The city of Ferguson issued a plea for “night-time quiet and reconciliation” yesterday after another night of gunfire, tear gas and chaos, 10 days after the shooting of an unarmed teenager ignited an uproar over race in America.
In neighbouring St Louis police killed a 23-year-old man they say brandished a knife and refused to drop it, according to the Post-Dispatch newspaper. The man yelled "Shoot me, kill me now," police chief Sam Dotson said, according to the newspaper's report.
The incident happened hours after police fired tear gas at protesters in Ferguson, which has been rocked by 10 days of civil unrest over the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer.Residents swept up broken glass and debris yesterday in what has become a daily ritual after nightly clashes.
With expectation of fresh unrest after sunset, however, there was little hope of any return to normality. The Ferguson-Florissant School District said in a statement that schools would be shut for the rest of the week to “allow needed time for peace and stability to be restored”.
Prison records obtained by NBC News showed that at least 78 people were arrested overnight on Monday, more than double the total reported by authorities. The vast majority were from Missouri. All but three of the 78 were arrested for refusing to disperse.
Police said earlier they had arrested 31 people as they clashed with protesters, despite a massive show of force by riot police and newly arrived national guard units failing to quell agitators who fired gunshots and threw Molotov cocktails.
The mayhem dashed hopes that the deployment of the national guard, and greater community efforts to control the small minority of violent protesters would ease a crisis which flared after a local police officer shot Michael Brown(18) on August 9th.
His parents, appearing on the Today show yesterday, said they believed the unrest would be alleviated if Darren Wilson, the officer who had killed their son, was prosecuted.
“Justice will bring peace I believe,” Lesley McSpadden, Mr Brown’s mother, said. “Him being arrested, charges being filed and a prosecution. Him being held accountable for what he did.”
A grand jury will begin hearing evidence today from witnesses to the shooting, it was confirmed last night.
Lawyers for Mr Brown’s family claimed on Monday that the findings of a private autopsy indicated that he was killed while trying to surrender. Mr Brown was shot “at least” six times by Wilson and was ultimately killed by a bullet that hit his head, they said.
At a 2.20am press conference yesterday, Capt Ron Johnson of the Missouri state highway patrol made an impassioned defence of the scale of the police response, which has come under sharp criticism. He said officers had acted with restraint against “criminal acts by a tiny minority of lawbreakers”.
Adding that police had once come under gunfire, and that several officers had been injured by rocks and bottles, Capt Johnson urged peaceful protesters to limit their demonstrations to daytime and not give cover to criminals at night.
“We’re going to make this neighbourhood whole, we’re going to make this community whole, and we’re going to do it together,” said Capt Johnson, close to tears. “I am not going to let criminals who come here from across the country or live in this community define this neighbourhood.”
Yesterday, the city issued a flyer saying: “It is our hope that as we continue to work for the wellbeing of Ferguson, residents will stay home at night, allow peace to settle in, and allow for the justice process to take its course. We owe it to our children to be able to return to school and work together peacefully for Ferguson’s future.”
Barack Obama has dispatched the attorney general, Eric Holder, to monitor events and said he would be watching whether national guard troops were “helping or hindering the situation”. t is the first time the national guard has been deployed to quell civil unrest in the US since the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.
– (Guardian service)