The mess in Berkeley, Missouri: Politician feeds racial anger against police and then finds that his city faces riots

Never mind that the mayor of Berkeley, Missouri and most of the police force is black.  The shooting by a white police officer of an 18-year-old black man who police said pointed a gun at the officer has generated two nights of violent demonstrations with looting.

The mayor of Berkeley, a St. Louis suburb, called for calm on Wednesday following violent protests that erupted one day after a suburban St. Louis police officer shot a black 18-year-old who police said pointed a gun at the officer at a gas station. 

Scuffles had broken out early Wednesday between police officers and a vocal crowd of several hundred people who taunted the officers at the scene. One officer was injured after he was stuck with a brick and police reported several small explosives being used by protesters. There were four arrests. . . .

More on the violence is given here.

Four people were arrested for assaulting cops, police said.

You have to love this mayor when he says: "The Police Did Not Initiate This Like Ferguson." The mayor claims that there is no comparison between Antonio Martin's shooting and that of Michael Brown, but it is comments such as this that only feed on the notion that Michael Brown was some innocent individual and adds .

I can assure you that did not happen last night, OK.  We had a policeman responding to a call protecting the residents of the City of Berkeley and the call came through the dispatch office in reference to this young man was shoplifting. . . .

So far, the two cases seem extremely similar.  Indeed, if anything, Michael Brown's actions were worse as he threatened the store clerk with violence.

When the officer came there, the video shows that the deceased pointed a gun that has been recovered, at the officer, and I think that the officer because he stumbled might have saved his life.  Because when he stumbled and had a chance to fire and take the young man's life . . .

The big difference here is really only that there was video tape.  But the rest is very similar: in both cases the officers' lives were threatened and they acted to protect themselves.

The problem here is that the mayor of Berkeley feeds on the feelings that create these riots and then he can't control them when the rioters turn on his city.

Of course, NYC mayor de Blasio has found that his calls for no demonstrations until the funeral of the two officers who were killed is ignored.

More than 1,000 anti-cop protesters defied Mayor de Blasio and flooded Manhattan Tuesday evening, marching through the Fifth Avenue shopping district before heading uptown.“The mayor says stop that, we say f–k that!” the mob chanted at one point. 

Other slogans were of the sort that Hizzoner has denounced as “hateful” and “inappropriate” in the wake of Saturday’s assassinations of two city cops. 

“NYPD, KKK, how many kids did you kill today?” the protesters shouted. 

The demonstrators, some carry­ing a banner that read “Stop Racist Police Terror,” started marching south from 59th Street on the sidewalks, but later blocked traffic on Fifth and Madison Avenues. . . .

Of course, comparing the NYPD to the KKK should draw a rebuke from the mayor.