Survival Saturday: Chaos Erupts in St. Louis, London, and the Caribbean

By Daisy Luther

Survival Saturday is a round-up of the week’s news and resources for folks who are interested in being prepared.

This Week in the News

This week, the focus shifted from the devastating hurricanes in Florida and Texas to other events. Chaos reigns around the world.

St. Louis is under siege after Stockley was acquitted of murder

Yesterday, former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley was found “not guilty” of murder in the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith. The verdict was stunning to many due to the evidence against Stockely. He was caught by the dashcam saying he was “going to kill this motherf*cker, don’t you know it,” moments before he shot Smith 5 times. As well, the gun that was found on Smith only had one person’s DNA on it – Stockley’s.

Some people justify this shooting by saying that Smith had led police on a high-speed chase and that he was a suspected drug dealer, but, of course, we all know that neither of those crimes carries the death penalty in a court of law. Here’s a timeline of the events in this case and here is the dashcam video.

It’s no surprise then, that protests last night in St. Louis became violent.

Early Friday, protesters tried to block officers from traveling on Tucker Boulevard between Clark Avenue and Spruce Street. Police used pepper spray to clear the roadway as protesters hollered, chanted and held up signs.

“My goal is to resist the power of the state,” said the Rev. Renita Lamkin Green, pastor of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Cape Girardeau, after standing in front of the line of police. “The power of the people is greater than the power over the people.”

At one point, protesters climbed on top of a police SUV and smashed its windshield. At about 5:30 p.m., police said the downtown protests were no longer considered peaceful, and they asked people to leave.

Shortly after, protesters moved to the Central West End, where more than 1,000 marched on Euclid Avenue and on Kingshighway near Highway 40 (Interstate 64). Later Friday night, protesters gathered outside the Central West End home of Mayor Lyda Krewson, breaking windows. Krewson did not appear to be home.

Two officers were hit by bricks thrown by protesters in the area and were taken to hospitals, police said. At least five other officers sustained minor injuries throughout the day, and more than a dozen people were arrested, police said. (source)

It’s entirely possible the unrest after this verdict will be even greater than what happened after the verdict in the Michael Brown shooting, which saw the small town of Ferguson, Missouri as the scene of some of the most massive, long-lasting riots that we’ve seen in our country. This was also when the Black Lives Matter movement was born.

Don’t  be surprised if the Antifa shows up, and if they do, you can expect the violence to escalate rapidly since they are on the record for stating that it’s absolutely necessary. If you happen to live in the St. Louis area, read this article and consider taking this class. Civil unrest can be incredibly volatile and dangerous, and innocent people can be unwittingly caught in the midst of it, particularly when rioters begin looting and vandalizing the surrounding areas.

We can also expect this verdict to add gasoline to a potential fire that is the “Confederate Rally” in Richmond, Virginia today. There’s little doubt that Dixie flag-bearing marchers will be met with counter-protesters in the state capitol.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the London subway bucket bomb, but the media says it probably wasn’t them.

London is on high alert after a bucket bomb filled with nails on a subway during rush hour yesterday failed to fully detonate. Despite the failure, at least 29 people were burned by the wave of heat. (source) Police have made an arrest of an 18-year-old man, but have refused to provide any other details.

Interestingly, although the Islamic State immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, the only mention I saw yesterday was this aside in the Washington Post with a disclaimer:

The Islamic State terrorist group asserted responsibility for the explosion on its Amaq News Agency website. Experts cautioned that the group often seeks credit for attacks it may have only inspired, as well as ones it had nothing to do with. (source)

A report in the UK Independent today was likewise skeptical of the claim.

According to a translation by Middle East observer Hassan Hassan, a message on the Isis’s propaganda page, Amaq, said: “A security source to Amaq: The bombing of the IED in the London tube was carried out by a unit affiliated to the Islamic State.”

Experts have urged caution over the veracity of the claim.

Shiraz Maher, an expert on radicalisation at Kings College London, said it was unusual for such announcements to be made while the suspect was still at large. (source)

How very politically correct.

Interestingly, though, the UK Independent said exactly the opposite just a few months ago, in May of this year.

Since 2015, Isis has claimed responsibility for major terror attacks across the world, including attacks in France, Belgium, Germanyand the UK.

“A simple tabulation of past claims of responsibility for attacks in the West shows that Isis has been surprisingly disciplined in only claiming attacks that the terror group has either directed, enabled or else inspired,” Rukmini Callimachi, a New York Timescorrespondent focusing on Isis and al-Qaeda, told The Independent.

She added: “A large share of attacks now are inspired by the terror group. They are carried out by attackers who imbibed the ideology online, as opposed to carried out by the terror group’s own personnel.

“What people seem to not understand is that an inspired attack is an attack by the terror group.”

In each attack, the initial claim is made by the jihadist group’s Amaq news agency via the social media app Telegram. (source)

Huh. That’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?

The Caribbean has lost everything to Irma and desperation reigns.

On the mainland United States, we suffered a great deal of damage from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. But in the Caribbean, it’s an entirely different scenario due to their isolation.

There are billions of dollars in damage and property losses are as great as 99% in  Anguilla, Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, St. Martin, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos.  These satellite images show the shocking before-and-after pictures of the islands.

The island of Barbuda was completely wiped out and is currently uninhabitable. According to Barbudan Ambassador Ronald Sanders:

“The damage is complete. For the first time in 300 years, there’s not a single living person on the island of Barbuda — a civilization that has existed on that island for over 300 years has now been extinguished.” (source)

In places where residents were not all evacuated, the situation is incredibly dire. There is no food, no water, and little shelter. Looters armed with guns and machetes are helping themselves to the few remaining resources. In this article, people remaining on the islands told shocking stories of the grim reality there.

This Week in Preparedness…

Regardless of where you live, chaos can erupt anywhere. If the stories above aren’t enough, just ask the millions of people in Florida who are still without power a week after the hurricane in the midst of a heatwave. You need to be prepared ahead of time with supplies:

• Emergency food
• Water storage and filtration devices
• A power outage plan

But supplies alone aren’t enough, as the people of the Caribbean will attest. You must also have the skills to acquire water and purify it, to acquire food, and to keep yourself and your family safe from those who would do anything to take what you have.

Other Articles of Interest

• A “Contagious” Bluetooth Flaw Makes ALL Your Connected Devices Hackable
• South Korean Preppers: Government Instructs Citizens How to Get Ready for War
• Preppers Daily News: Introducing a News Website by Preppers, for Preppers
• Cyber Experts Prove the American Power Grid Has Been Hacked
• Survivor Stories: All Hell Has Broken Loose in the Caribbean After Hurricane Irma
• These Videos from Florida Show the Wrath of Hurricane Irma

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Anything to add to Survival Saturday?

Do you have any news links you want to share? What are your thoughts on the topics above? Now’s the time! Please post your links in the comments section below and join the discussion!