ST. LOUIS, MO, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - The police in Ferguson, which has been rocked by protests since an officer killed an unarmed African-American teenager, need re-training to understand the community, peace-rally participants told RIA Novosti Sunday.
“Ferguson police are disconnected from the community and need to go through sensitivity training and understand that a young man can have dreads or wear a colored bandana and that that doesn’t make him a criminal,” said Mike Williams, 52, who runs a private security business.
“The young people here don’t have anybody to lead them or show them how to demonstrate so they are reckless and they are not scared to go to jail. They couldn’t care less about the police because the police don’t have their respect,” he said.
Ferguson, a mostly African-American suburb of St. Louis with some 21,000 residents, has been shaken by often violent protests since Wilson shot and killed Brown, an unarmed teen walking with a friend on a leafy backstreet on the afternoon of August 9.
“We don’t know each other and that’s what a community is all about. This new generation now, they are not more together, they are more apart. Police too, they need to get out of their cars and get to know the community,” said Harvey Ellis, 56, a teaching assistant.
“America needs to go back to community. America is divided. We do so much for everybody else, we need to do more for our own people back here. Barack Obama is president and that makes some difference. But even at the top, this country is divided,” Ellis said.
The grand jury began the hearing of evidence on the shooting Wednesday and is expected to decide on the possible charges against Wilson by mid-October. The inquiry hinges on whether Wilson fired in self-defense.
Brown’s mother was set to appear alongside the parents of Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager shot dead in 2012, at Peace Fest 2014, a music event encouraging peace over violence, in St. Louis' largest park, which was arranged before the killing.
Missouri National Guard troops have begun withdrawing as protests have calmed in recent nights. Police have been criticized for using military tactics, toting assault rifles and using tear gas, rubber bullets and other heavy-handed measures.
