Ferguson decision sparks US-wide protests

Source:Reuters Published: 2014-11-27 0:38:02

Officer Darren Wilson insists ‘I know I did my job right’


A state trooper aims his gun at protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, on Tuesday during a demonstration a day after violent protests and looting erupted following the grand jury decision in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown. Photo: AFP



Some 2,000 National Guard troops rushed to the St. Louis area to help police stave off a second night of rioting and arson after a grand jury declined to indict a white policeman in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, as sympathy protests spread to several US cities.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said about 2,200 National Guard troops were to be deployed to the Ferguson area by late Tuesday, more than triple the number from the day before, to help protect homes and businesses and to support local law enforcement.

Despite beefed-up military presence in Ferguson, a police car was torched near City Hall as darkness fell, and police fired smoke bombs and tear gas to scatter protesters. A crowd of demonstrators later converged near police headquarters, scuffled with officers who doused them with pepper spray, then smashed storefront windows as they fled under orders to disperse.

Still, the crowds were smaller and more controlled than on Monday. More than 60 people were arrested that night, compared with 44 arrests on Tuesday night, police said.

President Barack Obama appealed for dialogue, and his attorney general promised that a federal probe into the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in August would be rigorous.

The grand jury decision shifted the legal spotlight to a US Justice Department investigation into whether Officer Darren Wilson violated Brown's civil rights by intentionally using excessive force and whether Ferguson police systematically violate rights through excessive force or discrimination.

Wilson, who could have faced charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to first-degree murder, told ABC News there was nothing he could have done differently in his confrontation with Brown that would have prevented the teenager's death.

"The reason I have a clean conscience is because I know I did my job right," he said, adding he would have acted no differently had Brown been white.

Documents released by prosecutors said that Wilson told the grand jury Brown had tried to grab his gun, and that the officer felt his life was in danger when he fired.

The unrest surrounding Brown's death in Ferguson, a predominantly black city with a white-dominated power structure, highlighted the often-tense nature of US race relations and strained ties between African-American communities and police.

In one of the night's biggest rallies, an estimated 1,500 people took to the streets of Boston, though police there reported just a handful of arrests.

In New York, police used pepper spray to control the crowd after protesters tried to block the Lincoln Tunnel and Tri-borough Bridge and marched to Times Square. Several hundred also marched in Harlem, chanting "Racist police!"

Protesters in Los Angeles threw water bottles and other objects at officers outside city police headquarters and later obstructed both sides of a downtown freeway with makeshift roadblocks and debris, authorities announced.



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