THIS is WAR: Protesters ATTACK Police

Originally posted here- http://copsrcorrupt.blogspot.com/2014/08/this-is-war-protesters-attack-police.html

By Christopher Rice

Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson said he had planned to release the officer’s name Tuesday but changed course after death threats were called into the police department and City Hall, and posted on social media. He said it could be weeks before he releases the name.

“If we come out and say, ‘it was this officer,’ then he immediately becomes a target,” Jackson said. “We’re taking the threats seriously.”

Jackson didn’t disclose specifics but said the decision came after a stream of death threats against the officer and other officers. The race of the officer involved in the shooting also hasn’t been disclosed, but witnesses said he was white. Brown was black.

Nearly three dozen people were arrested following a candlelight vigil Sunday night as crowds burned stores, vandalized vehicles, assaulted reporters and taunted officers. A large crowd that gathered Monday at a burned-out convenience store turned rowdy at nightfall, with people throwing rocks at police, Jackson said. Officers used tear gas and shot “beanbag rounds” meant to stun them.

“People are tired. They have reached the end of their rope.” “Enough is enough. This is a state of emergency” said one of the protesters.

Authorities have been vague about what led the officer to open fire, saying only that the shooting was preceded by a scuffle with a man in which the officer’s weapon discharged inside a patrol car. Police have said there is no security or police video of the incident.

Witnesses have said that Brown had his hands raised when the officer approached with his weapon and repeatedly fired.

One witness, Phillip Walker, told The Associated Press that he was on the porch of an apartment complex overlooking the scene when he saw a white officer with Brown on the street. Brown “was giving up in the sense of raising his arms and being subdued,” Walker said.

The officer “had his gun raised and started shooting the individual in the chest multiple times,” Walker said, adding that the officer then “stood over him and shot him” after the victim fell wounded.

The protesters, almost all of them black, raised their fists and chanted: “We shall not be moved!”

Down the hill, advancing against them late Monday night were police officers in gas masks and riot gear, most of them white.

“People are angry, people are hurt, people are fed up,” said one protester, Derek Laney, 49, of St. Louis.

Jerryl Christmas, 50, a defense attorney and former prosecutor for the city of St. Louis, watched from the sidewalk Monday in a bright striped tie, holding a small bullhorn.

“Look out here right now,” Christmas said, gesturing to the line of white police officers. “The lack of black police officers either on the street or at the administrative level. … This whole area, this city is a racial powder keg.”

As riot police squeezed angry protesters farther down the street Monday morning, police Chief Jackson stood, sunburned and sweating, in the shade of a billboard across from the police station. He said he was shot at three times outside Wal-Mart during Sunday night’s riots.

He said about 12 businesses were damaged by a crowd Sunday night that smashed windows, looted stores and set fire inside a mini-mart. Some chanted, “No Justice! No Peace!”

Police arrested 32 people for looting. Several police officers were slightly injured.