Ferguson Fury Spreads Across U.S.

FERGUSON, Mo. (Dispatches) -- Protests took place across the U.S. for the second consecutive night in wake of a grand jury declining to indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on charges for killing 18-year-old Michael Brown in an August shooting.

Date: 26 November 2014 - 21:34

News ID: ۷۸۹۴

Hours after Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon decided to triple the National Guard presence in a still smoldering St. Louis suburb, protesters again stood off with police on the streets.
The rage spread out across the country. Large, mostly young crowds marched in at least a dozen major U.S. cities, snarling traffic in Los Angeles and shutting down streets in Boston. In Manhattan, protesters moved through Times Square with their hands up — a silent rally cry for Brown, the teenager who was shot 3 1/2 months ago by Wilson.
The decision by a grand jury not to indict Wilson sparked several dozen fires and more than 60 arrests in St. Louis on Monday — a night of "lawlessness” that Nixon said could not be repeated.
But by 1:30 a.m. in Ferguson on Tuesday, police had made 44 arrests, including three assaults against police officers.
Speaking in Chicago, President Obama said he had asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to convene a "series of regional meetings focused on building trust in our communities” and on making law enforcement fairer.
In Ferguson, anger about Brown’s death stems from what many here describe as a deeply ingrained distrust between majority African American communities and largely white authorities.
Damage was severe enough that several downtown Ferguson blocks were designated as a crime scene. While the Ferguson mayor and Missouri’s lieutenant governor bristled that state officials hadn’t done enough to stop the rioting, others said the destruction to businesses was a case of anger spiraling out of control.
Since mid-August, this middle-class, predominantly black suburb has grown accustomed to tense standoffs between police and protesters. But what happened Monday far exceeded — in cost and damage — all that had come before, and it left Ferguson bracing for more waves of unrest. At least a half-dozen businesses were torched Monday. Sixty-one arrests were made, 32 for felony charges.
At a news conference early Tuesday afternoon, Ferguson’s mayor, James Knowles, criticized state officials for not doing enough to protect property. Though police had trained for months to better handle mayhem and Nixon a week earlier had declared a state of emergency, the National Guard all but ignored the major commercial areas along South Florissant Road and West Florissant Avenue.
Nixon vowed at a news conference with a half-dozen other law enforcement officials that there "will not be a repeat” of what happened Monday. He said 2,200 National Guard members would be available Tuesday, three times the total of a night earlier.
By Tuesday night, crowds were again on the streets in Ferguson. Officers emerged from the building and confronted them. Two were arrested — a man and a woman who were chased and tackled by officers after being told to get out of the street.
Meanwhile, attorneys and representatives for Brown’s family complained of the grand jury proceedings, saying evidence presented was flawed and biased. They also called the decision to release the grand jury’s findings at night irresponsible. "It was unnecessarily provocative, but I think it only cleared up why many of us said ‘let’s go to the federal government’ in the first place,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton.