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Michael Brown memorial hit by car overnight

Someone drove through the sidewalk memorial overnight, but the site was quickly reconstructed with the help of social media
Michael Brown memorial vandalized 00:19

FERGUSON -- Michael Brown supporters say a car drove straight through a makeshift memorial for him on Christmas day, according to CBS St. Louis.

A Ferguson police spokesman told CBS radio station KMOX the department has no plans to investigate whether a car destroyed the Michael Brown memorial on Christmas night, in part because nobody has filed a report with them.

Public information officer Tim Zoll told KMOX News: "It's our understanding that an alleged vehicle, we're assuming, drove over the memorial and kept going. We have no other information other than that. Nobody has come forward to make a report; therefore, we're not investigating it."

He added that because the items were in the street, he's not sure it was a crime to drive over them.

Protesters, meantime, are reacting on social media to the way the Washington Post's story about the memorial quotes Zoll. It said:

"I don't know that a crime has occurred," Zoll said Friday. "But a pile of trash in the middle of the street? The Washington Post is making a call over this?"

Zoll tells KMOX News that he was misquoted by the newspaper. He said that he told them that "if it was somebody from outside the area, they might not have even known what it was," meaning the driver may have mistaken the memorial for trash.

Social media buzz about the incident started around 1:45 a.m. Shortly after, people came together to reassemble the memorial that has been around since Brown's death in August.

Around 4 a.m. the memorial was re-built.

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