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| FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2014 file image from video provided by the City of Ferguson, Mo., officer Darren Wilson attends a city council meeting in Ferguson. Police identified Wilson, 28, as the police officer who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, 2014 in Ferguson. Police departments across the country are bracing for large demonstrations when a grand jury decides whether to indict Wilson. |
BOSTON (AP)
-- From Boston to Los Angeles, police departments are bracing for large
demonstrations when a grand jury decides whether to indict a white
police officer who killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson,
Missouri.
The St. Louis County grand jury,
which has been meeting since Aug. 20, is expected to decide this month
whether Officer Darren Wilson is charged with a crime for killing
18-year-old Michael Brown after ordering him and a friend to stop
walking in the street on Aug. 9.
The shooting
has led to tension with police and a string of unruly protests there and
brought worldwide attention to the formerly obscure St. Louis suburb,
where more than half the population is black but few police officers
are.
For some cities, a decision in the
racially charged case will, inevitably, reignite long-simmering debates
over local police relations with minority communities.
"It's
definitely on our radar," said Lt. Michael McCarthy, police spokesman
in Boston, where police leaders met privately Wednesday to discuss
preparations. "Common sense tells you the timeline is getting close.
We're just trying to prepare in case something does step off, so we are
ready to go with it."
In Los Angeles, rocked
by riots in 1992 after the acquittal of police officers in the
videotaped beating of Rodney King, police officials say they've been in
touch with their counterparts in Missouri, where Gov. Jay Nixon and St.
Louis-area law enforcement held a news conference this week on their own
preparations.
"Naturally, we always pay
attention," said Cmdr. Andrew Smith, a police spokesman. "We saw what
happened when there were protests over there and how oftentimes protests
spill from one part of the country to another."
In
Las Vegas, police joined pastors and other community leaders this week
to call for restraint at a rally tentatively planned northwest of the
casino strip when a decision comes.
Activists
in Ferguson met Saturday to map out their protest plans. Meeting
organizers encouraged group members to provide their names upon arrest
as Darren Wilson or Michael Brown to make it more difficult for police
to process them.
In a neighboring town,
Berkeley, officials this week passed out fliers urging residents to be
prepared for unrest just as they would a major storm - with plenty of
food, water and medicine in case they're unable to leave home for
several days.
In Boston, a group called Black
Lives Matter, which has chapters in other major cities, is organizing a
rally in front of the police district office in the Roxbury neighborhood
the day after an indictment decision.
In
Albuquerque, New Mexico, police are expecting demonstrations after
having dealt with a string of angry protests following a March police
shooting of a homeless camper and more than 40 police shootings since
2010.
Philadelphia police spokesman Lt. John
Stanford said he anticipated his city will see demonstrations,
regardless of what the grand jury returns.
But
big-city police departments stressed they're well-equipped to handle
crowds. Many saw large but mostly peaceful demonstrations following the
2013 not-guilty verdict in the slaying of Florida teen Trayvon Martin by
neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman. In New York, hundreds
of protesters marched from Union Square north to Times Square, where a
sit-in caused gridlock.
The New York Police
Department, the largest in the nation, is "trained to move swiftly and
handle events as they come up," spokesman Stephen Davis said.
In
Boston, McCarthy said the city's 2,200 sworn police officers have dealt
with the range of public actions, from sports fans spontaneously
streaming into the streets following championship victories to protest
movements like Occupy.
"The good thing is that
our relationships here with the community are much better than they are
around the world," he said. "People look to us as a model. Boston is
not Ferguson."
