West Florissant looks so very different since last reporting from Ferguson last summer. Shortly after Mike Brown was killed the strip was alive, from the burned-down gas station to the McDonald’s.
Now the McDonald’s is one of the few business still open. A handful have also been burned, and many more are shuttered and closed. Local residents – who don’t want to give their names and are clearly overwhelmed with the amount of press scrutiny they live under – want to move out and note, with a little jealousy, neighbors who have already done so. They note with more melancholy that there are many vacancies, making it all the harder to move.
The memorial to Mike Brown is still outside the Canfield Apartments, surprisingly filled with stuffed animals, even in the middle of the street. It’s a stark contrast to how it was destroyed on Christmas.
In nearly every conversation this reporter has had with an airport worker, a clerk in a store, or even a stranger on the street, the other person has urged me to please “be careful”.
Some of the main protesters who have propelled the organization movement forward, particularly Deray McKesson, Netta Elzie and Stephen Houldsworth, have expressed no interest in backing down tonight. A prayer vigil, called by the religious community, is going to happen at 8pm. In a similar manner to how the Garner protesters resisted being blamed for the police shootings in Brooklyn, the Ferguson protesters are articualting a clear line between them and shots that seem to have come from hundreds of feet away.
On Tiffin Avenue, which slopes uphill away from the Ferguson police department, life goes on with contrasting scenes of normalcy and oddness. In a half-hour walk I observed both black and white teenagers walking dogs, seemingly without care. An ice-cream vendor rode around the neighborhood, stopping to sell to a mixed group of black and white elementary school aged boys and girls on bikes.
But adults kept popping their heads out the doors to watch the children warily. Earlier today the streets of the neighborhood were taped off, making it hard for people to get to and from their homes. They were open as of 6.30pm local time.
Two unmarked police cars pulled up near the corner of Clark and Tiffin. It was obvious they were police cars though unmarked. Two white police officers got out of each car – all wearing large bulletproof vests with the word POLICE in large letters.
They appeared to be very restless, scoped out the block for a few minutes and conversed quietly amongst themselves, then returned to their cars and quickly departed. A short time later, I observed another pair of unmarked police cars on the street, each carrying a team of well-marked police in bulletproof vests. They did not leave their cars.
