WASHINGTON, Nov. 29-- Rage and unrest have once again taken over in the past week in Ferguson, a previously little-known northern suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, in the wake of a grand jury decision not to indict a white police officer in the fatal shooting of a black teenager in August.

More than a dozen buildings along the West Florissant Avenue, a few blocks from where Brown was shot, were set ablaze and police cars were vandalized on Monday night following the announcement of the grand jury's decision.

On South Florissant Road, a main commercial strip in Ferguson, shops were looted with smashed windows.

Local residents and business owners were nervous and uncertain about the future in the once peaceful town of about 21,000 people.

Yang Xiaojiang, who owns a Chinese fast-food restaurant near the Ferguson Police Department, said two windows of his restaurant were smashed Monday night.

"I'm so scared," he told Xinhua, noting that it was the first time he experienced such violence in over 30 years since he started business in Ferguson.

Like Yang, many business owners had shielded their shop windows, with some hanging signs that read "I love Ferguson" and "Stop the Violence," in the hope that their businesses would be spared in possible future violence.

On Tuesday night, when a crew of journalists and freelancers working for Xinhua were preparing to film at Brown's memorial on Canfield Drive, a group of 15 to 20 protesters, wearing masks and carrying guns, demanded the journalists stop their work.

The journalists turned off the camera, walked toward their car, and prepared to leave. But protesters followed them, grabbed the camera and smashed their Toyota Prius.

The crew had to ask for a ride in a church van delivering Thanksgiving turkeys to get out of the area.

African American residents said their rage stemmed from the nearly-all white Ferguson police force's poor community relations.

Auty Singleton, a black female protester holding up a sign that reads "Stop the Killing" in front of the Ferguson Police Department, complained to Xinhua that police officers in Ferguson "abuse" their power and use "unnecessary forces" to control protests.

But white residents told a different story in response to police practices in Ferguson.

"They are always friendly. They are wonderful people," Sandy Sansevere, a resident in Ferguson for 27 years, told Xinhua.

There's absolutely no big racial issue and residents feel comfortable living here, she said.

A Pew poll after the Brown shooting found that Americans are divided roughly along racial lines over the incident. Some 80 percent of blacks agreed that the shooting raises important questions about race, compared with only 37 percent of whites.

Brown's death has sparked a national debate over race and police power and the Justice Department is still on a civil rights investigation into Brown's death and on a separate probe into the practices of the Ferguson Police Department.

"The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color," U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday night in a brief address at the White House.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also admitted that far more must be done to create enduring trust