and pass the blame and the responsibility of what happened to us on to somebody else.”
Ironically, at the end of December, Nixon would act to funnel money to the business district that the National Guard had let burn on his watch.
On December 29, Nixon announced his approval of an amendment that added West Florissant to the St. Louis Transportation Improvement Program of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments. This made $2 million in federal funding and a $500,000 local match available for preliminary engineering on the West Florissant Avenue Great Streets project. This “transportation improvement project within the cities of Ferguson and Dellwood,” Nixon’s office announced, “includes portions of the avenue from I-270 to Buzz Westfall Plaza” – the very stretch of West Florissant ravaged by arsonists and vandals during the second State of Emergency that Nixon declared in Ferguson.
Special to the NNPA from The St. Louis American
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