Pres. Obama “No Excuse For Excessive Force” in Ferguson

14 Aug, 2014

Barack Obama said there was “no excuse for police to use excessive force”, after a fourth night of confrontation in Ferguson, Missouri, over the death of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown.

“We lost a young man in heartbreaking and tragic circumstances,” Obama said of Brown, who was shot dead by police on Saturday. “He was 18 years old and his family will never hold Michael in their arms again.”

He said there was no excuse for violence against police, but equally there was “no excuse for police to use excessive force” in response.

Appealing for calm, he said: “Now’s the time for healing, now’s the time for peace and calm on the streets of Ferguson.” He also condemned the arrest of reporters. “Here in the United States of America, police should not be arresting journalists who are doing their jobs.”

Obama’s comments came a fourth night of confrontation in Ferguson, where residents of the majority black town of 21,000 people have been protesting against the killing of Brown by an officer from the overwhelmingly white police force.

The response to the protest had been led by the St Louis County police force, which has deployed snipers, armoured vehicles and officers in military combat gear to quell protests on successive evenings since the Brown’s death on Saturday. Two reporters, with the Washington Post and the Huffington Post, were arrested on Wednesday night.

The governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, was due to make a statement about the police response on Thursday, amid speculation that he was to removed the St Louis police department from the lead role in responding to the protests.

“The worsening situation in Ferguson is deeply troubling,” said Nixon in a statement on Wednesday evening. “While we all respect the solemn responsibility of our law enforcement officers to protect the public, we must also safeguard the rights of Missourians to peaceably assemble, and the rights of the press to report on matters of public concern.”

He urged law enforcement agencies to “keep the peace and respect the rights of residents and the press.”

The senior US senator for Missouri, Claire McCaskill, said she had been working to “demilitarise” the situation. She said on Thursday: “This kind of response by the police has become the problem instead of the solution. I obviously respect law enforcement’s work to provide public safety, but my constituents are allowed to have peaceful protests, and the police need to respect that right and protect that right. Today is going to be a new start, we can and need to do better”.

Protesters took the the streets after Brown was shot dead by police Saturday afternoon. Police have refused to release the name of the officer involved in the shooting, citing concerns for the officer’s safety.

On Wednesday night, dozens of officers, some carrying assault rifles, advanced with a pair of armoured trucks on the young and predominantly African American crowd in Fergsuon, after two glass bottles were thrown at their lines from a largely peaceful protest.

For hours, police snipers trained their weapons on demonstrators who protested with their hands up as an emblem of peaceful protest. Protesters described being subjected to military-style tactics as they fled through gas-filled residential side-streets.

Two reporters were arrested as they were working in a McDonald’s near the scene of the protests.

“That behavior was wholly unwarranted and an assault on the freedom of the press to cover the news,” said Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron about the arrest of reporter Wesley Lowery. “We are appalled by the conduct of police officers involved.”

The Huffington Post called the arrests, including that of its reporter Ryan Reilly, the result of police militarization that is “now beginning to affect press freedom”.

The reporters were seen being loaded into an unmarked police van. They were later released without charge.

Separately, the Guardian witnessed teargas being shot directly at a camera crew with al-Jazeera America. Photographs later showed police officers dismantling al-Jazaeera’s broadcasting equipment after the crew fled.

The Guardian

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