Gov. Jay Nixon orders National Guard to withdraw from Ferguson so the community can get on with "restoring trust" in its police force.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who Monday sent National Guard troops to Ferguson to protect a police command center, says they have completed their mission and ordered them to begin withdrawing. After 10 days of clashes between heavily armed trigger-happy police, peaceful protesters and looters in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown, the streets of Ferguson
were quiet Wednesday night.
In a statement, Nixon said:
“I greatly appreciate the men and women of the Missouri National Guard for successfully carrying out the specific, limited mission of protecting the Unified Command Center so that law enforcement officers could focus on the important work of increasing communication within the community, restoring trust, and protecting the people and property of Ferguson,” Gov. Nixon said. “As we continue to see improvement, I have ordered the Missouri National Guard to begin a systematic process of withdrawing from the City of Ferguson." [...]
Meanwhile, the unified command, which includes officers from the Missouri State Highway Patrol, St. Louis County, St. Louis City and other jurisdictions, will continue its mission to respond appropriately to incidents of lawlessness while protecting the rights of all peaceful citizens.
Uh ... er ... uhm ... did he really, seriously say "restoring trust"? FFS.
What does he have in mind for accomplishing that in a community where cops looked as if they had just parachuted into Taliban territory, pointed sniper rifles at protesters, tear-gassed them, shot them with rubber bullets, arrested them as well as reporters covering the story and, three times in a week, raided a church providing safe haven for protesters to get food, water and first aid?
"Officer Friendly" is going to have to go a long way to make a splash in Ferguson where 50 of the 53 cops are white even though the population is more than two-thirds black. Especially since authorities blew their opportunity so badly with their deployment of Capt. Ron Johnson.