welcome back to breaking news on al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler. we are following a dangerous and emotional night in ferguson, missouri. a few hours ago we learnt that the grand jury decided not to ignite darren wilson in the shooting death of an unarmed teen. >> they determined that no probable cause exists to file a charge against darren wilson, and returned a no true billion each of the five in dietments. >> within minutes there were

acts of violence, some tried to overturn police cars, vehicles, several buildings are on fire. there was tear gas, and we heard gun fire for the last half hour, 40 minutes. protesters and police are in the middle of a stand off. robert ray is in the thick, the worst part of it probably, near where people have gathered - what are you seeing now? >> we got word from the producer david douglas and correspondent john terrett, near the ferguson police department that all the tactical units that were there are making their way over here, because this situation is so aggressive. if you look there, there are billows of dark smoke coming out of the structure. the police are retreating from that area. the smoke is dangerous. there are flames shooting out of there as the - there's fires

behind where the camera shot is, and, derek, if you can flip the camera over here, we are at this point - no, over here. show the producers, who are getting the flak jackets on and helmets on - unfortunately, that is the situation. as soon as i get off i'm doing the same thing. the gun fire is too dangerous. we need to make sure we are protected. >> robert, why don't i let you do that and we'll cam back in a second. i think that's the best thing to do right now. let me go to john terrett, who is also in ferguson, who has been watching this as well. there's a lot of folks around the police department there at ferguson now. you say a convoy left there. >> i think what has happened - let me take the camera and pan it so you can get a better idea of what happened. when you were last with us there

was a convoy of armoured personnel carriers in the street, in the middle of the road on south florissant road. they have gone. they pulled out. remember me telling you there was a convoy of police vehicles coming down the road, they appeared to stop, and we didn't know why. looks like they may have come to escort the vehicles away from here. i think the only conclusion that you can come to is they've gone to where robert ray is, where the violence sounds particularly bad with constant gunshot. as robert has been reporting, at least four buildings on fire. now, here, what you are looking at, this is the outside of the fire headquarters, the police headquarters is just adjacent to that building that you are looking at. in front of the fire station, those are the riot police. must be 30, 35, maybe 40 of them. protesters are gathered in a car

park on the other side of the street. they were told to go on to the sidewalk, they'd be safe, they would not be allowed to be in the road. and that is what happened. there's a very vocal but peaceful demonstration. earlier here there was gun fire - we couldn't tell which side was firing. we have been tear gassed here as well. it was nasty, but i think it calmed down here outside the police headquarters. the protests are going on, it's vocal. now that the police have regained control of this area, close by a walgreens is on fire, and two cars are on fire, and shops have been looted. the worst of it is where robert ray is now. >> we'll go back to john terrett in a second. i want to do two things - first of all the intersections that we are looking at. there's a couple of things to tell you. protesters shut down interstate 44 along the highway in

ferguson, and are moving to other intersections to try to block traffic. in the meantime there's a walgreens that has been fully engulfed in flames, a little ceasar's, a bank, other buildings in the ferguson area that have been set on fire, that have been looted. where robert ray is, and justin, can he hear us? we'll go to him for a second. robert ray has been with us all night long, and has been reporting in the last 45 minutes continued shots fired, and as we listened to him talk we hear it in. background. he's in the middle of several fires that are burning tonight as we speak. all right. let me go to robert ray, and fortunately you have the flak jacket on. tell us more about what you are seeing in the last - gosh, you have flames coming out of a building right behind you.

>> there's dark smoke, starting a couple of minutes ago when we first talked. it's reignited. it's raging... (audio difficulty) okay, we have trouble with his mike. we'll get it back in a second. as you can see, i mean, this is quickly spun out of control. there are protests - let me go back to robert. i think we can hear you, rob em ert. >> sorry, there's frequency with the microphones. that was black smoke, reigniting. protesters are walking un to the fire. it doesn't make sense. the police units are there, if you look at the units, they are

