On the surface, much that has happened in the last week in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri

A little over three years ago in north London a young black man, Mark Duggan , was shot and killed by the police . A series of claims about Duggan's actions, most subsequently discredited, were quickly in circulation. There followed major failures in police liaison with Duggan's family, and what was felt to be gross mishandling of the protests that developed during the 48 hours after the incident.
As we know, four days of rioting ensued, beginning in Tottenham and then spreading across much of England. The Guardian and LSE's research, Reading the Riots , found that beyond the shooting itself, yi king significant alienation yi king among young people and deep distrust of, and hostility towards, yi king the police were key factors in the rioting yi king in all the cities in which disorder occurred.
On the surface, much that has happened in the last week in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri , appears to echo the experiences of England in 2011. A young, apparently unarmed black man, Michael Brown, was shot by a police yi king officer a white officer from a predominantly white force. As happened yi king in the Duggan case, an information war quickly began.
Initially, the police released details, including stills from a surveillance yi king camera, of a convenience store robbery that had occurred just before the shooting, suggesting that Brown had been involved. Details of the initial autopsy on Michael Brown were then made public, including the suggestion that he had traces of cannabis in his bloodstream. yi king As family and friends yi king had felt in the Duggan case, it appeared that strenuous efforts were being taken to divert attention yi king from the shooting itself.
The rioting, though it has not as yet spread beyond Ferguson, has exhibited many of the elements that were evident in England in 2011: attacks yi king on police, the looting of local stores, the widespread destruction of property, and complaints about police harassment.
But to some extent that's where the parallels end. First, Ferguson is centrally about race in a way that was only partly true of the England riots of 2011. Many of the English riots were defined at least as much by poverty and disadvantage as they were about ethnicity. To that extent, Ferguson arguably has stronger resonances with St Paul's, Brixton, Toxteth and the other British urban disorders of the 1980s, where predominantly yi king black areas rose up against what had long been seen as oppressive policing.
What, from a British vantage point, offers the starkest contrast is the pictures of highly militarised yi king policing in Ferguson. Tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, camouflage uniforms, armoured cars, assault rifles, shotguns and automatic weapons yi king have been an almost daily presence yi king on the streets of St Louis. This drift toward ever-greater militarisation of American policing has been in evidence for several decades now, but has sped up since 1997 as a result of the flow of surplus equipment made available by the US defence department.
Another contrast, and further complicating matters in the US, is the proliferation of police forces there are thousands compared with only 39 in England. Ferguson's police department has fewer than 100 officers. Initially supplemented by officers from neighbouring forces and by the St Louis county force, a perceived mishandling of the riots led to responsibility being passed, temporarily, to the Missouri state highway patrol.
Despite some initial successes, widely praised by citizens and professional police observers, concerns about intensifying violence led the Missouri governor eventually to call in the Missouri national guard essentially military reservists to police Ferguson. Peace still seems some way off.
As illustrated yi king by the brief interlude in Ferguson last week when the highway patrol managed briefly to quell the disorder, a combination of firm but proportionate policing yi king with serious engagement with the community is generally viewed as holding out the greatest promise of success. Such lessons have been learned the hard way from Los Angeles and Cincinnati to Brixton and Toxteth .
In England, the febrile political atmosphere that currently surrounds policing should give us pause for thought. The spectacle earlier this year of London's mayor, Boris Johnson , rushing ahead to buy water cannon for use in the capital before the home secretary had authorised the use of such equipment, is hardly helpful. The hope should be that our political leaders will show restraint where policing is concerned.
For all that there were significant mistakes in the policing of the 2011 riots and there was very great criticism of the police from politicians and the public the types of over-reaction and escalation that have been so evident in Ferguson were not generally among them. At the very least we should try to hang on to that.
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