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 Michael Brown Sr. and Lesley McSpadden, whose 18-year-old son
Michael Brown Jr. was killed on Aug. 9, provoking weeks of sometimes
violent demonstrations in Ferguson, spoke to reporters at a St.
Louis airport after returning from Geneva, where they met members of
the U.N. Committee on Torture.
"We were able to let the United Nations know that in the United
States we were being treated unfairly and just basically expose that
something should be done because this is not a year or two years,
this is hundreds of years," McSpadden said. "I hate what happened to
my son but it must stop with my son."
Officials and residents around Ferguson are waiting for a report
from a grand jury, which has been meeting in secret for weeks and is
expected to decide before the month's end whether to charge officer
Darren Wilson.
Many in the St. Louis area fear that another wave of rioting could
follow the grand jury's report, particularly if it decides not to
bring criminal charges.
 The suburban St. Louis school district of Hazelwood, Missouri, told
parents it would dismiss students early if the grand jury report
comes on a school day and said prosecutors had promised to provide
the district at least three hours' notice if the decision comes on a
weekday, with 24 hours' notice if it is made on a weekend.
The Ferguson-Florissant School District has received no such
assurances of an early warning when the grand jury decides, said
spokeswoman Jana Shortt.
A spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert
McCulloch did not respond to a request for comment.
Police in Clayton, Missouri, where the grand jury is sitting, told
residents they had learned that protesters were planning
demonstrations for the first business day after the news breaks of
whether Wilson is indicted.
"Numerous demonstrations have taken place in our city related to the
events that began in Ferguson over the summer. To date they have
been largely peaceful, with few arrests," Police Chief Kevin Murphy
said in a statement on Friday.
PREPARING FOR UNREST
Signs of preparation for the grand jury's decision could be seen
around the area, with businesses along the Ferguson street that saw
the worst of the August unrest keeping boards on their windows and
some shops near the Ferguson Police Department also beginning to
board up their fronts.
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On Thursday, private pathologist Dr. Michael Baden testified to the
grand jury. Baden, hired by Brown's family in part to try to
determine whether Brown was trying to surrender when he was shot,
has said Brown was shot at least six times, twice in the head.
There have been conflicting witness accounts of the shooting. Some
described a struggle between Brown and Wilson and others said Brown
put his hands up.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on its website on Friday that
Brown was shot to death less than 61 seconds after a dispatcher
acknowledged a radio call from Wilson saying he had stopped Brown
and his friend.
The newspaper based the finding on an analysis of emergency dispatch
records and a Twitter post by an eyewitness, assuming the time on
dispatcher records agreed with the witness' smartphone clock or
Twitter's time system.
St. Louis broadcaster KSDK reported late on Friday that Ferguson
Police Chief Tom Jackson said Wilson would immediately return to
duty if he is not indicted, although he had not spoken with Wilson
to know if he would want to rejoin the department.
He said Wilson would likely be fired if he is indicted, the station
reported. Jackson could not be reached immediately for comment.
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Additional reporting by Fiona Ortiz,
Alex Dobuzinskis and Curtis Skinner; Editing by Bill Trott, Eric
Beech and Paul Tait)
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