Protests and heavy-handed policing, are still the order of the day in Ferguson, Missouri, over a week after 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed black youth, was shot to death by a police officer. In the New Republic, Hillman Prize-winner Jon Cohn argues that two things must happen to restore calm in Ferguson. Cohn argues that two things have to happen before the residents of Ferguson will be prepared to stand down.

First, Cohn says, the investigation must reach some kind of concrete result. The police have been very stingy with real information, but gratuitous about leaking potentially prejudicial information against Brown, such as a video that purports to show him shoving a convenience store clerk in the course of stealing a handful of cigars, and the news that Brown had marijuana in his system when he was shot. Second, police procedures in Ferguson need to change to reduce the chances of police brutality and racist policing in the future. 

[Photo credit: Light Brigading, Creative Commons.]