Ferguson stirred up by feds’ ‘Community Relations Service’

'They go down there to advocate on behalf of the racialist point of view the DOJ has'

Ferguson, Missouri, is approaching the volatility of a stick of dynamite as the time nears for an announcement whether a grand jury will indict police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown.

While the deadline for a decision isn’t until January, the prosecutor’s office has said word could come just about any time now.

Which is why Metro Shooting Range manager John Stephenson in nearby Bridgeton, Missouri, told CNN gun sales were up 40 percent to 50 percent. And many people are coming to the range for training, saying they are worried. And Dan McMullen, who runs Solo Insurance in Ferguson close to where violence broke out in early August, told CNN he has brought an extra gun to his office ever since racial tensions skyrocketed following the Brown shooting. He speculated on the possibility he might get trapped in his office and “have to have a John Wayne shootout.”

Business owners are boarding up windows and one Ferguson resident told CBS, “We are getting prepared for war.”

So the work of the federal Community Relations Service, a secretive arm of the U.S. Department of Justice that is intended to smooth out differences and reach compromises, should be helping.

But is it, questions one leading activist.

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