Ferguson shooting: Protests spread across america

Some 2,000 National Guard troops dispatched to the St Louis area helped police stave off a second night of rioting and arson after a grand jury declined to indict a white policeman in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, as sympathy protests spread to several US cities. United States President Barack Obama appealed for dialogue, and his attorney general promised that a federal probe into the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in August would be rigorous. Officer Darren Wilson, the policeman who shot him, said his conscience was clear. Despite a beefed-up military presence in Ferguson, a police car was torched near City Hall as darkness fell, and police fired smoke bombs and tear gas to scatter protesters.

A crowd of demonstrators later converged near police headquarters, scuffled with officers who doused them with pepper spray, then smashed storefront windows as they fled under orders to disperse. Still, the crowds were smaller and more controlled than on Monday, when about a dozen businesses were torched and others were looted amid rock-throwing and sporadic gunfire from
protesters and volleys of tear gas fired at protesters by police.