New cop shooting video emerges in US
Video of US police officers shooting dead a 12-year-old black boy with a replica gun seconds after confronting him has stoked anger in the country as protests in Ferguson dwindled following two days of unrest.
Surveillance video released Wednesday showed that the boy, Tamir Rice, was shot last weekend only seconds after two officers arrived in a patrol car at a Cleveland, Ohio park.
Audio broadcast on US TV shows that a man who first observed the boy waving and pointing the gun and called police to report it specified at least twice he thought it was probably "a fake."
But the dispatcher speaking to officers racing to the scene fails to mention that this witness thought the gun was not real.
The video emerged as tensions eased in Ferguson, after two days of often violent unrest sparked by Monday's decision by a grand jury not to charge a white policeman who shot dead an unarmed black teenager.
Just a few dozen protesters and clergy braved rain and light snow to protest outside the police department in the St Louis suburb, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed on August 9.
The shooting sparked weeks of protest and a debate about race relations and military-style police tactics.
A Missouri grand jury decided Monday not to prosecute Officer Darren Wilson, who fired the fatal shots -- a move that inspired coast-to-coast anger in the United States as well as a rally across the Atlantic in London. Meanwhile, the governor of Missouri has reportedly rejected calls for a new grand jury to decide whether to charge Wilson, reported BBC.
A spokesman for state governor Jay Nixon said he would not entertain the idea of bringing in a special prosecutor to present the case to a new grand jury, the St Louis Post reports.
The simmering fury led a small group of protesters to attempt to storm St Louis city hall Wednesday. After they were rebuffed, extra police and a National Guard Humvee were drafted to protect the building.
In Ferguson late Wednesday, the group of mostly young people -- bundled up against the cold -- shouted, "This is what democracy looks like."
One or two taunted and swore at the 50 National Guard in riot gear who stood on duty at the police department.
Witnesses said police took one person into custody.
During the day volunteer clean-up crews swept the streets of Ferguson, where angry crowds on Monday torched businesses and looted stores.
Heavy security -- police, state troopers and National Guard troops -- was still visible in the streets Wednesday, but the situation was stabilizing. Already, Tuesday night did not see the scale of destruction that followed Monday's decision.
In Britain, where thousands of sympathizers angered by Brown's treatment marched in London chanting the same slogan: "Hands up, don't shoot."
"We need to send a message to Mike Brown's family," said Carol Duggan, the aunt of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old black man whose shooting by British police in 2011 sparked riots in London.
US civil rights leaders have called for more protests tomorrow.
Similar rallies were held last year after the acquittal on murder charges of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who shot dead another unarmed black teen, Trayvon Martin, in Florida.
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