The rioting that took place Monday following a grand jury's decision not to indict a white Ferguson, Mo. police officer for the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen was understandable, but inexcusable.

It was understandable because the black neighborhood in this St. Louis suburb is filled with idle young men who view the overwhelmingly white police force as if it were an occupying army. The grand jury's decision to exonerate Officer Darren Wilson for gunning down one of their own in the street Aug. 9 affirmed their sense of powerlessness and their conclusion that cops are above the law.

They lashed out violently, angrily, horribly and, ultimately, foolishly, destroying small businesses in their own neighborhood, many owned and staffed by people of color who did nothing to anyone. Hoodlums and agitators, taking advantage, looted and incited the anarchy.

The rioting was inexcusable because this is a nation of laws. Agree or disagree with the failure to indict, there was a judicial process. A 12-person jury looked at a lot of evidence before concluding that it did not have the grounds to indict Officer Wilson for either murder or manslaughter, persuaded that he was acting to protect his safety when he shot 18-year-old Michael Brown multiple times.

Evidence viewed by the grand jury presented a much different version of events than the information that circulated soon after the shooting. This was not a teenager out for a stroll when a chance confrontation with a police officer left him dead.

Instead, when Officer Wilson confronted Mr. Brown and the friend he was with, he realized the pair might be those being sought for strong-arming some cigarillos from a convenience store minutes earlier. They were. Physical and eyewitness evidence showed Mr. Brown struggled with the officer, leaning into the patrol car window. The officer fired two shots, one grazing Mr. Brown's hand.

Mr. Brown, a large young man, started to run away, with Officer Wilson pursuing on foot and ordering him to stop. The teen did stop and turn. There appeared no credible evidence that Mr. Brown raised his hands in surrender, an act repeated at many subsequent protests. Instead, there was testimony he moved toward the officer, though eyewitnesses varied greatly on how threatening were his movements, ranging from a stumble to a charge.

Did Officer Wilson have to stand his ground and fire when there was an option to fall back, the suspect had displayed no weapon and backup was on the way? An argument could be made that the fatal shots were a criminal use of excessive force, but the grand jury did not see it that way.

There are many lessons to learn from this tragic series of events.

Policing an urban community with a force that bares no racial resemblance to the people that the officers are sworn to serve and protect invites distrust and misunderstanding.

Racial profiling remains a problem in many places and it must be dealt with, not dismissed.

High unemployment in many black, urban neighborhoods leaves young men idle, never a good thing, creating pent up frustration that awaits an incident to release it. Fix that problem and you fix a lot.

The lack of strong community institutions, which appeared to be the case in the African-American community in Ferguson, is sorely missed in such stressful situations. Better local leadership could have given some structure to the protests and clarified demands beyond punishing the officer, such as steps to improve police-community relations and better use of technology to record police behavior.

The decision by authorities to release the grand jury's decision during the dark of night, when tensions were high from a day of anxious awaiting, was stunningly wrong. A morning release would have allowed easier pre-positioning of police and time for efforts to diffuse the emotions. But from the state level on down, this situation in Missouri has not been handled deftly from the start.

If lessons are not learned, there will be more Fergusons and more nights like Monday.