Missouri Governor to send more troops to chaotic Ferguson

FERGUSON (Missouri) — With this St Louis suburb reeling from a chaotic night of demonstrations that erupted in many fires, frequent bursts of gunshots, looting and waves of tear gas, Governor Jay Nixon said early on Tuesday that he would send additional National Guard troops to help quell the worst violence this battered city has seen since a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in August.

The hours of unrest followed the announcement on Monday that a grand jury had chosen not to indict the officer, Darren Wilson, for the death of Michael Brown. St Louis County reported that 61 people had been arrested.

In a terse statement issued just after 1am on Tuesday, the office of Governor Nixon, who visited Ferguson hours before the grand jury’s announcement, said the governor had ordered more members of the National Guard into the city, but did not specify how many.

On Monday night, National Guard soldiers had been assigned to protect, among other locations, a police command post and an electrical substation.

“I really don’t have any hesitation in telling you that I didn’t see a lot of peaceful protest out there tonight, and I’m disappointed about that,” Mr Jon Belmar, the St Louis County police chief, said early Tuesday at a news conference. “I’m not saying there weren’t folks out there that were out there for the right reason. I’m not saying that wasn’t the case, but I am saying that, unfortunately, this spun out of control.”

Mr Belmar said demonstrators had set fire to at least a dozen buildin gs in and around Ferguson and estimated that he had heard about 150 gunshots. The police, he said, did not fire any live ammunition.

Fires continued to burn into Tuesday, and some of the flames and smoke on West Florissant Avenue, a main thoroughfare that was an epicentre of violence in August, lapped over the fence lines behind the storefronts, swooping perilously close to homes.

The outbreak of violence played out even as President Barack Obama spoke from the White House and pleaded for calm and restraint from both the police and the protesters.

“First and foremost, we are a nation built on the rule of law,” said Mr Obama. “And so we need to accept that this decision was the grand jury’s to make.”

Speaking at a news conference in Clayton, Missouri, Mr Robert McCulloch, the St Louis County prosecuting attorney, described the series of events that led to the shooting, as well as the evidence presented to the 12-member grand jury.

He detailed an altercation inside Officer Wilson’s vehicle, after which Officer Wilson had Mr Brown’s blood on his weapon, shirt and pants, the prosecutor said, as well as swelling and redness on his face.

But the words spoken by Mr Obama and Mr McCulloch seemed distant here on a night when screams and gunshots echoed through the streets, demonstrators looted stores and set vehicles ablaze, and officers were pelted with rocks and bricks.

Demonstrations also played out across the country, including in Atlanta; Los Angeles; New York; Oakland; and Philadelphia. The demonstrations were largely peaceful. AGENCIES