This is all a little late - my posting, but I would like to share thoughts on this from a "law enforcement" perspective. Now, I'm not an officer of the law, but I baby sit officers of the law as a 911 dispatcher...I've handled riots through communications where we had our foggers, tasers, tanks come in handy.
I agree that many of these people were peacefully protesting, but just like in any situation - a small group of assholes WILL ALWAYS ruin it for the masses. Think about being in grade school - little bitches would ruin recess all the time and you did nothing wrong. So in turn all of these people that did nothing wrong (which is the majority) flock to media sites and start typing and filming, then mainstream media takes hold and BAM...headlines are "Police attacking peaceful protestors in ferg...." yes, some cops are assholes, it comes with the territory and I deal with assholes on a daily basis, but a lot of these people don't even know what they are protesting for.
I heard one lady on the news saying completely wrong facts and basically said that she's out there because she doesn't want to go to work....because she doesn't want to go to work.
I don't think they were prepared to handle a situation like this, this fast - which led to the odd decisions being made.