Ferguson protests: As it happened

Ferguson protests: As it happened
  • Lambasting Ferguson's white police officer Darren Wilson's account of confrontation with Michael Brown as "crazy", the slain teenager's father condemned him while speaking on NBC news. Brown's mother Lesley McSpadden, too, speaking on NBC's "Today" show, said that Wilson's statements were like "insult after injury".

Wilson had described Michael Brown as very powerful like a demon and that the teenager had come charging on him.

  • The verdict on Michael Brown's shooting has sparked a national debate in the US about racial discrimination against the blacks who have taken to streets with banners that read "Black Lives Matter", "End Racism", "End police brutality", "Hands up - Don't Shoot". 
  • One of the photos showed a protest graffiti spray-painted on a wall in Oakland, that read - "Kill Cops. Mike Brown".

  • Just miles away from St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, two FBI special agents were shot at a barricaded home early Wednesday, the NBC news reported.
  • The agents were shot while assisting the University City Police Department in serving an arrest warrant in north St. Louis County, the FBI said in a statement, the report added. However, the incident is said not to be directly related with Michale Brown's shooting verdict protests.
  • In wake of the violent violent protests, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, expressed concern at what he called as the "institutionalized discrimination in the US". He urged the protestors to avoid violence and destruction in the wake of the decision made by Missouri Grand Jury.
  • At the same time, he expressed "concern at the disproportionate number of young African Americans who die in encounters with police officers, as well as the disproportionate number of African Americans in US prisons and the disproportionate number of African Americans on Death Row". 

 

  • ​​Interestingly, Ferguson police officer Captain Ron Johnson had a word of praise for "some of the peaceful protesters" who were actually helping the police. 
  • Keeping in mind the ferocity of protests, authorities have triple the number of Nation Guard troops deployed in and around Ferguson from 700 to 2100.
  • The protests turned violent in Oakland, as police struggled to tackle a 2000-strong crowd and rioters destroyed police cars and vandalised businesses. Police have arrested dozens.
  • Protesters continued thronging cities, pelting stones, vandalising businesses and also throwing "urine filled bottles" at police, tweeted St. Louis County Police Department
  • Describing Michael Brown as a very "powerful man," Wilson compared him to Hulk Hogan (American wrestler) and said that had he not pulled the trigger, he himself would have been dead.
  • Meanwhile in his first public comments made in an interview to the ABC news, the 28-year-old white cop stood by his act of shooting Michael Brown, saying he had a “clear conscience” as he knew that he “did his job right”.
  • On being asked if anything he could have done differently that could have been done to avoid the shooting, the cop answered “nothing”.
  • According to the BBC, the 12 cities that erupted in protests are: St Louis, Seattle, Albuquerque, New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Oakland, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Portland, Chicago and Boston.
  • Though Ferguson saw a “better night” on Tuesday as the violence was not as fierce as reported on Monday night. However, over a dozen US cities, from New York to Seattle, saw fresh protests erupting over the jury's decision on Tuesday night, the BBC reported.
  • The protests against the grand jury announcement of not charging the white cop for Michale Brown's shooting continued for the second night in Ferguson, Missouri and also spread to other cities across the US.

 

The fatal August 9 shooting of a black unarmed teenager named Michael Brown by a white policeman named Darren Wilson in Missouri's Ferguson had sparked weeks of violence and unrest in the town besides raking up the sensitive issue of racial bias against the blacks.

What reignited the riots in Ferguson last night was the ruling by grand jury that acquitted the white police officer Darren Wilson and did not charge him over Michael Brown's shooting.

The ruling has left the family of Michael Brown disappointed and evoked widespread protests across dozens of US cities against what is being assumed as the excessive use of force against blacks by white cops.

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