RIOT

YOUR
COUNTRY
DEPENDS
ON IT

The Struggle of the People

An anxious crowd mills about. Conversations on every subject fly around as protesters
shuffle around ground zero of the now infamous town, Ferguson, Missouri. Ground zero for
them is a burned down Quik-trip station, just down the road from the liquor store Michael Brown
reportedly robbed. That fateful event ended in the shooting of the 18 year-old by local police
officer, Darren Wilson. Their unease with the event has been voiced for days now. The towns
sentiment is clear; what took place is a travesty. With the cops carefree trigger discipline
exposed, the public grows uncomfortable.
Justice must be served.
However, theres a relative ease, a sense of confidence, to the crowd, despite the state of
emergency declared earlier that day, August 16th, 2014. Along with it came a curfew, a five hour
period from midnight to 5 AM. We see there, a people- united, outraged, crying out for the very
things this nation is based on: freedom and justice. Freedom to live in their town as they see fit,
and the justice a now dead man deserves. Demonstration and destruction of property are not
allowed, the state bellows, you are a radical group. You deserve nothing more than to be shot at,
gassed, and ordered around. You are criminals. You are stained in the eye of the law.
You deserve this, says the state.
A steady rainfall makes for sodden souls on a fiery evening. One can see the empty shell
of local businesses, broken and burned out by the previous week of riots, following Michaels
death. The clock ticks over to midnight and chants of Hands up, Dont shoot! grow louder as
people start marching through the streets, growing more active, emboldened by the lack of
immediate police feedback. The state sees a situation, one where unrest is being acted upon, and
reacts the only way it knows how: with legitimate force. Quiet them through violence.
Suffocate the discontent. The dead and imprisoned cant be heard. Little does the state realize
that the dead speak, loudly.
We hear Michael every day.
Peaceful protesters mingle with angry individuals. Multiple reports of people being
armed come through Twitter, the social media of choice for this riot. This does not negate the

message of the people though, for there will always be angry dissidents, especially in
emotionally trying times. Nor does the presence of firearms necessitate the violence that was
done against the people the previous week. No institution I can respect will try to heal these deep
wounds with more violence.
We find the state not concerned with healing, but rather concerned with silence.
25 minutes after curfew, police movement is spotted. They flank around behind
buildings, riot shields are a part of the uniform tonight. Tensions, voices, and hands are raised as
people notice the activity, but no real movement happens. No one counts on a peaceful resolution
tonight. The people will be hurt, oppressed, shut down.
The state is no more valuable than its poor, its hungry, its discarded. To say the state is
justified in shooting any of its citizens is a disregard for life.
Both the police and the people test each others boundaries, the polices actions being
much more conservative. The viral nature of gossip is in full force tonight, the correctness of said
information being something else altogether. Information is power, as the state has repeatedly
shown. Listen, dont speak, accept, dont think, says the state.
It breeds apathy, and apathy will be the death of this nation.
The cops gain a voice soon after. This is the police department. You are violating the
state imposed curfew. You must continue to disperse peacefully, or you will be subject to arrest
and/or other actions. Identity is an issue no longer, the journalists have become one with their
story. Embedded they are, with all the dangers that come along with such.
They see the truth as the state sheds its protectorate faade, and exposes the executioner it
truly is.
Eerie silence sets over the police. A shot fired, what appears to be tear gas. Another loud
crack, rapid movement everywhere. More tear gas. You can hear some groups of reporters
calling for their team to leave, as a Molotov cocktail is thrown at a local business. Yells of rubber
bullets spread quickly, as another segment of the rioters rush to put the small fire out. The violent
dissidents and those with grievances are one and the same, according to the state. Those who
start the fires and those who put them out, make no distinction. An iron fist will quiet them all

the same. A little discretion would go a long way, and yet here the police stand, tall and proud.
Ready at a moments notice to harm those that they swore to protect.
Only to the state does the polices mantra of protect and serve remain true.
A few brave protesters chuck the tear gas back towards the police. Louder cracks
penetrate the air, the fear of bullets is all too real for those still out. The police inch forward,
covered in a mist of tear gas. The crowd is near impossible to pick out from the darkness of the
night, as people quickly back up from the police front. Assumptions are made about which
direction they came from, but no one really knows, not that it matters. The violence is out in the
open. The onslaught of the police, the hand of the state, will continue till those who call out are
silenced. Protest in these ways, and we will keep you safe, they say. Anything outside of that will
be consider an treason, and we will be forced to act.
Speak in a voice deemed appropriate or dont speak at all, says the state.
Its now 1:10 AM, police call them out as sirens signal their movement through. The
police are guarding, corralling, however one wants to look at it, the journalists. Calls for the
group to make a hole for the police to come through ring out. As the journalists are moved
farther away, more people are hauled into police vans. The peaceful calls for everyone to go
home are no more. Now, in the eyes of the law, these people are nothing more than criminals.
The haggling was done a long time ago.
Justice is being served now.
This is but one example of the liberal states overreach. Every day we are faced with the
state telling us we cannot govern ourselves, that we are too incompetent, that we dont know
what we need. Be heard, and say no. What the state says may be law, but do not be afraid to
question the law. We must be informed in order to know how to challenge and improve the state,
and to do so we must question. The state must strive to improve if it wants to tell us to do the
same. It is here to serve us, and we are stagnating. Do not accept this as the status quo. Make
yourself heard, organize, and do not be afraid to disregard the state. We know what we need. A
helping hand does much more than an iron fist. Be the helping hand, and lets raise our fellow
man up with us, with or without the state.