Top agents to probe Brown’s death: Holder

Attorney General Eric Holder speaks during a meeting at the FBI Building in St Louis, Missouri, on August 20, 2014. Holder visited Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday, hours after nearly 50 protesters were arrested in the 11th straight night of demonstrations over the August 9 shooting of Michael Brown. Picture: Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Attorney General Eric Holder speaks during a meeting at the FBI Building in St Louis, Missouri, on August 20, 2014. Holder visited Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday, hours after nearly 50 protesters were arrested in the 11th straight night of demonstrations over the August 9 shooting of Michael Brown. Picture: Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Published Aug 21, 2014

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Ferguson, Missouri - US Attorney General Eric Holder met with community members in Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday and vowed a thorough civil rights probe into the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager that has set off 11 nights of racially charged unrest.

Holder, the first African-American to head the Justice Department, met with students and then community leaders at a community college during a visit to Ferguson for a briefing on a Justice Department investigation into the August 9 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

He later met privately with Brown's parents at the downtown St Louis office of the US attorney for the region, but no details of that session was immediately available.

Before a briefing at local FBI headquarters, Holder said the thrust of his department's inquiry in the shooting was different from the investigation being conducted by local authorities.

“We're looking for possible violations of federal civil rights statutes,” he said.

The Justice Department probe specifically seeks to determine whether federal prosecutors can bring criminal charges against Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Brown, for violating Brown's civil rights by use of excessive force.

Brown said he also hoped his visit “will have a calming influence” on a community wracked by civil discord.

His visit came hours after dozens of protesters were arrested in the latest demonstrations since the shooting. Many of the protests have been peaceful, but others, especially smaller ones late at night, have been punctuated by looting, vandalism and clashes between demonstrators and police.

The turmoil has cast the St Louis suburb of 21 000 people into the international spotlight as a symbol of often troubled US race relations.

Ferguson is predominantly black, but its police force, political leadership and public education administration are dominated by whites. Activists and demonstrators have complained that Brown's death was the culmination of years of unfair police targeting of blacks.

Among students meeting with Holder at the Florissant Valley campus of St Louis Community College was Molyric Welch, 27, who said her brother died three years ago after Ferguson police used a stun gun on him.

“A lot has happened here,” she said. “He (Holder) promised things were going to change.”

Also on Wednesday, the St Louis County prosecutor's office began presenting evidence to a regularly seated grand jury investigating the fatal shooting.

Prosecuting attorney Bob McCulloch said his office could continue presenting evidence to the grand jury - which meets once a week - through mid-October as he confronts conflicting pressures for speed and thoroughness.

“On one side, people are saying, ‘You're rushing to justice’, and on the other side, they're saying, ‘You're dragging this thing out’,” he told a news conference. “We're going to present this as expeditiously as possible, but we are not going to present it in a half-hearted manner.”

Outside McCulloch's office, a few dozen protesters called for his removal from the case and the immediate arrest of the 28-year-old officer involved in the shooting. Wilson has been placed on leave and gone into seclusion.

“The criminal justice system in America... is as racist as it was 50 years ago,” said 62-year-old black minister Stanton Holliday, who said he was a longtime civil rights activist and was concerned that prosecutors were taking too long.

Accounts of Brown's slaying differ. According to police, Wilson reported that Brown reached into the policeman's cruiser when Wilson approached him on the street, then grabbed for the officer's gun.

A companion of Brown said the teenager was initially shot after the officer tried to grab him through the car window and again after Brown staggered back with his hands in the air.

In the meeting at the community college, Holder said he had assigned the most experienced agents and prosecutors to the investigation, according to a briefing note from his office.

Hundreds of people have already been interviewed and federal medical examiners have performed an independent autopsy, the third conducted in the killing.

Holder, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and other officials have appealed for public calm.

The case has re-ignited a national debate over racial disparities in the US criminal justice system and has drawn sharp words from top UN officials and human rights groups about police tactics and the need to respect the rights of protesters.

Police and the governor have insisted that thugs or outside agitators have caused most of the trouble at the nightly demonstrations.

On Tuesday, demonstrators were noticeably fewer in number and more subdued than on previous nights, but the relative calm dissolved just before midnight, as police in riot gear ordered lingering demonstrators to disperse, then charged into the crowd to make arrests.

Police said later they took 47 people into custody and seized several loaded firearms, but no gunshots were fired, despite extremely tense moments.

One officer from the neighbouring community of St Ann was suspended from duty for pointing a semi-automatic assault rifle at a peaceful protester during a heated verbal exchange, before a police sergeant stepped in, forced the officer to lower his weapon and escorted him away from the scene, the St Louis County Police Department said.

The incident was captured on video footage that circulated widely on social media. - Reuters

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