For Bay area residents, watching rioting in Ferguson may have sparked memories of a very similar situation here nearly two decades ago.
It was 1996 when 18-year-old TyRon Lewis was shot and killed by St. Petersburg Police Officer Jim Knight in an area of the city known as Midtown.
"By nightfall, you saw the smoke rising, you saw the running, you saw the rocks you heard the windows smashing,” said Reverend Manuel Sykes, of Bethel Community Baptist Church.
Sykes recalled locking up his church that day and again weeks later, when more rioting broke out when a grand jury decided not to indict Knight on charges.
Sykes said the parallels between what happened in St. Petersburg back then and what’s going on in Ferguson, Missouri now are clear.
"It was a flashpoint to things that were building up already,” Sykes said.
There was an undercurrent of racial tension that Sykes said still exists in many communities throughout the country.
Sykes said some progress was made in St. Petersburg after the riots of 1996, when then Mayor David Fischer involved the police department more with the community and also hired the city’s first black police chief, Goliath Davis.
When Bay News 9 asked Sykes what his advice for Ferguson is moving forward, he suggested similar changes and then some.
"People of all colors, who are not in denial, who are not blaming the victim, need to come together and have a dialogue,” Sykes said. "This is not just a black thing. It won't be solved just by black people. It needs to be an American thing. And until that happens, it will only get worse. We are frozen in time.”