About a year ago, I was walking down West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Mo., through thick, angry crowds with my phone in hand in an attempt to document the fallout of the first few days of violent, destructive “protests.”

As I made my way to the now iconic, burned-out QuikTrip gas station, which served as an informal base of operation for the turbulent crowds, I remained neutral in my assessment of what was happening.

I certainly didn’t agree with the so-called “peaceful” protesters destroying property and placing the lives of police officers and emergency responders in danger, but I did recognize the fact a large group of people was extremely angry about a situation that had yet to be understood.

At that time, the investigation into former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson’s shooting of Mike Brown was still fresh and not one other person knew exactly what transpired that day.

The national media helped construct the “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative and did a great job of further angering the community – painting Brown as an innocent college student who begged for mercy on the business end of a white supremacist cop’s sidearm.

Obviously, America learned that wasn’t the case, whatsoever.

Brown never had his hands up. Witnesses lied and later came clean. And yet, even after Wilson was cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury, round two of violent riots kicked off in November.

That sparked a series of events across the nation that took a frightening turn. I don’t need to elaborate on what happened in Baltimore – it was a total disaster and Ferguson was the catalyst.

Here we are again, one year later, and we have a developing situation in Ferguson — including shots fired at police, more looting and other acts of aggression on the one-year anniversary of Wilson and Brown’s initial encounter.

Protesters complain that there hasn’t been any change. But they’re wrong.

It’s now acceptable and commonplace for protesters to cause chaos and ruckus in the streets over fabricated stories of excessive police violence.

Police officers around the country — especially in major cities– now hesitate to do their job for fear of unfairly losing their livelihoods.

Today, when a police officer is involved in a shooting, the officer is essentially guilty until proven innocent, and even then, it doesn’t seem to matter.

It’s evident that America has a massive problem and I don’t think anyone, at this point, has a realistic solution.