The governor of Missouri ordered more National Guard troops to the battered town of Ferguson, Mo., on Tuesday after a hellish night of rioting and gunfire left at least 14 injured — including a cop — and 82 arrested.
Police were investigating whether the overnight shooting death of a man in Ferguson and the shooting of a cop in a nearby suburb were related to the riots.
The developments came as black leaders took to national TV to decry a grand jury’s decision not to indict white Ferguson cop Darren Wilson for fatally shooting unarmed Michael Brown, 18, in August.
But a relative of Wilson’s insisted that the cop isn’t racist and said he only “shot Michael Brown that day because he was in fear of his life.
“It was Michael Brown or him,” the relative told the Daily Mail. “He shot him, and he got to go home that day.”
Darren WilsonFacebook“The grand jury made the right decision,” the source added. “[Wilson] would have shot [Brown] if he was white. He would have shot him if he was Mexican. He did not shoot Michael Brown because he was black.”
But Brown family lawyer Benjamin Crump seethed at a press conference in Ferguson that “the [grand jury] process should be indicted” and ripped what he called a longstanding “symbiotic relationship” between the prosecution and police.
He noted that Wilson “said he got hit violently,” yet he only had some redness on his ears and cheek and scratches on the back of his neck afterward.
Crump added that Wilson said he felt like it was “Hulk Hogan against a 5-year-old” during his scuffle with Brown, yet “nobody questions the officer.”
“You are 6-4, you weigh 226 pounds,” he said of Wilson. “Michael Brown is 6-6 and is 292 pounds.”
“You mean to tell me that he hit you with such force that you were describing that it was going to knock you unconscious?”
Blasting prosecutor Robert McCulloch, Crump said the government lawyer never should have been on the case.
“A first-year law student would have [done] a better job of cross-examining a killer of an unarmed person than the prosecutor’s office did,” Crump said. “Where was [Wilson’s] veracity ever challenged?”
The Rev. Al Sharpton ripped how McCulloch pointed out Brown’s role in the deadly scuffle while announcing the grand jury’s decision Monday night.
“I have been involved in civil rights all my life. We have seen cases go ways that we felt were right and ways that we felt were wrong. I have never seen a prosecutor hold a press conference to discredit the victim,” Sharpton said.
“Let the record be clear: You have broken our hearts, but you have not broken our backs. We are going to continue to pursue justice,” he said.
“I have called an emergency civil-rights leadership meeting in Washington, DC, next week,’’ Sharpton said. “In that meeting, we will determine an ongoing strategy that will include mass and regular marches, legislation and economic boycotts.”
As for the violence after the decision, “Those that acted in a destructive manner, that does not represent the spirit of Michael Brown,” Sharpton said.
“Those young people, those old people that stood no matter what the weather for over 103 days that kept going, those are the ones that have stood for Michael Brown. They are on Brown’s side. Those that burn are on their own side.”
Crump proposed the “Michael Brown Law,” under which “every police officer in every American city will have a video body camera.”
Sharpton said his National Action Network was planning protests in nearly 30 US cities — as well as economic boycotts — to make its disgust known.
At least 25 buildings were torched overnight — leaving smoldering ruins and shattered glass behind as firefighters were thwarted by flying bullets.
A fireman inspects a burning restaurant in Ferguson, where at least 11 businesses burned down or were damaged by flames.EPAHours earlier, thousands of protesters had taken to the streets — confronting throngs of armed cops in riot gear, flipping police cars and tossing Molotov cocktails.
Brown’s stepfather, Louis Head, was caught on camera screaming: “Burn this s–t down!”
Crump later called the comment “completely inappropriate.”
In New York, marches were planned everywhere from Manhattan to Staten Island to Brooklyn. One was also slated outside the federal courthouse in Newark, NJ.
A fashion boutique is destroyed in Ferguson.ReutersCivil rights leaders vowed Tuesday to continue protesting the decision — with further marches planned in and around the St. Louis suburb.
A man urinates in front of a burning auto parts store in Ferguson.EPA“My reaction is one of deep sorrow, pain — this grand jury decision represents salt in the wound of a brutal injustice,” said NAACP President Cornell William Brooks on Tuesday on “CBS This Morning.”
Brooks said his group is planning to launch a protest march from Brown’s house to the home of Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon.
New York Rep. Greg Meeks accused McCulloch of manipulating the facts to prevent an indictment.
“It seems as though the prosecutor went into the grand jury wanting an outcome and that outcome being a no true bill,” Meeks said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
But former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — who has come under fire for making racially charged comments about the case over the weekend — sniffed to CNN that prosecutors “could have never won this case.
“This riot you see today would have taken place six months from now when the officer’s acquitted by a jury,” insisted Giuliani, a former prosecutor.
Police and protesters face off in Ferguson on Monday night.EPA“If you can’t prove probable cause, how are you going to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt when the witnesses are contradicting themselves?”
Still, US Attorney General Eric Holder has cautioned that while the criminal case against Wilson might be closed, “The Justice Department’s investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown remains ongoing.”
Holder’s agency still has two investigations into the case — one probing whether Wilson violated Brown’s civil rights in the shooting and the other into the general policing practices in Ferguson.
In other breaking developments late Monday into Tuesday:
- Nixon ordered more National Guardsmen to protect the Ferguson Police Department, among other hot spots, although he refused to say how many he was calling up or how long they’d stay.
- At least 14 people had been injured in the rioting. A cop in the St. Louis suburb of University City also was shot in the arm while responding to a report of a home break-in, but it wasn’t clear whether the incident was related to the Brown violence. Another man was found shot dead in his car outside a Ferguson apartment building around 9 a.m. Tuesday, but police were still investigating. A neighbor near the second shooting told The St. Louis Post-Disptach that earlier in the night, he saw four people with guns outside and heard them saying they wanted to go around looting and kill someone.
- More than 60 people have been arrested in Ferguson and another 21 busted in St. Louis, mainly for burglary and trespassing, authorities said. “I don’t think we can prevent folks who really are intent on destroying a community,” said St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay on Tuesday decried the violence, saying, “It’s not only a black eye on the community, it sets, it really sets back the cause of social justice.”
- More than 110 schools in the area were either closed or had delayed openings because of the situation.
- About 100 clergy and other protesters blocked morning traffic Tuesday in downtown Clayton, Mo., where the grand jury decision was announced Monday night, singing spirituals and shouting, “This is what theocracy looks like!” At one point, they held a 4½-minute moment of silence — to signify the 4½ hours that Brown’s body was left on the street before it was removed.
- President Obama called for the criminal prosecution of rioters, but pledged more personal engagement to address racial unrest. Mayor de Blasio decried the situation in Ferguson, but said, “We approach policing and the relationship between police and the community very differently here in New York City.’’ He refused to comment on the grand jury’s decision.
- In New York City, Sharpton’s NAN said it plans to hold a “panel on community-police relations” on Staten Island on Tuesday evening which will include Eric Garner’s mother, Sean Bell’s fiancee and NYPD Assistant Chief Edward Delatorre. Garner, who was black, died after being put in a police chokehold by a white cop during a bust in August. The unarmed Bell was killed in a 50-bullet fusillade by undercover cops outside a Queens strip club in 2006.
- Celebrities weighed in on the Brown decision through Twitter. Singer Rihanna posted a photo of a protester holding up a sign that said, “Justice for … I left it blank because I’ll probably need this next year,” adding the word, “facts.” Basketball star LeBron James wrote, “As a society how do we do better and stop things like this happening time after time!!” and posted a drawing of Brown walking with Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black Florida teen killed by a white neighborhood-watch member.