coming in, the police retreated. it appears that, you know, more units are headed over to this pocket. this, unfortunately was the epicentre of the looting and violence back in august here we go again times 20. this pocket near where michael brown was shot and killed - it's on fire and gunshots have been going on to the past 45 minutes. just out of precaution, where we sandwich ourselves in between in case there is fire and hit the deck. >> the bizarre thing it to watch the pictures and see cars driving by, and people walking down the street. can you tell us what they are telling you? >> well, the protesters are driving by and shouting -

actually, let me back that up. i shouldn't call them protesters at this point. the people protesting were trying to be peaceful. these are hooligans, to be candid and frank. they are driving by, shouting profanities and not making sense for the cause here. it's not helping the situation. michael brown's parents called for peace, the president of the united states called for peace. attorney general eric holder did, the mayor of st louis, the prosecutor, and anyone else yesterday, churches, pastors, priests - this is not helping the situation at all. >> unfortunately we have lost roberts life shot again. we'll get him back and talk to john terrett, and our guests. there are protests going on in other cities other than ferguson tonight, across the country, including seattle. >> i'm allen schauffler. this is seattle, fourth avenue.

the protest started after the announcement about no indictment came down. the crowd grew to 100 or so. they have looped the block. stopped traffic at a major intersection in town. lots of revolutionary yelling. lots of anger. lots of chant, but no violence. at this point things are peaceful. police have been standing back, keeping traffic away. we see them - if you turn way, way down in the distance where police are stopping traffic so the cars don't get in here, so they try to handle traffic. >> they are moving to another area of town. that was the original plan, we'll see what happens, we'll follow them tonight. >> in new york, more than 1,000 protesters gathered in times

square. chanting "justice for michael brown", hundreds are demonstrating at new york's union square. in northern california protesters marching through downtown oakland on a highway blocking traffic. there you see it. protesters scheduled for tomorrow. these are live pictures from oakland california. more protests scheduled for tomorrow. a st louis prosecutor released these photographs of officer darren wilson tonight. they were taken shortly after he fatally shot michael brown in august. they include close-up images of the officer's face and met, presented as evidence to the grand jury, there are more than 4800 pages of documents and evidence presented to the grand jury. jamal lemieux is a senior editor at "ebony" magazine and has been with us. she has been in ferguson several times. give me your reaction to these

photos and documents, jamal lemieux. >> i have looked worse than darren wilson in the pictures after having a few sleepless nights with a newborn. >> you have been watching all the pictures from ferguson tonight. tell me what you - other than these pictures of officer darren wilson - talk about the reaction in ferguson together, and - i mean, when we started the conversation hours ago, it has just grown and gotten worse. >> i don't know how it ends. it's a bigger question for us to answer, or a continued to seek answers for. why hasn't this answered sooner. why hasn't it happened. someone is killed, a black person is killed under similar circumstances every 28 hours.

how long can people go on with the foot of the government and local law enforcement on their necks without answers and accountability and be expected to continue to function and pay taxes, be polite and ask nicely could we have justice, could you maybe possibly consider putting this person in prison, can he go to trial, than asking not to kill him, not to do to him what he did to this michael brown. but to simple say can he get his day in court, and can he look at a jury of his peers and say "i'm accountable for the things i did." that was not given to the people of this community. i don't think anyone should be surprised by what we are seeing. for the past few months i said that i did not think there would be significant rioting. everything that the local government and local law

enforcement has done in the wake of these allegations against the officer, and since this young man has been killed pushed people to this point. you know the announcement of the state of emergency before seeing anything like this, there was a state of emergency while it was quiet and peaceful on the streets of st louis. the fact that that happened, that people were told that the national guard was coming back to the community, and there would be 1,000 officers deployed to an area that until tonight had been peaceful. >> looks like they probably need the officers. >> i think if you create a climate that begs that sort of response, when you bait it, i'm not above suggesting that there are police plans and people on the grand inciting some of the violence and provoking people. there's a number of times i was out there when a person came up saying "are you part of the ferguson something?", they were from an unknown city, no

