The streets of Ferguson were calm Thursday on the Thanksgiving holiday, but video showing Cleveland police shooting dead a young black boy could once again inflame simmering tensions over race and justice in America. Ferguson, a suburb of St Louis, has seen three days of sometimes violent protests over Monday's explosive decision by a Missouri grand jury not to charge a white policeman who shot dead an unarmed black teen in August.
The decision revived long-standing questions about the treatment of young African Americans by police - questions again asked after the weekend shooting in Cleveland of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Surveillance video released Wednesday in the Ohio city showed Rice, who was carrying a replica gun, was killed within seconds of the patrol car arriving on the scene in a park. The officer who fired the fatal shot was fairly new to the force, and is white. Cleveland police also released audio from a 911 emergency call from a man who first saw the boy waving the gun, saying he thought it was "probably fake."
However, the dispatcher did not tell the officers that the gun was possibly a toy nor that the suspect was likely a youth, the tape showed. In Ferguson, just a few dozen protesters and clergy braved rain and light snow late Wednesday to protest outside the police department in the St Louis suburb, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed on August 9. "This is what democracy looks like," shouted the mainly young demonstrators, bundled up against the cold.
One or two taunted and swore at the 50 National Guard troops in riot gear who stood on duty at the police department. Witnesses said police took one person into custody. Protesters later marched from the police department past city hall, briefly blocking traffic. They dispersed peacefully as police in riot gear turned up and rally organisers ordered demonstrators to move onto sidewalks to avoid a confrontation.
The shooting death of Brown sparked weeks of protest and a debate about race relations and heavy-handed police tactics. The decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, who fired the fatal shots, has sparked fresh protests across the United States as well as a rally across the Atlantic in London.
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