Every radical fringe group across the country stood at the ready for just such an event: an unarmed black teenager fatally shot by a white policeman. What more could they ask for? It was a cause de celebre made to order.

The FBI warned officials at the local and state level in Ferguson, Missouri, about out-of-state organizations whose intent would be to incite violent confrontations with the police.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon alerted citizens saying, “violent criminal acts of an organized and growing number of individuals, many from outside the community and state” will be drawn to Ferguson.

And Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill noted that the outsiders “are part of larger fringe organizations. None will reveal their names and many carry guns.”

The three most notorious of these terrorists mobs are the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), the Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Revolution Club of Chicago. Reading their rap sheets is like rewinding history's tape back to the turbulent '60s.

Few have anything good to say about the NBPP. The Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights all label it a hate group. They are a violent and virulent anti-white group and are not easily dismissed. The New Panthers have 45 chapters and claim several thousand members.

The goals of the Revolutionary Communist Party as stated in its own words are to overthrow the U.S. government by revolution: “Of all the tyrants and oppressors in the world, there is none that has caused more untold misery and injustices among the people of the world than the U.S.”

Lastly, the Revolution Club of Chicago. The Club describes itself as “thoroughly Marxist.” It, like the other two assemblies, “Seeks the violent destruction of America's capitalist economic system.”

Like a swarm of locusts these provocateurs and others of kindred minds descended upon Ferguson. They arrived not in their twos and threes but by the busloads and proceeded to wreck ruin and havoc upon the innocent.

Mission accomplished, the vagabond outlaws presented the taxpayers of St. Louis County and Ferguson with a $5 million bill for police overtime and property damage and that does not include the cost of future litigation. They board their buses for home and await the next call for a “spontaneous” protest.

They leave behind some 60 businesses that were looted and burned. Some proprietors will not have the means to rebuild, others will relocate. And many among the affluent will also move to safer ground.

That's what happened to Detroit. The '60s riots ravaged the city. Businesses left and with them the jobs and taxes that are the lifeblood of every city. The middle class followed. Detroit never recovered. Last year Motor City filed for bankruptcy.

Ferguson, itself, is the first victim of the bused-in agitators.

The second victim is the police force. There is only a thin blue line between law and anarchy. The fact that the Ferguson chief of police and Officer Darren Wilson (the officer who shot Michael Brown) had to resign bodes ill for Ferguson.

In this, the itinerant mobsters have had a measure of success. Many blame the police for the riots and looting in that vandalized city. But if some groups can complain about their victimization, why shouldn't the police protest against their vilification? What would happen if police departments across the nation held a one-day sickout to demonstrate what they felt was a lack of appreciation for their service?

Ironically, the police force had nothing to do with the ills that befell that troubled city. It was a man-to-man confrontation between one man defending his life, Darren Wilson, from another man who would take it, Michael Brown.

Last on the victims' list is Officer Darren Wilson. He was forced to shoot Michael Brown to defend his life. In this, he did no wrong either morally or legally. Yet he is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in fear that others will do to him what they condemn him for doing to Michael Brown.

Noticeably missing from the victims' list is Michael Brown. All of us at one time or another have been our own worst enemy. We are fortunate that though the circumstances we created were always regrettable they were never as remorselessly so as in the case of Michael Brown, who will never see his 19th year.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA