WASHINGTON, November 26 (Sputnik) – The protests in Ferguson over the Missouri grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer, who fatally shot an unarmed African-American teenager prove that there are broader problems in the United States, the country's president has said.
"The problem is not just a Ferguson problem, it is an American problem," US President Barack Obama said Tuesday, stressing that frustration in the United States over the justice system has deep roots.
The US President added that he had instructed the Attorney General to set up meetings aimed at building trust in communities and expressed sympathy for minority groups in the United States who felt that laws in the country were not being enforced fairly.
Major protests erupted in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson Monday over the grand jury's decision not to convict Darren Wilson, a white police officer, who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, in Ferguson, on August 9.
Brown's shooting triggered massive protests against police brutality in Ferguson and around the country in August.
Two months after the Brown shooting, another 18-year-old African-American teenager, Vonderrit Myers, was shot at several times by an off-duty white police officer in the Shaw neighborhood in St. Louis.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Ferguson and St. Louis, following the incident to rally against what they view as a series of racially motivated shootings of African-Americans by white police officers in the region.
On Tuesday, Michael Shank, a scholar from George Mason University's School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, told Sputnik that Ferguson protests are "just the beginning of a perpetual pushback against the increasing abuse of power" in the United States.
