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With Normalcy in Ferguson Comes Impatience

Many people in Ferguson are not satisfied by the fact that things have calmed down and want to see Darren Wilson charged as soon as possible

It has been more than a week now since Michael Brown, the unarmed Black teenager in the St. Louis area, was laid to rest. Since then, life in Ferguson has largely returned to a relative normalcy. School has resumed, people are returning to their jobs and the media coverage has diminished dramatically as the world shifts its focus to places like Iraq and Syria.
But there is nonetheless a sense of restlessness among many in Ferguson and in the St. Louis area. In fact many remain restless and impatient about the fact that little has been done by either the local prosecutors on charging the man who shot Brown.
Furthermore, many in the St. Louis area remain angered by the fact that the local police have provided little information or answers about their version of what occurred the day Brown died.
“In my opinion, it’s like a pimple that can either heal or it can pop,” said the Rev. Willie Moore Jr., the youth leader of the Young Fly and Saved Ministry, which involves roughly 900 young people in St. Louis.
“If nothing happens to this police officer,” Moore said, in an interview with BET.com, “there is no telling what these young people might do. They already feel strongly about what happened in the trial involving Trayvon. They are skeptical about what might happen in the situation regarding Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Brown. There is a lot of skepticism and simmering anger.”
There have been a few developments in the last week in the St. Louis suburb. Police officers in Ferguson have begun wearing body cameras. The devices were donated by two security firms.
But the police have produced nothing regarding a police report of the incident nor has the prosecutor provided any information about what information might have been before the grand jury, which started convening before Brown was buried.
In an interview with BET.com, Anthony Gray, a lawyer for the Brown family, said that the family’s prevailing concern was to see Wilson charged.
“The family believes that the arrest of the man who killed their child would help the deal with the situation in the streets,” said Gray. “They want Darren Wilson charged in the same way you or I or anyone else would be charged if we had done what he had done.”
Grey said Brown’s family had agreed to participate in a highway shutdown protest over the last weekend but that the event was postponed.
“The family believes strongly the accounts from witnesses who said that their son was shot and killed in broad daylight without provocation,” Gray said. “They want to see justice served.”

Follow Jonathan Hicks on Twitter: @HicksJonathan

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 (Photo: AP Photo/Bill Boyce)

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