War comes to Missouri! Riots over teenage death lead to riot-gear and camouflage

Racial unrest over the shooting of an unarmed black teen has turned the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri into a war zone.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - An estimated 500 people were out, protesting the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown and ignoring a police issued curfew, facing-off against well armed police officers chanting "Hands up! Don't shoot!"

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After refusing repeated calls to disperse, the riot police fired tear gas into the crowd to break it up. Those who remained entered into a pitched street battle with police, lobbing Molotov cocktails at camouflaged officers. There were no injuries reported, but at least 18 arrests the Daily Mail reported.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon canceled all appointments on Wednesday night and said he would visit Ferguson on Thursday.

Also during the August 13 struggle, St. Louis Alderman, Antonio French, was arrested by police for unlawful assembly, after being ordered out of his car and taken into custody. He was released at 7 a.m. the next day.

Earlier on that Wednesday, two journalists were arrested without charges or explanation inside a Ferguson McDonald's after heavily armed SWAT police stormed the fast food restaurant amid rising tensions following the Saturday death of the unarmed teen.

Ryan J. Reilly of the Huffington Post, and Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post were taken into custody after describing the increasing militarization of Ferguson police officers, especially in suburbs that were predominantly black.

The two men described the events on Twitter after they were released, and colleagues posted pictures of their arrest to social media as they occurred. Lowery and Reilly reported that the police told them that they were closing down the McDonald's, which had become a base for reporters assigned to cover the Ferguson issue.

The police requested identification from the two, and eventually arrested them after they lost patience with the reporters who were packing their bags to leave.

Lowery also claimed he was assaulted on his Twitter account.

"Officers slammed me into a fountain soda machine because I was confused about which door they were asking me to walk out of," he wrote.

Following his release, Reilly described events during an interview with MSNBC.

"It was madness," he said. "Originally the swat officers walked through, and I took a couple photos at that time. They talked to the manager... As they decided to leave, they reversed course and decided they were going to shut down the McDonald's and asked everyone to leave, asked us to begin packing up our stuff.

"Evidently I was not moving quickly enough for their liking, at which point I was given a countdown, I was told I had 45 seconds, 30 seconds, pack up all my stuff and leave, at which point the officer in question... held me back, grabbed my things and shoved them into my bag, and basically he then arrested me. He handcuffed me... he used his fingers to put a pressure point on my neck.

"He would not tell me what I was under arrest for... he was in complete SWAT gear," Reilly continued.

"The most frustrating thing... I repeatedly asked over a dozen times for his name or ID number was never given it... The worst part was he slammed my head against the glass purposely on the way out of the McDonald's then sarcastically apologized for it."

"It was just a terrible experience," he continued. "I recognize I'm in sort of a place of privilege here both as a journalist and as a white person frankly, in that evidently the police chief made the decision to not hold us. ... The mentality of the officers was extremely disturbing. They essentially acted as a military force."

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