On the first night of the Ferguson riots, DeAndre Joshua, a friend of Dorian Johnson who was a witness to the Michael Brown shooting, was shot dead and his body burned, just yards from where Michael Brown was shot and killed by Darren Wilson.

The Washington Post reports:

Ferguson, Mo., police discovered a man’s body in a white Pontiac parked not far from where an unarmed black teenager was fatally shot by a police officer in August.

The man was 20-year-old Deandre Joshua. His body — found the morning after a grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson — had been burned.

…

The timing and brutal nature of Joshua’s death — his partially burned body was found with a bullet in the head — spurred speculation that it might be connected to protests that occurred after St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch’s announcement of the grand jury’s decision on Nov. 24. On Internet message boards, some suggested that Joshua was a grand jury witness and wondered whether his death was in retaliation.

While many people claimed that Joshua was a grand jury witness, those allegations are false.

Joshua was shot in the head and an accelerant was applied to his body to light him on fire. Police said that the fire went out on its own and Joshua suffered burns to his arm, fingers and both legs.

All indications were that Joshua was a “good kid, not into drugs” and was employed at Wal-Mart.

St. Louis Police Chief Jon Belmar was questioned regarding whether or not Joshua’s murder was linked to the rioting in Ferguson.

According to The Guardian, Belmar said, “I imagine there is a nexus.”

Belmar also said that the rioting and looting were “much worse” in the second round than in the aftermath of the shooting.

Many have questioned if the murder was in retaliation to the grand jury testimony. At this point, only speculation exists as to who killed Joshua and for what reason. Police are still investigating.

If you will recall, the rioting began at almost the same time as Barack Obama’s address, in which he incited more racial division, which he later followed up with targeting what he alleged to be “racist” police officers.

If someone had stopped the race baiters and provocateurs, including these paramilitary police starting fires in Ferguson, perhaps a lot of private property and the life of DeAndre Joshua would have been saved.