Several hours after Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri, a police dog handler let his dog urinate on a makeshift memorial that had been created on the street where Brown fell, a Mother Jones piece citing “several sources” says:

The incident was related to me separately by three state and local officials who worked with the community in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One confirmed that he interviewed an eyewitness, a young woman, and pressed her on what exactly she saw. “She said that the officer just let the dog pee on it,” that official told me. “She was very distraught about it.” The identity of the officer who handled the dog and the agency he was with remain unclear.

Police also drove their cars over the top of candles and flowers that Brown’s mother had helped spread on the spot that her son fell, the article reports:

Missouri state Rep. Sharon Pace … joined Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, and others as they placed the candles and sprinkled flowers on the ground where Brown had died. “They spelled out his initials with rose petals over the bloodstains,” Pace recalled.

By then, police had prohibited all vehicles from entering Canfield Drive except for their own. Soon the candles and flowers had been smashed, after police drove over them.

St. Louis alderman Antonio French took a picture:

Police cars trampled the rose petals and candles at the memorial for #MikeBrown. pic.twitter.com/nb2fQSrkMX — Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 10, 2014

Mother Jones also reports that Pace and another Missouri state representative named Tommie Pierson say they were nearly maced by a Missouri Highway Patrol officer at a later protest.



Read more of Slate’s coverage of Ferguson.