connection, they are there, they want to help and figure things out. people like that able to attend meetings, and sit in rooms and find out what the people have planned for a response for when the announcement was made. >> we don't know who the people were or were they work. let me ask corey pegues, this happens all the time. when you have these protests you try to get information, right? >> right. you know, i'm perplexed - did the police officers have undercovers trying to infiltrate the organizations to gather information prior to this decision coming out. i mean, they were professional organizations getting together saying that they were going to do this if the verdict came out. did we try to put undercovers? i would like to know if we did something like that. because that's done all around the country. >> the point is if they did,

would they be better prepared in your opinion? >> definitely they would be better prepared. >> they would have known what was going on. >> they would have given up information. >> give me your response. we had plenty of pictures and seen this go out of control. this was earlier in the evening when smoke and/or tear gas began to start being fired by police, and from here on it's gone downhill. how did police handle it so far. >> i don't think that they - that it was a great response by the police. i believe they should have been prepared for the war. and being prepared means that they should have had manpower on the ground. i'm not talking about armoured vehicles or tanks, but they should have had boots on the ground. if they wanted to have the boots at a warehouse somewhere, at another county in case. they need reinforcements. there's not reinforcements coming down. you heard the reporter saying

that they are moving cops from one location to another. where are the reinforcements. >> i'm looking at a picture for robert ray, we don't have his audio. if you look at that picture, you look at the fire raging behind him, and the question is who protects that building? who protects the interests of the building? >> well, that's the police job is to protect and serve. we are looking at the video. man, you see people walking up to the fire. it doesn't even look - you can ask the reporter. it doesn't look like there's police around there telling people stay back. it should have be a zone of safety, 100, 150 feet away from a fire, it's a dangerous situation. they have to pick their poison. they have created a situation where they created their poison. do they have a police facility, the county court, a local business that is burning down. we don't have enough man power. >> let's go to robert ray, to tell us more about the fire.

robert? >> announcer: stay out of the street. this is for everyone's safety. >> you can see a huge line of tactical vehicles behind the fire creeping up saying this is not a peaceful protest longer. please disperse - hey, derek, look at this vehicle. those are the hooligans with masks and driving literally in circles intimidating the whole area. what is the tactic? what is the motive? a huge fire is burning, there's no fire trucks here. not any more, to try to put this out. that fire that we talked about earlier jumped from that structure over there to in giant structure here. it doesn't like like they are going to attempt to put it out. it's too dangers for the fire department to come in with the gun fire. you are talking about earlier, what is the end game? how do you stop this? >> you are in a difficult situation, i'm going to move on to john terrett, we'll get back

to you in a second. and, robert, take cover. this is a tough place for you to be. john terrett is standing by on the other side of ferguson. he has someone he's talking to. >> yes, good morning to you. just to give you an idea - robert and i are separated by probably a mile. we are on parallel roads, but a mile apart. things have calmed down considerably here at the - outside the ferguson police headquarters and the fire station. with me i have two guests to discuss in some detail what has been going on in ferguson. first of all here is kath daniels who i introduced as someone who cooks regularly for the protesters in the build up and pastor henry logan, a member of the church where michael brown had his funeral. kat, first of all, we have seen

extraordinary pictures tonight, particularly down on west florissant where my colleague robert ray is. we are told it's worse than august. who is doing this? it's not your friends, is it? >> no, this is not the people out here fighting for justice each and every day. see, we are peaceful people. these element - i have no idea where they come from, we don't know these people. my people went home. my people went home. you know, we live to fight another day, you know. we believe in doing sit-ins, shut them downs, protests, boycotts - this is it who we are. we are going to stay the course. this was just the setback. this is not where we are. >> pastor henry, it's a setback for everyone hoping for a peaceful protest. there are more days to come, you have to assume. who do you think is behind the violence that broke out so quickly? >> we had a lot of other radical

organizations within st louis talking about having violent protests, and that's when the senator and muma kat and others decided to start third view, which we tried to put emphasis on voter registration, getting out to vote, peaceful protests, different things that could offset what is going on tonight which we see - busted out windows, burning police cars, and it's not formal. i've been in the military, the united states navy, i didn't have to go through this. it's weird to get tear gas out here. >> muma kat, what is the next step. how do you recover from this evening in ferguson. what do you do? >> we are going to pray. we'll pray because god is the healer, the end all and be all.

