MOSCOW, August 21 (RIA Novosti) - Almost 135,000 US citizens have supported a petition to US President Barack Obama’s administration which calls for the introduction of the so-called Mike Brown Law, demanding the government to “create a bill, sign into law, and set aside funds to require all state, county, and local police, to wear a camera.”
The petition was posted on the White House’s website following the shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri.
“The law shall be made in an effort to not only detour police misconduct (i.e. brutality, profiling, abuse of power), but to ensure that all police are following procedure, and to remove all question, from normally questionable police encounters. As well, as help to hold all parties within a police investigation, accountable for their actions,” the petition says.
The killing of Brown has triggered a wave of mass protests against police brutality and racism in Ferguson. The authorities have deployed the US National Guard to the town, while the police have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds. Many African-Americans, which comprise more than a half of Ferguson’s population, claim police officers, mostly Caucasians, harass them on a regular basis.
To get an official response, a petition posted on the White House website should receive at least 100,000 signatures.
