Captain Ronald S. Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol provided the following details of violence on Sunday night in Ferguson, Mo.
8:25 p.m. — “The situation first started to deteriorate with a shooting of a civilian on West Florissant and Ferguson avenues at approximately 8:25 p.m. We quickly responded with additional officers to reach the victim and got them to a safe position. That was followed by shots being fired on officers, a number of Molotov cocktails being hurled and then the looting or vandalism of businesses that included the Domino’s Pizza, O’Reilly’s Auto Parts, and Family Dollar store and a self-storage business. All were on West Florissant.”
8:26 p.m. “Shots were fired to the north on Canfield.”
8:27 p.m. “There was a report of a subject down.”
8:28 p.m. “There was a report of eight people with guns.”
8:56 p.m. “Hundreds of protesters marched toward the Northland Shopping Center, where we stand at this moment, the site of this command post. As a crowd approached the shopping center, multiple Molotov cocktails were thrown at police. At that time, police deployed tear gas in an attempt to disperse the crowd and stop the violent action. At that time, we called in additional support from area police agencies.”
9:15 p.m. “There was a call for a large crowd gathering at the McDonald’s on West Florissant.”
9:20 p.m. “It was reported that McDonald’s was being overrun, and employees had locked themselves in a storage room. There were multiple additional reports of Molotov cocktails being thrown. Police were shot at. Makeshift barricades were set up to block police. Bottles and rockets were thrown at police. Based on these conditions, I had no alternative but to elevate the level of our response.”
1:41 a.m. Email arrives announcing the governor’s deployment of the National Guard
— Alan Blinder
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