by Gregg Levine, Al Jazeera America
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[Updated 2:10 P.M. EDT] Appearing at a St. Louis church Thursday, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said there would be an “operational shift” in the way police handled protests in Ferguson. The area suburb has seen four nights of community protests and aggressive police response since Saturday when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police.
“You will see a different tone,” said Nixon.
The governor appeared with Sen. Clair McCaskill, D-Mo., who told the audience inside the church that St. Louis County should “demilitarize the police response.” McCaskill later said, “The police response has been part of the problem,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
McCaskill also said it was her understanding that the St. Louis County police would no longer be involved the Ferguson response, but did not elaborate.
Earlier, Missouri State Representative Lacy Clay told Bloomberg News that Gov. Nixon had called to say that he was “on his way to St. Louis now to announce he’s taking … St. Louis County police out of the situation.”
According to Clay, Nixon said he might ask the FBI to step in. Clay had called this week for intervention by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, saying he did not expect there to be justice for the shooting victim and his family “if the St. Louis County police and prosecutor have a say.”
Clay told Bloomberg that Nixon had finally realized the St. Louis Couny police were “not going to do the right thing.”
The Justice Department opened an investigation into the Brown shooting on Monday, according to White House spokesman.
The FBI is an investigative unit; there has been no word on what group will replace the St. Louis Country police on the streets of Ferguson.
“Given the track record of the last couple days, any outside accountability and oversight of the Ferguson police is a positive development,” said Lee Rowland, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU filed suit Thursday in St. Louis County to make public copies of police reports surrounding the Brown shooting. The ACLU said such incident reports are open records, and withholding them is a violation under Missouri law.
Criticism has increased through the week, leveled at both the actions of the police in Ferguson and the apparent inaction of elected officials at the county and state level.
Obama: ‘No excuse’
Speaking from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Thursday, President Barack Obama said he had been briefed on the situation in Ferguson and had already asked the Department of Justice and the FBI to “independently investigate the death of Michael Brown.” The president said he had spoken with Governor Nixon to express his concern over the events of the last five days.
Obama added that it was “important to remember how this started.”
“We lost a young man under tragic circumstances,” said Obama.
The president specifically referenced the actions of the police in Ferguson. “There is no excuse for police to use excessive force,” Obama said, “or to throw people in jail” for exercising their 1st amendment rights.
Referencing the Wednesday detentions in Ferguson of reporters from the Washington Post and Huffington Post, Obama also said “police should not be bullying or arresting journalists” who were simply doing their jobs and reporting on area events.
“We should hold ourselves to a higher standard,” the president said.
