Obama briefed on Ferguson crisis amid pressure for urgent federal response

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/obama-briefed-ferguson-pressure-federal-response

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President Barack Obama’s plan to break from his vacation and return to Washington for official meetings was hatched more than four days before the lethal police shooting in Ferguson that came to overshadow so much of his first week in Martha’s Vineyard.

But unforeseen as it must have been, the opportunity to deal with the crisis from the White House rather than the backdrop of golf courses and beaches presents a chance for the president to inject greater urgency into the administration’s response.

For despite protestations to the contrary from his advisers, the president has at times appeared far removed from events unfolding on the streets of Ferguson.

Unconfirmed reports on Monday that the White House was not even warned of a decision by Missouri governor Jay Nixon to deploy national guard troops only served to compound fears that the aggressive local response to demonstrators in Ferguson was unchecked by federal authorities.

Obama’s initial condolences to the family of Michael Brown contrasted with his much angrier response to the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012 – a killing that famously prompted the president to observe: “if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who along with Obama and attorney general Eric Holder is one of three powerful African Americans at the heart of the administration’s response to Brown’s shooting, insists the president sympathises but that he is focused on community safety rather than the specifics of the case.

“Our immediate goal is to make sure the residents of Ferguson are safe; that the looting stops, the vandalism stops, that the people who live in the community have confidence that justice will be done,” said Jarrett in an interview with American Urban Radio Networks.

“He looks at this – I spoke with him this morning – his concern was clearly thinking about it as a perspective of a parent, and you want to know when you send your kids to school, when you leave your home they’re going to be safe.”

In Obama’s only public address on the subject – at an impromptu press briefing last Wednesday – the president was also careful not to take sides.

“There is never an excuse for violence against police, or for those who would use this tragedy as a cover for vandalism or looting,” he said. “There’s also no excuse for police to use excessive force against peaceful protests, or to throw protestors in jail for lawfully exercising their first amendment rights.”

There is no doubt the administration is angry at what many in Washington perceive to be an inflammatory and overly aggressive police response. Holder was reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday to have told his staff: “Tell them to remove the damn tanks.”

Holder was also quick to announce a separate FBI investigation into the circumstances of Brown’s death, including an independent autopsy to assess whether there were civil rights violations.

But both Obama and Holder have been careful to describe the federal response to the policing of the protests as one of working alongside local authorities rather than taking more radical steps such as putting the national guard under federal control, something that was done by president George HW Bush after the LA riots in 1992.

Perhaps anxious not to prejudge the FBI inquiry, or just made nervous by the drip of negative official reports about Brown, such as CCTV footage of an alleged robbery, the administration has been unwilling to distance itself from the actions of Democratic governor Nixon.

Obama did however instruct Holder to review the actions of state and local authorities last week and their discussions at the White House on Monday may now force the president to decide whether to take a more hands-on federal response.

Asked whether the White House needed to do more about the ongoing crisis, Jarrett said Holder and Obama would be evaluating next steps, including whether there were “any further actions that the federal government could play to help reduce the violence down to zero” but also urged patience.

“Let’s get through the next few days and make sure that happens in a responsible way, and then the days and weeks ahead will determine the next steps,” said Jarrett.