The "riotous situation" in Ferguson, Missouri, has hijacked media coverage and diluted the real issue, former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik said Tuesday on the "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"It's no longer about justice, it's no longer about the grand jury, no true bill of indictment," Kerik said on the
Newsmax TV program. "It's about what's going on in Ferguson and what annoys me is Ferguson had three weeks, four weeks of preparation for this.
"The people that are rioting most likely, I would say 90 to 95 percent of them, are not from Ferguson, they're from somewhere else and they said early on they're going to do this whether this guy gets indicted or doesn't get indicted. It doesn't make any difference. They were coming to do this."
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Following the announcement Monday night that no true bill of indictment would be issued for white police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed
black teen who threatened him, violence broke out, including setting fire to police cars, smashing windows and looting stores.
As of Tuesday morning, more than 20 businesses had been burned, according to
The Wall Street Journal.
The region should have been better prepared, Kerik said, and the rioters should be behind bars.
"There are people in the Ferguson community that lost homes, that lost businesses. You saw the footage last night that I saw, people running out of buildings with televisions and all kinds of property that doesn't belong to them. That's insanity."
There was obviously not enough of a police presence, even though Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said there were
700 National Guard troops in the region, according to Kerik.
"I don't know what that means," he said. "What I do know is that Ferguson was the focus, the coverage should have been in Ferguson, the people of that community should have been protected, and it's always better to have more than less in situations like this and I don't know what happened. I wasn't there.
"But by the looks of things, they did not have the coverage they need, I feel sorry for the cops and the state police and the first responders that were out there getting pummeled basically."
Kerik did not back down from a statement he made on CNN Tuesday where he described the looters and rioters as savages.
"Of course I stick by it," he told Malzberg. "People have criticized me saying it's racist. It's not racist. Lawlessness, looting, burning buildings down, shooting guns at people, that is savage behavior. Look it up in the dictionary, it has nothing to do with race.
"I don't give a damn if they're black or white or purple, it doesn't make any difference. You cannot go around looting and destroying people's property and burning a community down and think you can get away with it," Kerik said.
"It's annoying that people would even defend that kind of behavior. It's just stupid."
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