At a news conference Tuesday, Nixon sought to reassure a nervous public by telling them that his office, along with the area’s top law enforcement agencies, were “working around the clock” to keep residents and businesses safe while allowing protesters to exercise their constitutional rights.
Nixon said he had yet to call up the Missouri National Guard, but that the guard was “available if we determine it is necessary.”
“I’m prepared to issue that order,” Nixon said.
The governor made his remarks amid the backdrop of a region unsettled by months of protests and the fear that the unrest is only a taste of what’s to come if the grand jury investigating the case decides not to indict Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.
In the past few days, residents and business owners have boarded up windows. Some have stocked up on ammunition or even made plans to leave the area.
A few hours before Nixon’s news conference at the regional headquarters of the Missouri Highway Patrol, Wardell Patterson, 74, was roaming the aisles of the Ferguson Walmart in search of bullets for his .32-caliber automatic pistol. He said he lives close to the center of the action.
He admitted it had been a long time since he had fired a gun.
“Can’t remember the last time, to tell you the truth,” Patterson said.
Nixon spoke about the preparations mostly in generalities and responded to specific questions by stressing that he wouldn’t disclose any “operational plans.”
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch said Monday that the grand jury is still working. He repeated his earlier statement that the grand jury probably would complete its work in mid- to late November.
Nixon was joined by Sam Dotson, the St. Louis police chief; Jon Belmar, the St. Louis County police chief; Capt. Ronald S. Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol; and Dan Isom, the former St. Louis police chief and current director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety.
Belmar said the possibility of lives lost as a result of civil unrest keeps him up at night. It was remarkable, he said, that no one died, or was seriously injured, during the height of the protests over Brown’s death in August.
“In fact, that’s unprecedented in American law enforcement, certainly recently,” Belmar said.
