America
Ferguson attack threatens policing reforms: US attorney general
Washington, March 13
US Attorney General Eric
Holder has termed the attack on two police officers in the city of
Ferguson as "inexcusable" and "cowardly" and warned that it would
endanger reforms in policing.
"Such senseless acts of violence
threaten the very reforms that nonviolent protesters in Ferguson and
around the country have been working towards for the past several
months," said Holder in a statement, according to a Xinhua report.
"This heinous assault on two brave law enforcement officers was inexcusable and repugnant," he stated.
Two
police officers were shot and wounded during a protest against the
Ferguson Police Department, which has been under fire since one of its
officers, Darren Wilson, shot and killed an unarmed black teenager
Michael Brown in August last year.
"These police officers were
standing there and they were shot, just because they were police
officers," St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said.
On
Wednesday, Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson resigned, after a federal
report pointed out a culture of racism within the police department and
municipal offices in the city.
Protesters in Ferguson gathered
around the police headquarters on Wednesday after Ferguson police chief
Thomas Jackson announced that he would resign.
Ferguson, a city
in the US state of Missouri and the county of St. Louis, has seen
heightened tensions following Brown's shooting. A number of black men
were killed in the US by the police last year, which resulted in a wave
of protests.
Belmar said the police did not have any suspects
yet, but that they had some possible leads that the investigators were
exploring.
Following the attack on the police, officials said on
Thursday that St. Louis County Police and the Missouri State Highway
Patrol would take over security responsibilities related to the protests
in Ferguson.
In an investigation report about the policing
practice in Ferguson, released on March 4, the US Department of Justice
concluded that a widespread pattern of racial bias existed within the
Ferguson Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies.
The report worsened the resentment against the Ferguson police.
Holder
had said that the justice department would use all its authority to
ensure reforms in law enforcement agencies in Ferguson, including
drastic measures such as dismantling the Ferguson Police Department.