we will pray, we will continue, kust ourselves and pick ourselves up. >> what will you pray for? >> peace, coming together. i'm praying for a day where there's community policing. where the police are familiar with the people in their community. because when you have that, you don't have this type of situation that happened. darren wilson was not of the ferguson community. he didn't know the kids. when i was growing up the police was part of my community. if we got in trouble, our parents got to know this and we got in trouble. these things can't continue to happen. you know, i'm hurt. i'm so hurt. this is like a free pass, keep killing the kids. it has to stop. but we have to come together and say enough is enough. we are going to have to bubblingle down on the crowning people. before we can hold them

accountable, we have to hold each other accountable. >> mother kath, fath er-henry, thank you for joining us. you two are going home. thank you, go home safely. >> john terrett, doing a great job in ferguson. thank you. ferguson, missouri, a city ablaze tonight. our coverage continues after this. don't go

welcome back everyone. we are following a dangerous and emotional night in ferguson, missouri. the pictures have been unbelievable really. robert ray is standing by in ferguson, where a crowd has gathered near michael brown's memorial. what are you seeing right now? >> well, john, still on fire. the fires are jumping buildings

at this point. the one that we first reported an hour ago has moved into another structure. the one behind me, the storage unit is literally collapsing as we speak. there's tactical units about 200 yards away in a line. huge armoured vehicles trying to make sure if anyone is out here, they disperse, saying this it's not peace. ful -- peaceful protest. it's not what the community wanted, or the brown family. the president of the united states saying there's a large discussion ahead. let's take it for a peaceful night and accept the grand jury's decision. but there were those that came out and decided to literally light this part of the ferguson on fire, unfortunately. i'm looking - i don't know if you can go there, mcdonald's is on fire. the back is up in flames as you

see. the black smoke rolling up. there are no fire department vehicles here to try to put this out. that is the big thing. that's why the fires are jumping from building to building. i'm pretty sure when the gunshots rang out about an hour ago, that that is when they made the decision to get the firemen out of here for their safety. they are not in flak jackets or anything like that. they were clearly in harm's way and we heard more gunfire a second ago. this can change at any moment. it keeps evolving as we report live from ferguson. >> just to give us a sense of that area, there's several fires around you. they look like huge warehouses and service - like restaurants, service businesses there, is this an industrial area of ferguson? >> no, you know, it's not.

it's a bunch of small businesses, a storage unit at the end. i assume a lot of people in the neighbourhoods have things in. let me pin point this, how bad the situation is for the people that open these businesses, that have been working their tail off to make a living. now what? what do they do now, their businesses are literally burning to the ground. they are hard workers, this is a blue colour area. what happens when the sun rises. the fires will not be out. they'll sizzle. if they jump, they'll continue to go to more of these shops up and down west florissant. it's a scary situation. i don't know where the end game is as all these armoured vehicles sit there in a line and every once in a while they'll get on the ball horn and announce this is not a peaceful protest, you need to disperse or you'll be arrest. it's a scary thing, we here

popping from the mcdonald's. the fire having many explosives, that's what a huge fire will do. it's just a bad scene. the whole area reeks of smoke, as every once in a while you have a car of young people driving by with baseball bats and screaming profanities. >> stand by robert ray, i want to mention as we continue to watch this, we have been listening to robert ray in ferguson, and john terrett. and so far we have not heard much information from the city officials of ferguson, from the police department. the governor of the state. we'll be, of course, looking for that in the coming half hour. right outside of the police department in ferguson missouri, that is the situation. decorated for the christmas holidays, thanksgiving and police in riot gear standing guard as a mcdonald's goes up in

flames, a mile away, and a couple of other large buildings where fires are burning, where police and fire officials have left. fire officials are not to be seen, because it's not safe. bullets are flying through the area. let me bring back robert, and corey pegues, a deputy inspector watching us tonight. let me go to you first. you've been looking at the document released by the prosecutor. what are you seeing? >> interesting. i've had the chance to review some of the grand jury trial transcripts. what i didn't know is this was not a new grand jury, it was a grand jury empanelled four months before. the reason that is significant is earlier on i talked about how a grand jury approaches these things. you have to have context to what you are doing. this is a grand jury told over

