Obama calls for calm in Ferguson

President Barack Obama says he’ll “wait and see” whether he goes to Ferguson, Missouri, but urged peaceful protests as the country awaits a grand jury decision on the case of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown.

“First and foremost, keep protests peaceful,” Obama said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”


“You know, this is a country that allows everybody to express their views, allows them to peacefully assemble to protest actions that they think are unjust,” he said, “but using any event as an excuse for violence is contrary to rule of law and contrary to who we are.”

During the summer, the president said, “a few thugs who might be looking for an excuse to loot or to commit vandalism” overran peaceful protests in Ferguson.

As for whether he’ll travel to Ferguson himself, Obama said, “I’m going to wait and see how the response comes about.”

Obama said he’s called Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon to ensure that a response is in place for “careful and appropriate” action if there’s violence.

The president also pushed back against Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who has said that if there’s no indictment, the situation in Ferguson will be a turning point comparable to the civil rights protests years ago in Selma, Alabama.

“The kinds of ongoing problems we have with police and communities of color around the country are not of the sort that we saw in Selma,” Obama said. “We’re not talking about systematic segregation or discrimination. They are solvable problems if, in fact, law enforcement officials are open to the kind of training and best practices that we’ve seen instituted in lot of parts of the country.”