FERGUSON, MO, AUGUST 20 (RIA Novosti) – Police must work to rebuild trust in a mostly African-American neighborhood after the killing of an unarmed African-American teenager by a white police officer, local store owner Webster Morris told RIA Novosti.
“Police need to sit down with residents – the young residents – and hear what they have to say. The problem is the police won’t want to hear what they have to say, because they may have to do something about the bad officers in their department,” Morris said.
“Police have a code that they’re untouchable. If you go to work every day with this mentality that you can’t get fired, then you’re going to act accordingly. There’s no repercussions for bad behaviour. If you file a report against a police officer, they will always back up the police officer,” he said.
Ferguson, a mostly African-American suburb of St Louis with some 21,000 residents, has been rocked by protests since the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed teen, while walking with a friend down a residential street in the afternoon of August 9.
Missouri National Guard troops have been deployed to tackle the violence, which has grown fiercer as peaceful protestors were joined by looters from California and New York, police said. Law enforcement officers have been criticized for using tear gas, rubber bullets and other heavy-handed measures.