the course of four months earlier that they'd receive certain evidence, and they were conducted as a regular grand jury by the prosecutor. when it comes to this case, this posterior, and this group of prosecutors then took a hands off approach and treated this case differently than they had treated all the other cases, which, in my mind raises a number of questions. >> what does it say? what do you think that says about what the prosecutor did? >> it says he wanted to treat the case differently for a number of reasons. >> why? >> i don't know the motivation, we never know the motivations. i have been a prosecutor, i have presented cases, there's a sim by jobbic, rendering the job in presents evidence very difficult.

that's what corey mentioned. you worked with prosecutors like robert much of your life, and you work hand in hand. how does that affect investigations when investigations are looking at police officers that may have done something wrong. robert mentioned earlier, and i looked at the television when he said it. finally someone says that. the relationship with prosecutor and police is so close, you need a special prosecutor like you were saying earlier. someone ma is not aping to the police. they'll probably answer to the mayor or the governor or another body not in bed with the police. the relationship is too close from a rookie police officer and the police commissioner. everyone is in a line together. >> we have what we call - you are not having real impropriety, you have the appearance of impropriety. when you have a situation where the community mistrusts the process, if you are talking

about inspiring confidence in the process, you have to get to the point where you say "look, we will not have the appearance of impropriety." >> bring someone in from outside. >> bring someone in from outside, with no influence, no community ties, nothing like that, let that be their only job. the fact of the matter is they can do it unencome berd. >> would -- unencumbered. >> would it have made a difference? >> i definitely thing it would. even if not, it shows the impropriety when you have the prosecutor investigating the police that they work with every single day. >> i think it would have made a difference. >> i never failed to indict someone, except one time when i didn't want to indict someone. you can do what you need to do if you want to do what you need to do. he, they, made a decision about

how to handle this. we heard from the prosecutor, he was vocal about the problems he had faced, the challenges he faced, the threats that both he and the police officer darren wilson say he has endured. so he's been upset with the news media in this case, mentioned three or four times during his statement his displeasure with the way the news media has covered the story. >> what if there was no news media, what would this look like if the news media - what if there was no social media every day in the face of the officers looking at everything, turning over evidence, showing different witnesses. i'm reminded of a scene where you saw the gentlemen, the construction workers saying "he had his hands up." that's social media, the new thing. >> let's listen to what the prosecutor said about the media here. >> the most significance challenge encountered has been

the 24 hour news cycle and it's in sashiable appetite for anything. following behind with nonstop rumours on social media. i recognise the lack of accurate detail surrounding the shooting frustrates the media and the certainly public and hope to breach the suspicion among those distrustful. jamal lemieux is an editor at "eb on "ebony", the most significant challenge is media and social media. >> it's unbelievable. it wasn't any of our colleagues that put 10 shots in the body of an unarmed 18-year-old. i agree that media presented a serious challenge for this law enforcement, because they did not want to prosecute darren wilson, or investigate other

than saying it was a good kill. those that witnessed it shared images of aaron brown's body and their testimony quickly via twitter and facebook. they were forced to confront this. >> that's a good side of social media. we heard wajahat ali say some of the racist garbage placed on social media in response to what was happening in ferguson. in some way social media allowed folks to anonymously say the most hateful things. does that fuel all of this? >> there's nothing more hateful than killing an unarmed teenager. there's nothing more hateful than making people of a community who pay taxes, or go to work, feel like they are lauded over or presided over by a police officer who is there to serve and protect them. most of us are able to withstand the bullying that takes place on

social media, or getting tweets from people calling us the n word or b word. i'm active, i'm call a lot of things other than my main. i can deal with it. i didn't have to bury my child, for us to allow the prosecutor making the media, traditional, and responsible for what is happening, it's unscrupulous, unfair. >> as we watch the city burp or buildings, figuratively burn. you said that tomorrow there would be a lot of questions about how this was handled by police, how police handled it, and how could they have handled it better? >> without a doubt. tomorrow news media will be ablaze talking about the police response, and police for tonight. the takes to let the buildings burn was probably a good

