Hearings

Hearings starting on governor's tactics for Ferguson unrest 

As businesses were burned and looted in Ferguson, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was inundated with messages from the public criticizing him for not using the National Guard to prevent the civil unrest that followed a grand jury's decision in the Michael Brown case. Documents provided to The Associated Press under an open records request show Nixon received hundreds of online messages from people in the St. Louis area and across the country expressing bewilderment, frustration and outrage that guardsmen were not preemptively deployed to the most troubled locations. A Missouri legislative committee is to begin holding hearings Wednesday aimed at determining why not. The bipartisan panel is to first hear testimony from local officials as a prelude to calling upon members of Nixon's administration in the coming weeks. A Nixon spokesman said Tuesday that the Guard was intended to provide a "support role," so that hundreds of law enforcement officers could be devoted to policing the area. The governor has said previously that he was pleased there were no deaths in the riots but was "somewhat surprised by the amount of violence" that occurred the night of Nov. 24, when a prosecutor announced that grand jurors had decided not to charge Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, who is white, for killing the unarmed 18-year-old Brown, who was black. Nixon had declared a state of emergency a week ahead of the grand jury announcement and had said the Guard would help local authorities "protect life and property." That drew a mixed reaction from St. Louis area residents, with some sending Nixon thankful messages and others expressing concern that the military's presence would inflame an already tense situation. When the grand jury decision was announced, more than 700 guardsmen were stationed preemptively throughout the St. Louis region and nearly 500 law officers were in Ferguson. But no guardsmen were positioned outside businesses along a prominent Ferguson road where looting and arson had occurred after Brown's Aug. 9shooting. "! A lot of state resources were put into that and then apparently not really used — or used in a manner that's not being fully explained," said Sen. Kurt Schaefer, chairman of the Joint Committee on Government Accountability, which is holding the hearings.   

SPRINGFIELD NEWS-LEADER