Angry Mob Destroys St. Louis QuikTrip Store

FERGUSON, Mo. – QuikTrip Corp. is focusing on employee safety after rioters robbed and set a store on fire in Ferguson, near St. Louis, Sunday night. The riot began following a candlelight vigil for Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager who was shot and killed during an altercation with a Ferguson police officer, according to a NewsOn6 report.

"It's just something nobody ever in their wildest imagination thought would happen, and it did," stated QuikTrip spokesman Mike Thornbrugh. "We were the first store, unfortunately, that was hit. It just happened to be in the path of a group of individuals that were going to stop at nothing."

The mob looted and vandalized a dozen businesses, according to the news report.

QuikTrip is most concerned with the Ferguson employees who hid in the store's back room before escaping, Thornbrugh said. The company plans to provide them with counseling and will likely move them to jobs in other QuikTrip stores.

"Came up so fast, so quick, I mean, that they got out through one of the back doors and we just literally abandoned the store," Thornbrugh told the news outlet.

Company officials have not discussed whether they will rebuild at the site of the burned store.