“There were pass-ons that confused the officers,” he said. “We understand that now but I didn’t understand it then.”

Belmar said after Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency on Aug. 16, there was a question of how to enforce the corresponding curfew.

Belmar said he was informed by the state highway patrol that officers would be using the “failure to disperse” charge — which makes it a class C misdemeanor “if, being present at the scene of an unlawful assembly, or at the scene of a riot, (someone) knowingly fails or refuses to obey the lawful command of a law enforcement officer to depart from the scene of such unlawful assembly or riot.”

He added that each night during the worst of the unrest, police were facing riots and looting and ever-changing dynamics. He said officers were instructed to keep people moving to prevent crime from bubbling up within stagnant groups, as they had seen occur during some of the more violent exchanges between police and protesters.

Officers were told to use their discretion and to err on the side of allowing peaceful protests, he said. But somewhere along the line, the message became mixed.