St. Louis has erupted in protests following the acquittal of a white former St. Louis police officer who fatally shot a black man in 2011. Nearly half of Americans think the unrest there is fueled by criminals seizing an opportunity.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 32% of American Adults think the current mob violence in St. Louis is primarily legitimate outrage over what happened, while 47% believe it’s mostly criminals taking advantage of a situation. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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The survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on September 18-19, 2017 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.