Ferguson protests in US spread to 12 cities

The United States has witnessed fresh protests over a grand jury’s decision not to indict a white police officer who killed an unarmed black teenager.

The unrest which started on Monday night has spread to 12 cities, with more than 2,200 National Guard soldiers stepping in to assist police in maintaining order.

According to BBC, protests were reported in St Louis, Seattle, Albuquerque, New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Oakland, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Portland, Chicago and Boston.

Ferguson itself was also embroiled in the riot with the police arresting 44 people.

However, the crisis in Ferguson was easier to control than that of Monday night with St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar saying Tuesday had been “generally a much better night” in the town of 21,000 people.

He said there was only one report of shooting when a car was set alight and that tear gas was fired just once, when rioters smashed windows at the Ferguson town hall.

Demonstrations from New York to Seattle were mostly peaceful but rioting broke out in Oakland, California and Atlanta, Georgia, where protesters blocked traffic, vandalised police cars and caused damage to local businesses.

The police made 43 arrests in Oakland in a bid to control the crowd numbering about 2,000.

Meanwhile, Darren Wilson, the officer who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown dead has insisted that he did his job right, adding that his conscience was clean.

Wilson told ABC News that Brown was charging at him, disregarding his instructions.

“I started backpedalling, ‘cause he’s just getting too close and he’s not stopping,” Wilson said.

“After I fired the second round of shots, he gets about eight to 10 feet [away]. And as he does that, he kinda starts to lean forward like he’s gonna tackle me. And eight to 10 feet is close and what I saw was his head. If he’s gonna tackle me, he’s gonna tackle me at that point. And I looked down my barrel of my gun and I fired.”

Wilson said Brown was trying to intimidate him and he could not have responded differently.

However, lawyers for Michael Brown’s family have described the process that led to the white officer not being indicted as “unfair and broken”.

Reacting to the protests on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said there was “no excuse” for destructive behaviour and criminal acts of rioting.

“Burning buildings, torching cars, destroying property, putting people at risk … there’s no excuse for it,” he said, while urged aggrieved parties to embrace a peaceful approach.

Acknowledging that “many communities of colour” had a sense of laws not being enforced “uniformly or fairly”, Obama said he had ordered Eric Holder, US attorney general, to see what could be done to build trust.

Photo credit: Reuters