Sporadic confrontations and violence between protesters and police continued to occur overnight in Ferguson as multiple news agencies report grand jury considering whether to indict the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed teenager Michael Brown is unlikely to meet and render a decision this weekend. The fear, as we have previously noted, is a major uprising as one sign protested, "if the killer cop walks, AmeriKKKa Halts," and as Fox reports, Brown family attorney is managing expectations, "99% of the time the police officer is not held accountable for killing a young black boy," Crump said. "The police officer gets all the consideration." There is, however, another potential reason for delaying the decision's reporting, as VICE reports, business owners in the St. Louis, Missouri area have hired private military contractors to transport guns and gold, fearing their shops will be targeted by looters if a grand jury does not indict.
As Fox reports, [7]a grand jury decision this weekend is unlikely,
The grand jury considering whether to indict the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed teenager Michael Brown is unlikely to meet and render a decision this weekend, sources told Fox News on Saturday.
Those same sources say it is likely the grand jury will wait until Monday to reconvene.
The 12-member grand jury has been considering whether charges are warranted against Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed the 18-year-old Brown on Aug. 9 during a confrontation on a street in Ferguson. Wilson is white and Brown, who was unarmed, is black.
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On Saturday, the authorities set up barricades around the Buzz Westfall Justice Center in Clayton, which is where the grand jury has been meeting.
Barricades also went up in the shopping center parking lot on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, which was where police set up a makeshift command center in the immediate aftermath of Brown's death.
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"I just hope it stays peaceful," Freeman said of protests that will follow the grand jury decision. "We all have human emotions, bit there's a way to do things, and violence, you can't get peace from violence."
Crump, the Brown family attorney, seemed doubtful that Wilson would be charged, saying the grand jury process is weighted against those shot by police officers.
"Ninety-nine percent of the time the police officer is not held accountable for killing a young black boy," Crump said. "The police officer gets all the consideration."
And as VICE reports, business owners are growing increasingly anxious of the consequences... [8]
Business owners in the St. Louis, Missouri area have hired private military contractors to transport guns and gold, fearing their shops will be targeted by looters if a grand jury does not indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in the St. Louis County suburb of Ferguson.
"There's a lot of people that brought in a lot of money to have people secure their assets," said Stephen King, owner of Metro Shooting Supplies gun shop, a 15-minute drive from Ferguson. "Some of those people spent $10 an hour on security guards and some people have $1,000 a day private contractors."
King confirmed that gun shops in the area are hiring private military contractors to escort the transport of their guns to secure locations. A private military contractor who spoke to VICE News on condition of anonymity said that more than 300 private military contractors, or PMCs, have been contracted for work in direct response to Ferguson security concerns.
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"We've got our hands in a bunch things" related to security in the Ferguson area, said Ogden, a former Navy SEAL who was featured on the National Geographic reality program, Survival Alaska.
"If you are a business owner and you are in the business of selling firearms and you're in an area where shops have been looted, burned down, property stolen, you now have the responsibility to society to ensure to do everything possible to make sure that those firearms do not get into the hands of the wrong people."
"We got everything out last week, we put it back on Monday," said Duke, who had heard the grand jury decision would be announced on a Sunday. "This weekend it's going out again. A lot of it has already been moved." Moving his product back and forth comes at quite a cost, though exactly how much he wouldn't say.
He noted that the dollar value of the product being moved to secure offsite locations is in the millions.
"I'm not like a pawn shop, I don't buy TVs," he said. "I have precious metals. We have a law here that whatever you buy you have to hold for five days. So all those stores had those five days worth of business there. I'm a very large buyer so that's a large amount of money."
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"We're going to have to do whatever we have to do legally to defend ourselves against some type of violent threat. It wouldn't be a brain surgeon that's going to be coming to our store to attack us," he said. "We know what we're going to do but they don't know, and that's the way we want to keep it."
Some recent background (via VICE):
Some images from overnight clashes:
[9]
As Ferguson prepares for the worst, Michael Brown's parents handed out turkeys to reside... http://t.co/hU4LVGg9pI [10] pic.twitter.com/5yGvIF3Pu4 [11]
— bonnie (@boniemylurv) November 23, 2014 [12]
Powerful! #Ferguson [13] pic.twitter.com/NpKODZAHiw [14]
— ColorOfChange.org (@ColorOfChange) November 23, 2014 [15]
#Ferguson [13] Bet every damn one of them is on welfare because working man would lose his job over this unAmerican sh!t. pic.twitter.com/7CDQoU82PQ [16]
— Franci (@LadySandersfarm) November 23, 2014 [17]
