Boston Pastor: Ferguson Decision Is Opportunity To Build Up Community
BOSTON (CBS) – A grand jury in Missouri has decided not to indict a Ferguson police officer in the shooting death of an unarmed teen.
Even before the announcement from the grand jury Monday night, Missouri's governor declared a state of emergency.
Police in Boston and across the country are prepared for the possibility of violence. Late Monday night, State Police reported that about 20 protesters walked from Boston City Hall to the State House. Additional troopers will remain in place to ensure the demonstration remains peaceful.
Watch: Riots In Ferguson After Grand Jury Decision
In Roxbury, people are heeding the call for peace. Reverend Jeffrey Brown at Twelfth Baptist Church says the news is upsetting, but it offers an opportunity.
"It's really disappointing that they cleared this particular officer," Brown said.
Reverend Brown says he can't make sense of the grand jury's decision, but he says it's time to build up community, not tear it down.
It's a job he told WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong, people in Boston are more than qualified to handle. Brown says anger is certainly an understandable response, but not the right one.
"We have got a fantastic moment in which we can come together and talk about some of the issues that we have tended to not talk about, some of these thorny issues around race and difference and disadvantage," Brown said.
Boston is no Ferguson, he said, but just the same, law enforcement has taken steps over the past few days to prepare in the event of violence in reaction to the decision.
"We're prepared," Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said. "We've done our research, gone into the community, done robo-calls to the high school kids and college kids."
Mayor Walsh will attend a community meeting at Twelfth Baptist Church on Tuesday night at 6:00 p.m. The meeting is open to the public.
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