Chicago Watching Unrest In Missouri; Could It Happen Here?
(CBS) -- Racial tensions remain high in Ferguson, Mo.
This week's protests, which escalated to violent confrontations and looting, were triggered by the fatal shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine says underlying problems in Ferguson, probably made it only a matter of time before it happened. The predominantly black suburb was patrolled by a nearly all-white police force with a history of racial problems.
Andrea Zopp of the Chicago Urban League, a top Chicago prosecutor turned civil rights leader, says that made a bad situation a lot worse.
Could it happen here in Chicago?
"Do we have issues with the police in the community here? Absolutely. But I don't think to that level or degree," Zopp says.
Friday, Ferguson police released video of what appears to be shooting victim Michael Brown stealing cigars from a convenience store and roughing up the clerk as he left.
It happened 15 minutes before Brown was shot to death.
An attorney for the Brown family says the release of the video is suspicious.
Chicago Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was in Ferguson to march, said the surveillance tape is irrelevant.
"No matter what may have happened in the convenience store, the police do not have the power to be jury, judge and executioner. So, those are two different things altogether," he tells CBS 2's Mike Parker.