BBC Online :A dozen US cities have seen new protests over the decision not to charge a white policeman who shot a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.Demonstrations from New York to Seattle were mostly peaceful but rioting broke out in Oakland, California.There was some unrest in Ferguson itself, with police making 44 arrests, but the town did not see rioting on the scale of Monday night. Protests were reported in 12 cities: St Louis itself as well as Seattle, Albuquerque, New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Oakland, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Portland, Chicago and Boston.In Oakland, in the San Francisco Bay area, rioters vandalised police cars and attacked businesses in the centre during a second night of unrest in the port city of 406,000 people.On Monday night, 43 arrests were made in Oakland as police struggled to control a crowd of some 2,000 people.There’s been confrontation outside Ferguson town hall where a police vehicle was burnt earlier and tear gas still hangs in the air. There’s a heavy police presence with several armoured cars and vehicles. There is tension as police try to move people from the area – officers are saying anyone standing in the street will be subject to arrest. Some are giving chase to people in the surrounding streets and tonight they have dogs with them. A police helicopter is hovering overhead with a spotlight.Further along, police and the National Guard face off with an angry crowd in front of the Police Department. There are fewer protesters, but a larger media presence. The crowd is jittery and there is a sense there could be further clashes.The officer who killed Michael Brown there says he has a “clean conscience”.Darren Wilson, who shot the 18-year-old on 9 August, told ABC News that in the struggle which preceded the shooting, he had felt “like a five-year-old holding on to [US wrestler] Hulk Hogan”. Many in Ferguson’s predominantly African-American community had called for the officer to be charged with murder, but the grand jury’s decision means the police officer will not face state criminal charges over the shooting.Lawyers for Brown’s family denounced the grand jury’s decision as “unfair” while condemning the violence that followed the decision. St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said Tuesday had been “generally a much better night” in Ferguson, a town of 21,000 people. Tear gas was fired just once, he said, when rioters smashed windows at the Ferguson town hall. There was only one report of shooting, he added, when a car was set alight.Some 2,200 National Guard soldiers were deployed to assist police in keeping order in and around the town.