decision. they have to preserve life before property. people need to understand that. if they don't have enough cops to protect the citizens, they have to let them burn, making sure that nobody is inside, because shots are fired indiscriminately, me and you sitting here heard 20-30 shots. they can't have the fire many putting out a fire getting shot. they have to reign in the rogue protesters, which they should have had boots on the ground. i keep saying that. >> i was going to say, at some point they said this is no longer a peaceful protest. the reason there are bull horns and they were moving people to the sidewalk, is it too late to call a curfew in the town of ferguson once there are people all over. >> it's too late once you don't have man power. if you can't shut is down, what is the sense of calling a

curfew. >> you can't scoop people off the street and say you are out of here because we have a curfew. >> in some ways that is what they are trying to do. >> when i look at this, it's almost like a tale of two streams. before they were over the top with. now they almost have a complete hands off approach, where they are willing to let everything burn, let people move treely about, and not enforcing everything. i would think there would be a happy medium somewhere between this, but they don't seem to have found it. again, to their - to come to their defense, they are in a difficult position. law enforcement is in a difficult position, dammed if they do, dammed if they don't. >> i would take the dammed if i do. >> yes. >> more boots on the ground. let the media beat us up, and say hey, you had too many cops, but we don't have no buildings burnt down, we have less casualties, less people getting

hurt. we'll deal with that and regroup tomorrow. >> one of the interesting things that happened tonight was president obama's response to what happened in ferguson. let's listen. >> to those in ferguson, there are ways of channelling your concerns instructively and there are ways of channelling your concerns destructively. our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. they have a tough job to do, to maintain public safety and hold accountable those that break the law. as they do their jobs in the coming days, they need to work with the community, not against the community, to distinguish the handle of people who may use the grand jury's decision as an excuse for violence, distinguish them from the vast majority.

>> as the president spoke we saw pictures of buildings being set on fire. they are still on fire hours later. the gunshots rung through the community of ferguson tonight. just a reflection. these fires are a reflection of the anger and the conflict in this community and across the country. we continue our coverage in ferguson, missouri, right after this. don't go away.

>> no indictment in ferguson, missouri, that is the decision tonight. >> welcome back. we are following breaking news out of ferguson, missouri, and the grand jury decision not to indict darren wilson in the killing ever unarmed teen michael brown. robert ray has been following the story for hours in ferguson, and has more. robert? >> the fire behind me is the storage unit. that is raging. the mcdonald's, the back of the

mcdonald's collapsed. the fire has jumped. i have not heard gunshots in 15-20 minutes. i was listening to the analysis earlier that you guys were talking about. one of your guests was talking about how in august the police force was hands on in trying to stop the demonstrators from what they were doing, and he is right when he says that now they are hands off. allowing for whatever is happening here tonight to take shape. and allowing some of the people that are clearly not the good protesters, the good demonstrators to unfortunately burn this part of ferguson down, create absolute havoc with gun fire, and many of them walking around with their faces masked over with baseball bats, tossing things at the linings with police officers, unlike what we saw in august, as your guests pointed out, the police taking a step back saying "okay, if this is what you guys want to do,

we'll let you do it." at this point what else can they do. they can't come out and pound them down into the ground, arresting hundreds of people. the worst part about the scenario is - are the business owners. the people on this street who have created small businesses trying to make a living in ferguson, this little metro, the suburb near the airport in st louis, and now, frankly, four or five of them will burn to the ground, and the fire department is not here for safety reasons, because of the gun fire, and, unfortunately, the fires are hopping. there's nothing you can do to shop it, john. >> when you say hopping, you mentioned they are going from one building to another. because they are out of control, is there a concern that these fires could spread? >> sorry, that they could what? you broke up. i apologise?

