Community members in Ferguson, Missouri, gathered Friday morning to rebuild a makeshift memorial set up for teenager Michael Brown after a car destroyed the remembrance overnight. People started calling on social media for help to reconstruct the street memorial at about 4 a.m. “Someone destroyed the #MikeBrown memorial on Canfield. Hasn't that family, that community suffered enough," one Twitter user posted.
A collection of stuffed animals and other tokens have been laid along Canfield Drive since a Ferguson police officer fatally shot an unarmed Brown there in August. Part of that strip of mementos was found damaged and scattered, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Many on social media said a driver purposefully plowed through the memorial, but Jeff Small, a spokesman for the Ferguson Police Department, said the destruction wasn't being considered a crime "at this point." Small told NBC News the incident is under investigation.
After the memorial was quickly cleaned up and reassembled, more anger was sparked on social media over comments that The Washington Post attributed to another Ferguson Police Department spokesman, Officer Timothy Zoll. He told the newspaper in response to inquiries about the destruction: “I don’t know that a crime has occurred. But a pile of trash in the middle of the street? The Washington Post is making a call over this?” Zoll wasn't available for comment, but Small told NBC News that the officer said he was misquoted.
A grand jury last month decided not to indict Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Brown, sparking nationwide protests over the deaths of other black men at the hands of police.
IN-DEPTH
- Ferguson, Missouri's Police Chief Joins Michael Brown Protesters
- Michael Brown Memorial in Ferguson Destroyed by Fire