Could Illinois Guard Be Called In To Ferguson?
Missouri's governor has brought in the National Guard to help to help deal with rioting in Ferguson, outside of St. Louis. Protests that erupted there over the Aug. 9 police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed, African American teenager, have frequently turned violent.
When there's an extreme emergency, Illinois National Guard units have gone to other states to help. Thousands of troops were sent to New Orleans, following Hurricane Katrina, for example.
But Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn says Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has not requested help from Illinois' troops to aide with the Ferguson situation, and he doesn't expect him to.
"I doubt that will ever happen, they have more than sufficient resources there, in their National Guard," Quinn said at an unrelated appearance in Chicago. "You know, we have guardsman from our state that are deployed in Afghanistan, quite a few. And we have plenty of assignments that we receive from the Department of Defense. I think Missouri's National Guard is more than adequate to deal with their situation."
Quinn says he has watched coverage of what has gone on in Ferguson on TV. He says it's important that police respect people who have the right to voice their feelings, but he also says it's important that order be respected.
Separately, Quinn directed 40 Illinois state police troopers to Chicago, to help quell violence there; those patrols began late last week.
Activists and others demonstrated, peacefully, in Chicago against police brutality in the wake of Ferguson.
18 year old Michael Brown was shot by police on Saturday in a St. Louis suburb called Ferguson, and what was originally a peaceful vigil and protest the next day became a night of arson, rioting, and theft. Since then police and the community continue to square off as tensions around the shooting of Brown, who was black and unarmed, continue to spread. St. Louis Public Radio's Rachel Lippmann updates us on where things stand as of Wednesday morning.
Heavy rains have led to flooding all across the Midwest in recent days: in Iowa, Illinois, and in the small town of Clarksville, Missouri, which sits on the Mississippi River. That river is expected to reach its crest there Wednesday, and residents hope the walls they’ve built to keep out the water will hold. Especially because this time, they had to build those walls themselves.
Ask a Clarksville resident how long they’ve lived there, and the answer is usually given in the context of a flood.