WASHINGTON, August 19 (RIA Novosti) - US Attorney General Eric Holder is due to travel to the embattled Missouri city of Ferguson on Wednesday to look into the police shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager.
“The attorney general himself will be travelling to Ferguson on Wednesday to meet with the FBI agents and DoD personnel conducting the federal criminal investigation, and he will receive an update from them on their progress,” Obama said in a statement on Monday.
The US Justice Department has opened an “independent, federal civil rights investigation” into the death of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old who was gunned down in broad daylight on August 9, Obama said.
“They are on the ground and, along with the FBI, they are devoting substantial resources to that investigation,” the US president assured journalists who gathered at the White House to receive an update on the situation in Ferguson and also in Iraq.
Michael Brown’s killing sparked off days of unrest and looting across Ferguson, in St. Louis County, prompting Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to order the state's National Guard to be deployed to the city earlier on Monday.
Hours after the National Guards’ arrival, Nixon lifted nighttime curfew that had been in place after protesters allegedly threw Molotov cocktails and fired gunshots at local police.
