U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder visited Ferguson, Missouri, Wednesday at a crucial point after days of unrest.
Holder promised to get to the truth of the police shooting of Michael Brown.
The man at the center of police response is state highway patrol Captain Ron Johnson. Tuesday, Johnson met with business owners, several of whom have suffered damage. That store's owner showed them security video of looters breaking into his business. Johnson told MSNBC's Craig Melvin he is determined to make Ferguson safe for those businesses to reopen.
Carl Williams is a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. He pays close attention to racial justice issues.
Williams said that Attorney General Holder traveling to Ferguson must give their community reassurance that the federal government is taking action. He continued by addressing the possibility of the arrest of the officer.
“If someone shot my son six times or more and a number of witnesses said that the individual was on the ground when that happened and the individual was running away and at times, the individual had his hands up, numbers of witnesses have said that, I would be shocked if the person wasn’t arrested,” Williams said.
The ACLU has reported that over 80 percent SWAT raids are drug related, not related to any kind of hostage situation.
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Williams talked about the weapons local police are equipped with, in addition to the possibility that this kind incident could happen in Boston.
