The AP reports that “Violent protests erupted in Oakland [last night] with stores damaged and dozens arrested after a Los Angeles jury convicted a white former transit officer [of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man.” As we predicted. The verdict against Mehserle, I mean. The rioting was not entirely unexpected, either. Although calling the participants “protestors” and their violence “rioting” may be considerably over-stating the case. “At least a dozen businesses were damaged, including a looted Foot Locker store and a ransacked jewelry store, police said. Protesters also smashed the windows of a bank, set fires in several trash bins, and detonated a small incendiary device near a police station that caused no damage.” An incendiary device like, say, fireworks?