>> spread. >> spread. that's a huge concern. no question about it. they are already spreading. of course, because these buildings are all very close together. and, you know, once one building collapse, like the mcdonald's, that i hope looking at over there, 200 yards away. i see the fact that the fire has hopped to another little building, and you... >> unfortunately we have - this happened a number of times throughout the evening with robert ray. he continues to do a great job reporting on the situation in ferguson, also doing a terrific job is in ferguson, as well, where i understand a no-fly zone has been established? >> yes, in the last half hour we learnt about a temporary flight restriction over lambert field. the reason for that is close to

ferguson, the airport is over there. so we land and take off in that direction, over ferguson. temporary flight restrictions goes up to 3,000 feet, three miles wide. at the moment commercial aircraft are not allowed to fly through it. the news helicopters are flying above it, and the only aircraft in it on a regular basis as it were were aircraft, helicopters and others associated with law enforcement. what does that mean? because of wind, aircraft are not able to land at lambert field at the moment. several flights, 10, have been diverted. because of the wind direction, aircraft taking off from lambert field are okay to go. it's those coming in to land. the reason the temporary flight restriction was in place was because of the gun fire, there's so much gun fire around, we had

to put up with a bid when the demonstration was at its height. robert ray, down on west florissant, where the fires are burning had more gunfire, because of that they are restricting aircraft movements in the area. >> john terrett, thank you. daniel lak is on west florissant where things are calm right now. what do you see. >> yes, we done a mile away from where john and robert are, roughly speaking. it was tense when we arrived an hour, hour and a half ago. there was a confrontation between the police, that you can see behind us, and some local people, onlookers who had come to see. now, people have drifted into the night. there was a burning police car. it's gone out. there's the odd shout, the odd expression of anger with the grand jury verdict, and not much. off to the left is an open restaurant and bar. things are calmer down here. if it stays that way, that's

what the local residents would like to see. >> daniel, give us your impression of what you have seen throughout the evening? >> you know, this probably was the verdict that everyone here was expecting, and the fact that people were expecting it, gave a chance to those that wanted to express themselves angrily, violently, who wanted to get out, get the base well bats and weapons. by and large people are shouting, telling us how angry they are. the residents, not the protesters or the violent people, and the police, have been a lot more relaxed, less confrontational than we saw in august and october. if that's the tone that continues going forward, despite the fires we see down florissant and the gun fire, things will

turn out better. >> daniel lak reporting from ferguson. >> we have the director of the hoodies movement for justice, founded after the death of trayvon martin. dante has been watching all of this with us. we appreciate you staying up to talk. as we begin to wrap up this conversation here, i want to get your impression of where you think your effort to try to bring light on the situation that african-americans deal with every day. what success have you had tonight in trying to do that, and what problems have you had? >> i want to touch a little bit on the previous comments. i think there's another aspect with this that we are not necessarily touching on. those are the provocateurs that are out in ferguson in greater

st louis, that are also present. and i think we tend to separate the community and protesters and business owners and police and put them in different categories. we also need to think about and lift up the provocateurs that are also there, that are planted, and planted and plotted there in order to keep this idea of criminal or people being violent in different ways. >> let me stop you, dante, what are you saying or suggesting? >> i'm suggesting since i was there in august, and i have gone back and forth from ferguson plenty of times. when i was there, there were roff okay tours in the crowd. they are throwing water bottles at the police, and they were not part of the community, they weren't people that folks recognised. so those are things that are there. >> who are they, why are they there?

>> we don't know. we know that they have awakened as they have been putting out in letters, and notices. but we are not hearing about how - the community is being protected against that, right. it opens up a lot of other questions - we don't know who is actually burning down these things, right. we don't know the context of the people. i want to cross another picture on that about who else is in the community when it's not just the black folks that are demonstrating their frustrations. >> you are making a suggestion. i'm not sure what you are suggesting. are you suggesting that people from the outside are trying to do this with what intention? >> i mean, everything it is, right. they have had three months to prepare for this. word has it that there would be a non-indictment for a while.

