Ferguson, Missouri: A student speaks from his hometown

Etefia Umana, mass communication junior, has lived in Ferguson, Missouri his entire life, putting him on the frontlines of the public riots and protests that have occurred in the wake of Michael Brown’s death.

“I was shocked,” Umana said, on seeing his childhood home erupt into chaos. “I was worried about people breaking into gas stations and businesses near where I lived. But I was really more shocked than anything. I couldn’t believe what I was watching.”

On Saturday, Aug. 9, the night Brown was fatally shot, Umana said he saw the first indicators of the riots to come.

“I was scrolling on Facebook and one of my friends had posted a picture of Michael Brown’s father holding up the cardboard sign that said ‘Ferguson police just executed my unarmed son’ and I thought, ‘What is this?’”

From there, Umana said he began to watch news updates showing people gathering outside in protest.  The next night, Umana said he was watching a live feed of the rioting and could simultaneously hear police forces moving just outside his front door.

“You could hear outside of our house police just rushing down, helicopters heading in, and I was just watching it and seeing the Quik Trip burn down,” he said.

That same night, Umana said a close friend was peacefully protesting when he was apprehended by a police officer. When his friend said, “We have the right to peacefully assemble,” he was sprayed with mace and tear-gassed.

“I called my dad, because my friend was over at his house which is 1500 feet from the Quik Trip that burned down, and he had to sit in our bathtub for two hours because he was just in pain,” Umana said. “That’s also when I knew that things were crazier than I’d imagined.”

At that point, Umana said he decided to grab his camera and go out into the streets of Ferguson himself. This decision was spurred, he said, by the dissonance between what he was seeing and the memories of his childhood in the streets that were now filled with riots.

“When I was younger, we’d go around the corner to the Quik Trip,” he said. “This is where I grew up. I just wanted to see everything. Seeing it on the news and seeing it in person is just different. This is my childhood.”

Umana said he had his first experience with tear gas a few nights later, after allowing a few journalists refuge in his home in order to protect them from the danger outside. Umana said he was attempting to escort the journalists back to their cars when he first felt the effects of the tear gas in the air.

“I was just trying to take a few pictures, and was moving closer than everyone else to get better shots,” he said. ‘“It was so thick in the air. I could feel it burning my eyes.”

His second experience with tear gas occurred on Sunday, Aug. 17, outside the police command center, where Umana said protestors had gathered in another attempt to demand justice.

Although some reports say that the protestors were the first to instigate the violence that ensued that night, Umana said that these reports are not entirely true and that the police forces were the first to strike.

“We were marching toward the command center, and all of a sudden three or four SWAT vehicles appeared and they didn’t even say this wasn’t a peaceful assembly, which is what they were saying when things happened on Wednesday,” Umana said. “This was, ‘You’re not authorized to gather here,’ and within seconds they were blasting tear gas through the air and they were moving people back.”

Umana said that the initial shouts of protest soon lapsed into cries of “Don’t shoot!” as military vehicles kept progressing toward the crowd in an attempt to move the protest back.

“You could see the canisters flying over you, and you’re trying to make sure that you don’t get hit and that the people behind you don’t get hit,” Umana said. “There were people picking them up and throwing them back toward the officers. Some of it was to have a bit of retaliation, but most of it was out of their own safety. When they started firing tear gas, it was 9 p.m. and there were still children out there.”

According to news reports, the National Guard has been stationed outside the command center since this event to control any further acts of violence.

Umana said that, moving forward, he cannot see a clear end to the conflict in Ferguson until progress is made regarding Darren Wilson, the police officer now confirmed to have shot Michael Brown.

“There’s still no arrest, not even any release of any information about the officer,” he said. “But they’ve released information about everyone who was stealing from the stores and stuff, or they can release footage of Michael Brown being involved with a robbery. They can do all of those things, but they can’t really have a transparent case. It’s more about control, fear and intimidation than safety.”