Local police need to leave these thugs to themselves! This was a classic lose-lose-lose situation:
* The police have neither the training nor the equipment for a fire that large; no property being threatened, they left it to burn itself out; the thugs blame the police for not putting it out;
* Suppose the police had fire extinguishers and used them; depending on the type, this would have made a mess of the "memorial" or blown it apart; the thugs would have blamed the police for desecrating the "memorial" and posted pix to FB and race-baiters' sites;
* Suppose the police had tried to hasten self-extinguishing by kicking apart the various pieces of the "memorial"; the thugs would have blamed the police for desecrating the "memorial" and posted pix to FB and race-baiters' sites.
BTW, the beauty supplies store that was looted is not close to the site of the "memorial", so the looting was just that, opportunistic theft. Maybe they can buy back their stolen stock on ebay or CraigsList; or maybe they can pay the looters' GFs for pix of them modelling the stolen stock!