Missouri Is Burning

A young black man was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and all hell broke loose. The youth was unarmed but according to the officer, tried to take his gun. Precisely what happened is unclear at this point, but with a black President and black US Attorney General Eric Holder, who is an activist on matters of race, it is sure the incident will be investigated rigorously. The most unhelpful event that could befall a community like Ferguson, that is already teetering with high crime rates and high unemployment, is rioting. Civil unrest is sadly exactly what has ensued in an area that was in dire times before the officer-involved shooting. Do the people breaking windows, looting, and burning a business think their actions will somehow make the community a better place? How does rioting make relations between police and the community that they are supposed to be serving any less tense? Finally, if you destroy businesses in your neighborhood, how can you expect any other business to locate where you have just destroyed the local economy with riotous pillage?