the fact that we are now seeing these types of evidence of the photos, of darren wilson, and as jamal lemieux noted, of the abusers that are minors, i think we need to open up other questions around this, of how much is being plotted, and intentional versus more response. so we need to open up some of those questions. >> they are good questions to ask, and that we'll arriving in the days ahead to get more information. thank you. benjamin crump, attorney for the brown family says they are asking for peace. >> they were heart broken and disappointed. they really wanted equal justice for their child, the killer for their unarmed child to be

accounted for. they will continue to ask for peace and try to find positive caning like the -- change like the proposal for the michael brown law that requires police officers in all cities to wear video body cameras. >> as we wrap up the hour, i want to get back to robert ray, to get your final thoughts on what you are seeing tonight. robert? >> yes, when the sun came up this morning we are were not sure whether the grand jury had a decision. sure enough they did make the decision, and here we go as we approach the middle of the night. part of ferguson is burning. protesters went from peaceful earlier today to down-right rowdy. gunshots, and as we speak, this town is still burning, and the armoured vehicles and the police tactical units are out asking people to get off the streets to figure out exactly how to go forward here, and how this area

will begin the healing process. it will be a while, no question about it. clearly people, as you said, provocateurs out here. >> all right. that's robert ray, who has been with us all night. john terrett standing by. i know you have been tethered to the camera and a microphone most of the night, so you probably don't have an answer. we have been asking a question - has there been a response to officials in ferguson? have you seen any sign of that? >> no, we haven't seen any officials response from anyone. we are waiting for the morning for that. at the moment where i am, outside the police station, where there was a great deal of anxiety earlier on, after the decision of the grooury was handed up -- grand jury was handed up, people were anxious that there was no indictment. it quickly got out of control, police lost control for a while,

but regained it. we saw what was promised that there would be sporadic demonstrations and protests all over the area, not just in one place, which is pretty much how it was in august. we have seen a community that is really hurting, and really angry. and whether or not tonight's violence and the looting that we have seen, and the burning that we have seen was carried out by people in ferguson, or whether it was outside agitators, we may never know. one thing is for certain, the community was a long way to go before it can heal the rift which exists primarily between african-american and the police. >> john terrett, thanks for your coverage. >> i'm joined by criminal defense attorney robert tarver junior, and corey pegues, former police inspector. robert, you have been looking through the file as we have been talking. we are talking about the death

of a human being here, and those pictures that were taken shortly after the death of michael brown - what have you seen in those documents? >> well, like you said. it is the chronicle of a human life and a loss of that life. it's impossible to look at that without having a form of emotion. these are picture i believe the grand jury would have seen. one thing that struck me. i know there was an indication, discussion about wounds to the officer. they are not really visibly apparent in the documents that are here. i just think it's a tremendously disituation for is grand jury to make a decision without some direction. and that's what i'm starting to see here from going over a lot of the testimony. >> cory, there'll be plenty of second-guessing going on in the days, and weeks to come and months and years about what happened in ferguson.

it strikes me that it harkens back to the '60s, and '70s, where we saw communities blow up during the civil rights movement in detroit and other cities. how can the police work out their difference, how can the criminal justice respond in a way that makes people feel good about their country? >> the first thing we need to do is stop talking about training. cops get hundreds of thousands of training. we need to talk about the police departments, especially in ferguson, 53 cops, two blacks, 72% black community. you cannot tell me that you can't find some qualified young black and brown me that want to be cops. everyone, when you were little, want to play cops and robbers. we need to start talking about diversifying. >> go ahead.

>> let the police officers live in the community that they police, you'll make a 100% change. >> there'll be time to talk about what is to come in the future. robert and cory, we appreciate you staying up late and discussing the sad event in ferguson, missouri. we appreciate it. the grand jury spoke, there'll be no indictment of darren wilson, and no justice for michael brown. the streets of ferguson, missouri are filled with scenes of the violence. buildings burn aring for hours. -- burning for hours. they are burning now, into the morning. the question turns to how ferguson and the country can move forward. that's our program, i'm john seigenthaler, see you here tomorrow.

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and like aljazeera america on facebook for more stories, more access, more conversations. so you don't just stay on top of the news, go deeper and get more perspectives on every issue. al jazeera america. >> good evening i'm antonio mor" a news conference just wrapped up where the st. louis coirchlt prosecutor announced that the grand jury decided not to indict darren wilson for the shooting of michael brown. . >> chuck hagel resirens the white house reverses chorus on iran. i'm antonio mora, welcome to "consider this". those stories and more ahead. >> no probable cause exists to