The Police Chief in Ferguson clearly believes he has the support of the Mayor and City Council. They have remained largely silent throughout this ordeal.
It is astonishing that while Ferguson is roughly 68% African American, the City Council has only one black member out of six, a white mayor, a white police chief and of the 53 police officers, only 3 are black. Part of the problem is that municipal elections in Missouri take place in April when turnout is surely very low.
But this can be changed. Take the energy that is now going into protests and direct it to a recall petition for the Mayor and members of City Council. That would make them sit up and take notice. Right now they seem to think they can weather this storm.
Missouri State law specifically provides for the recall of municipal officials. Petitions must include the signatures of 25% of registered voters. They must be gathered within 60 days which should not be too hard to do at this point.
The Mayor and Council members serve three year terms. According to State Law, recall is possible for any official after they have been in office for 6 months. The grounds for recall are "misconduct in office, incompetence, and failure to perform duties."
I think that test has been met.
A recall election would get a lot of attention and turnout would be high. Use the power of the vote.