Parson vows to use ‘whatever forces I have’ to combat violent protests in Missouri
Less than a day after peaceful protests across the state once again turned violent, culminating with four police officers being shot in downtown St. Louis and a retired police captain killed by looters, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson vowed to use “whatever forces I have” to quell the unrest.
He pledged to “call up over 1,000 troops.”
“Whether it’s every member of the highway patrol, whether it’s every member of the national guard, I will call them all out to stop the violence in this state,” Parson told reporters Tuesday.
Protests have sprung up in cities around the country in the days following the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who died after policeman Derek Chauvin put a knee to his neck for more than eight minutes as he lay prone and handcuffed.
In Kansas City Monday night, Mayor Quinton Lucas joined demonstrators in a peaceful protest and urged them to stand up for social justice.
After he left, a bus load of police officers in tactical gear arrived., with the protest soon being declared unlawful and broken up by police.
In St. Louis, David Dorn, 77, was shot by looters around 2:30 a.m. at a St. Louis pawn shop. He died of the wounds. Four police officers were shot just after midnight in downtown St. Louis.
Parson, who declared a state of emergency on Saturday putting the Missouri National Guard and Missouri Highway Patrol at the ready to support local authorities, said people who commit violence must be held accountable.
“And no they’re not protesters,” he said. “They’re criminals and they’re thugs.”
People who want to protest peacefully, Parson said, should be allowed to do that.
“When that protest is over, they need to go home,” he said. “Leave the people who want to be criminals, you leave them there and we’ll take care of that.”
Parson said he will commit to providing any resources he can to local law enforcement.
“George Floyd should have never died the way he died,” Parson said. “It wasn’t acceptable what the officers done, and they need to be held accountable for that. Nor should that retired police officer that died last night, the people who shot him should be accountable.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 5:30 PM.
