Again calling for calm, President Obama smartly dispatched Attorney General Eric Holder to visit Ferguson, Mo., as a federal guarantor that justice will be done in the death of Michael Brown.
The U.S. Justice Department has a key role in easing tensions that have led to repeated nights of violence as local and state officials have been tragically incapable of fulfilling their responsibilities.
Wisely, Obama brushed off calls from his left flank urging a presidential visit, at which he would presumably lock arms with those who are protesting the killing of Brown, who was black, by white police officer Darren Wilson. Now is not the time.
While damning at face value, the circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting are not yet known. A murder in cold blood, say some. A justifiable use of force, say others.
The President carefully refused to prejudge the case while also making clear that he understands protesters’ frustrations. Their anguish is highly justified.
The young man was unarmed. In death, he was smeared by the same Ferguson officials who refused to name Wilson for days. The prosecutor’s office and medical examiner are missing in action, so that a pathologist retained by Brown’s family has provided the only on-the-record information about the cause of Brown’s death.
Obama spoke of the need “to distinguish between peaceful protesters who may have some legitimate grievances, and maybe longstanding grievances, and those who are using this tragic death as an excuse to engage in criminal behavior and tossing Molotov cocktails or looting stores.”
Meantime, the President had appropriately skeptical words for the incomprehensible decision by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon to send in the National Guard.
Men who wear battle fatigues, who are trained to deal with foreign fighters or to respond to natural disasters, are as likely to aggravate a fragile situation as calm it. Nixon’s reliance on the Guard even to protect a command center testifies to his incompetence and that of local police.
Speaking of the Guard, Obama said: “I’ll be watching over the next several days to assess whether, in fact, it’s helping rather than hindering progress in Ferguson.”
Still more crucially, Holder must convey that the U.S. will aggressively investigate Brown’s killing, never mind the actions by local officials.
Obama has sent him there to take command, and he must.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/obama-wise-article-1.1908092#ixzz3AtFnazoW
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