I'm tellin ya, you start shooting rioters and that *expletive deleted* stops pronto.
In the wake of the MLK assassination, much of Detroit burned. When rioters started that stuff in Chicago, Mayor Daley (the original, not the son) gave police an order:
Shoot to kill arsonists, shoot to maim looters. This was VERY public, and the rioting stopped as soon as the word got out. The usual suspects from the usual community stomped their feet and threw a tantrum, but Chicago
didn't burn the way Detroit did.
That order was the only good thing I remember
either Daley doing.
As for the Zimmerman case . . . the waters have been thoroughly muddied by politicians and the media. Assuming Zimmerman's lawyer is any good at vetting jurors and doing his job, I think the outcome will largely depend on whether or not the prosecution can fill in what happened in the gap between the end of the 911 call and the eyewitness who saw Martin beating Zimmerman.