Looter: 'I'm Proud of Us. We Deserve This'

According to the Washington Post, a looter in Ferguson, Missouri, expressed pride and admiration for looters and said their actions are justified. 

“I’m proud of us. We deserve this, and this is what’s supposed to happen when there’s injustice in your community,” said DeAndre Smith, whom the Washington Post says was “fresh from looting the QuikTrip.”

One officer told the Post that widespread looting has spawned “looting tourism” wherein thieves as far away as Illinois and Texas are traveling to Ferguson to steal. 

“It’s like looting tourism,” said the officer. “It’s like they are spending their gas money to come down here and steal.”

The presence of outside forces could be seen during Monday evening’s clashes. CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill said two white individuals, one an “anarchist” and another from a “revolutionary Communist group in Illinois,” lobbed water bottles into a crowd of protestors and were shunned by protestors who told them to “go back to your neighborhood with that instead of coming in here and messing with us.”

The Post says a 27-year-old “militant” from Chicago explained that the time for peace has passed.

“This is not the time for no peace. We are jobless men, and this is our job now–getting justice,” the Chicago militant told the Post. “If that means violence, that’s okay by me. They’ve been doing this to us for years.”