Guard, police work to head off more unrest in Ferguson

FERGUSON, Mo. — National Guard troops and police aimed to head off a third night of violence on Wednesday in Ferguson, Missouri, as more than 400 people have been arrested in the St. Louis suburb and around the United States in unrest after a white policeman was cleared in the killing of an unarmed black teenager.

There have been protests in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta and other cities decrying Monday’s grand jury decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in a case that has touched off a debate about race relations in the United States.

Ferguson, a predominately black city, has been hit by two nights of rioting, looting and arson with some businesses burned to the ground, but authorities say an increased security presence on Tuesday night helped quell the violence.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has deployed about 2,200 National Guard troops in and around Ferguson. Police made 45 arrests in Ferguson in the Tuesday night protests, down from 61 in aftermath of Monday’s grand jury decision.

“The ramped up presence and action of the Missouri National Guard has been helpful,” Nixon said on Wednesday after facing criticism for not deploying enough guardsman in the hours after the grand jury’s decision.

Tensions between police and black Americans have simmered for decades, with many blacks feeling the U.S. legal system and law enforcement authorities do not treat them fairly. In Washington, President Barack Obama has tried to keep a lid on anger that has spilled over to other cities and garnered international attention.

Obama remained cautious in his comments in the immediate aftermath of the Ferguson shooting, but has been more expansive in recent days including remarks at the White House after the grand jury’s decision. On Monday he said deep distrust exists between police and minorities and that “communities of color aren’t just making these problems up.”

Russia on Wednesday pointed to rioting in Ferguson and the other protests across the United States as evidence that Moscow’s detractors in Washington were hypocrites and in no position to lecture Russia on human rights.

St. Louis police said three people were arrested at a protest near City Hall on Wednesday in which activists staged a mock trial of Wilson, who told the grand jury he shot Brown because he feared for his life.

Ferguson’s mayor, James Knowles, is white, as are most of its city council members. A 2013 state attorney general’s report found more than 85 percent of motorists pulled over in the city are black, and the arrest rate among blacks is twice the rate among white residents.

‘SAD FACT’

Obama’s Justice Department is probing the Ferguson shooting as it considers whether to bring federal civil rights charges against the officer and the police department.

“The sad fact is that it brings up issues that we’ve been struggling with in this country for a long, long time,” said Matthew Green, an associate professor of politics at the Catholic University of America.

“These are not problems and issues that are going to get resolved by one president in the remainder of his term.”

Wilson said his conscience was clear. He told ABC News that there was nothing he could have done differently that would have prevented Brown’s death. But the parents of the slain teenager said they did not accept the officer’s version of the events.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday.

The crowds in Ferguson were smaller and more controlled than on Monday, when about a dozen businesses were torched and others were looted amid rock-throwing and sporadic gunfire from protesters and volleys of tear gas fired by police. More than 60 people were arrested then.

“Generally, it was a much better night,” St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told reporters on Wednesday, adding there was little arson or gunfire, and that lawlessness was confined to a relatively small group.

A Conoco gas station and convenience store in Ferguson has escaped looters with armed, black local residents guarding the white-owned store.

Protests over the Ferguson decision in several major cities on Tuesday night shut highways and led to some arrests.

Police in Boston said on Wednesday that 45 people were arrested in protests overnight that drew more than a thousand demonstrators. In Dallas, seven were arrested for blocking traffic on Interstate 35, a major north-south U.S. roadway.

In New York, where police used pepper spray to control the crowd after protesters tried to block the Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge, 10 demonstrators were arrested, police said.

Protesters in Los Angeles threw water bottles and other objects at officers outside city police headquarters and later obstructed both sides of a downtown freeway with makeshift roadblocks and debris, authorities said.

Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Carey Gillam in Kansas City, David Bailey in Minneapolis, Fiona Ortiz and Mary Wisniewski in Chicago, Jonathan Kaminsky in New Orleans, and Laila Kearney and Letitia Stein in New York, Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and Colleen Jenkins in North Carolina.