President Obama, after condemning the violence in Ferguson, issued a national appeal Tuesday to resolve the issues raised by the fatal police shooting and its fiery fallout.
“The frustrations that we’ve seen are not about a particular incident,” the President said a day after the worst rioting yet in the Missouri town. “They have deep roots in many communities of color who have a sense that our laws are not always being enforced uniformly or fairly.”
The President said Attorney General Eric Holder, beginning next week, will hold a series of regional meetings with law enforcement personnel and community leaders.
MICHAEL BROWN SHOOTING EXPLAINED: Step-by-step review of the confrontation between Ferguson cop Darren Wilson and the unarmed teen
“We’ll … start identifying very specific steps … to make sure that law enforcement is fair and is being applied equally to every person in this country,” he said.
Obama spoke after a day of finger-pointing in Ferguson as the fallout from the St. Louis County grand jury’s decision to clear a white cop in the shooting of an unarmed black teen continued to reverberate.
Scattered protests rocked Ferguson Tuesday night as cops fired tear gas to clear streets. A group descended on an empty cop car and flipped it twice before smashing its windows and setting it aflame, then hurled bricks and rocks at City Hall’s windows, said witness Amy Hunter.
“You could hear the glass breaking and them cheering,” said Hunter, 44. “There were two flames, one in the front and one in the back of the car.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton and attorneys for Michael Brown’s family accused the local prosecutors of presenting a biased case to the panel, which did not indict Officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting of Michael Brown.
Sharpton said he’s still hoping a federal civil rights case will lead to an indictment.
“Let’s be very honest about this process,” said lawyer Benjamin Crump. “We have the local prosecutor, who has a very symbiotic relationship with the local police. We could foresee what the outcome was going to be.”
Ferguson Mayor James Knowles blamed the fiery destruction of businesses on Monday night on the governor’s delay in moving 700 National Guard members in the area. “Unfortunately, as the unrest grew and further assistance was needed, the National Guard was not deployed in enough time to save all our businesses,” Knowles said, adding that the absence of the Guard was “deeply concerning.”
Gov. Jay Nixon announced a short time later that he was sending 2,200 National Guard members to Ferguson in advance of nightfall.
“We’re working to make sure there’s public safety, to make sure tonight is a safer night,” the governor declared. “The bottom line is we’re going to continue to up their numbers . . . to make sure we keep things calm and safe.”
But there was no guarantee of what might happen on the night after the grand jury decided that Wilson would not face criminal charges in the shooting.
Mostly peaceful protests continued throughout the day in Clayton, where the grand jury met, and in downtown St. Louis, where traffic was blocked before protesters stormed the steps of the federal courthouse.
Four people were arrested. Fear of further violence in and around Ferguson led many local school districts to cancel classes just two days before Thanksgiving.
There were 61 arrests in Ferguson and south St. Louis on Monday night, when hundreds of bullets flew through the air. Authorities reported at least 18 people were hurt, including one gunshot victim.
A dozen cars were torched and as many buildings burned down during the rioting that followed the grand jury announcement.
Among the stores targeted by vandals was the Ferguson Market & Liquor, the convenience store that Brown allegedly robbed before his fatal confrontation with Wilson.
There was also one homicide, but cops did not immediately link the death to the widespread violence. The body of DeAndre Johsua, 20, was found inside a parked car Tuesday morning just down the street from the site where Brown was fatally shot, police said.
“They killed my baby!” a woman screamed near the car, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Pedestrians were barred Tuesday from W. Florissant Ave., the street ransacked by marauders overnight. Laclede Gas Co. employees were on the street shutting down service to buildings that were set afire.
Mike Knox, 33, owner of the Free Style Barbershop on W. Florissant, considered himself one of the lucky ones because his shop survived the carnage.
“We just put the boards up, but that was really it,” he said about preparations for the protest. “I can’t even come to work. I can’t make money.”
One church, run by a pastor who is a vocal supporter of the Brown family and who had baptised the slain teen’s dad Michael Brown Sr. this past weekend, went up in flames.
Rev. Carlton Lee told NBC News he suspected his Flood Christian Church was torched by white supremacists, because it wasn’t near the raging protests on the other side of town.
Brown’s parents , Michael Sr. and Lesley McSpadden, were initially supposed to deliver a statement Tuesday about the decision.
But neither said a word as family attorneys and Sharpton instead spoke on their behalf. Sharpton noted there were still two federal investigations into the slaying.
The first probe concerns whether Wilson violated federal civil rights laws in the Brown shooting. The second is taking a wider look at whether Ferguson police have a pattern of violating citizens’ rights.
The family lawyers, in an angry news conference at the St. Marks Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis, ripped the way the case was presented by St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch.
“We object publicly and as loudly as we can on behalf of Michael Brown’s family that this process is broken,” said Crump.
He also issued a call for “Michael Brown’s Law” — a requirement for all cops to wear body cameras as part of their equipment.
Sharpton called for peace but promised to wage a legal war in the heated case, saying the
feds should have handled the case “from Day One.”
“Let the record be clear,” he declared. “You have broken our hearts, but you have not broken our backs.”
Protests continued Tuesday night around the country.
Laura Bult reported from Ferguson, Missouri.
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