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FERGUSON, MO. — For a short while, says Khiara Ray, it seemed the Ferguson police force had really changed.

In the days after one of their members shot and killed an unarmed teenager in August, sparking dramatic protests and massive media attention, the officers seemed to back off their traditional tactics, she said Wednesday as she stood across the street from police headquarters.

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But as soon as the controversy died down and the journalists left town, it was business as usual.

“That was the one time in the 10 years I’ve lived out here you didn’t see any cops pull [African-American drivers] over, you didn’t see any harassing,” said the 28-year-old customer-service agent.

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“After that blew over, they were back to harassing people, back to pulling people over, back to the same thing.”

The death of Michael Brown served to underscore the U.S.’s chronic race-relations problem in general, not just Ferguson’s troubles. But a grand jury’s decision not to charge Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Mr. Brown, and the rioting that followed over the last few days has put the focus back on the place where it all started.