Simmering Tension Amid Ferguson Robbery Claims
Updated: 9:43pm UK, Friday 15 August 2014
By Greg Milam, US Correspondent
What Ferguson, Missouri, did not need was another spark to re-ignite the flames of protest.
The decision to name Officer Darren Wilson as the man who shot Michael Brown was welcomed by the community - to accompany it by naming Mr Brown as a robbery suspect was not.
In a short and chaotic briefing, Ferguson's embattled police chief Thomas Jackson almost undid the remarkable work done by others to pull his city back from the brink.
The calm authority of Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, tasked with taking control of security in an area he knows well, had defused the tinder box atmosphere.
The tear gas, rubber bullets and anger of Wednesday night was replaced by a police-free, multi-racial block party mood on Thursday.
But the release of CCTV showing a "strong-arm robbery" at a convenience store just before Mr Brown was fatally shot angered locals afresh.
They dismiss claims that the 18-year-old was the tall black man caught on video manhandling a shop clerk over a $40 box of cigars.
Minutes later he was lying dead in the middle of the street, a killing that ignited a community's long-simmering resentment.
"They have witnesses who saw what happened and they didn't say it was a robbery," said Jessica Holmes.
"They tear gassed us, why didn't they tear gas him? He still would have been alive. You had to shoot and kill him after he surrendered? That is not a robbery, that is murder."
LarRon Brooks added: "Why are they telling us about this robbery now? Because they know if they can taint him, it won't reflect badly on them. Otherwise they are going to have to tear down Ferguson police station."
Capt Johnson responded to the renewed frustration by inviting angry locals to ask questions at a news conference in a Target store car park.
He again urged calm, saying: "In our anger we must be careful not to burn down our own house."
He said the community would have to survive together long after the media attention has faded.
That majority black community still wants answers and recognition of decades of problems with its almost exclusively white police force.
Jamesha Fields, 18, recounted her recent encounter with Ofc Wilson. She claimed it happened at the QuikTrip convenience store that has since been burned to the ground in the protests.
She said the officer prevented her from washing pepper spray from her face.
"He was talking to me all nasty," Ms Fields said. "He was rude. He was saying the 'F' word. He told me to 'Shut the 'f' up and sit the 'f' down'."
She said she was shocked when she heard it was Ofc Wilson who killed Mr Brown.
At the spot where the shooting happened, locals have set up barbecues and water stations. A pastor preaches over a PA system and counsellors offer psychological support.
Two children pose for a picture at a makeshift shrine to Mr Brown, arms in the air.
"Hands up, don't shoot," reads the boy's T-shirt.
A sign of surrender, witnesses say, ignored by Ofc Wilson in shooting Mike Brown.
It is now the slogan in a movement for change.
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