Was the looting really that widespread and going on for "months"?
I mean, I've seen riots in LA after the Lakers have won a championship look waaaaay worse. And the riots in Mexico over the mayoral sanctioned killings of 40 college students looked worthy of declaring an emergency over.
Declaring a state of emergency, people being told that the apocalypse is coming...I dunno, it all seems like they are setting themselves up for violence by threatening violence. They seem to be hyping things to the point where something will need to happen, because everyone is being told it will happen.
And it also seems to justify the fears of the "fix being in" from the beginning, too. So there's no healing whatsoever, but an even greater divide and mistrust in the citizens and the officials. When it's all said and done, years from now, I think The ways things were handled in Ferguson will be a study in how NOT to do things. Hopefully nobody dies or gets hurt when it's announced that the officer won't be charged.