|
 The St. Louis County prosecutor's office also was expected to
begin presenting evidence to a grand jury investigating the Aug. 9
shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, in a case that Governor
Jay Nixon vowed would be treated as a "vigorous prosecution."
Holder said he planned to visit Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb that is
home to a predominantly African-American population of 21,000, to be
briefed on the progress of a separate civil rights investigation he
has ordered into the Brown killing.
In a special message to the community published online by the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, Holder said about 40 FBI agents have been
assigned to the case, along with prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's
Office in St. Louis, and that hundreds of people have already been
interviewed.
An independent autopsy, the third conducted in the killing, has also
been performed by federal medical examiners at Holder's direction,
he said.
"Our investigation into this matter will be full, it will be fair,
and it will be independent," he said.
He also joined Governor Jay Nixon and other officials in a renewed
appeal for public calm following demonstrations that have gripped
Ferguson almost every night since Brown was killed by a 28-year-old
police officer, Darren Wilson. The officers has been placed on leave
and gone into seclusion, while Brown's family and their supporters
called for his arrest.
Most of those protests have been punctuated by looting, vandalism
and clashes between demonstrators and police.
EYES OF THE WORLD
The turmoil, while generating international headlines, has exposed
simmering racial tensions in a mostly black town whose police force,
political leadership and public education administration are
dominated by whites.
It also has re-ignited a national debate over racial disparities in
the U.S. criminal justice system, even drawing sharp words on
Tuesday from the United Nations' top human rights envoy, Navi
Pillay, a native South African.
"I condemn the excessive force by the police and call for the right
of protest to be respected," she said in Geneva.
Police and the governor have insisted that the most of the trouble
has been generated by thugs or outside agitators bent on goading
police into action.
State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, who temporarily assumed
command last Thursday of a local police force widely criticized for
heavy-handed tactics, said many protesters on Tuesday evening heeded
calls by city officials for citizens to stay off the streets after
sunset.
Demonstrators were notably fewer in number and more subdued than on
previous nights. Onlookers milled about as civic activists, members
of the clergy and even Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster
mingled with demonstrators.
The relative calm abruptly dissolved just before midnight, however,
as police in riot gear ordered lingering demonstrators to disperse,
then charged into the crowd to make arrests.
Police later said they took 47 people into custody and seized
several loaded firearms, but no gunshots were fired.
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Johnson said officers aggressively moved against the remaining crowd
when pelted with water bottles and urine by "instigators" who sought
to hide among journalists covering the demonstration.
Still, there was no shooting from either side, no tear gas or smoke
bombs fired by police, and no Molotov cocktails from protesters,
though police doused some demonstrators with pepper spray during
clashes that erupted at the end of the night. He credited
community leaders for helping to maintain order calm by taking to
the streets to discourage unruly behavior.
As tensions mounted and it appeared violence might escalate,
numerous community activists rushed between lines of police and the
demonstrators, linking hands to form a human chain separating the
opposing sides.
The confrontation capped an otherwise mostly peaceful night of
demonstrations, the most tranquil in Ferguson since last Thursday,
when Johnson, who is black, took charge of police.
How long tensions persist may well hinge on the outcome of
investigations into Brown's killing, accounts of which have so far
varied sharply.
According to police, Wilson reported that Brown reached into the
policeman's cruiser when Wilson approached him on the street, then
grabbed for the officer's gun.
A companion of Brown said the teenager was initially shot after the
officer tried to grab him through the car window and again after
Brown staggered back with his hands in the air.
An independent autopsy arranged by Brown's family found he had been
shot six times, including twice in the head.
Public rage generated by the killing recalled the angry but peaceful
protests across the United States in July 2013 over the acquittal of
George Zimmerman, a white Hispanic, in his slaying of unarmed black
teenager Trayvon Martin during a scuffle in Florida.
Emotions could run high again next Monday, when a funeral service
for Brown is scheduled.
Wilson has yet to make a public statement, but investigators said he
had been cooperative in interviews with detectives.
(Additional reporting by Lucas Jackson in Ferguson, Carey Gillam in
Kansas City, Mo., Eric Beech in Washington and Curtis Skinner in New
York; Writing; Writing Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Peter
Cooney and Jeremy Laurence, Larry King)
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