America’s top law enforcement officer, US Attorney General Eric Holder, met with the parents of the black teenager who was gunned down by the cop who stopped him for jaywalking in a suburb north of Saint Louis in the nation’s heartland.  Holder is promising a “full, fair and independent” investigation.

The town of Ferguson has been torn by the events of the last couple of weeks.  18-year old Michael Brown was gunned down on 9 August, his body left uncovered and bleeding out for hours in front of horrified residents.  Local cops have sought to smear him with allegations of shoplifting and marijuana use, even though police refuse to release the incident report. 

Protesters (and others) are demanding that the shooter, Officer Darren Wilson, be arrested and charged.  Instead, Wilson is on paid leave.  This callousness, and a perceived history of rough treatment of Ferguson’s African-American majority at the hands of white cops led to days of protests and police retaliation.

Holder arrived on Wednesday – possibly the first time a cabinet official has been dispatched to deal with the aftermath of a police shooting – telling a group of college students, “I am the attorney general of the United States, but I am also a black man.”

President Barack Obama and Holder have ordered 40 FBI agents into Ferguson to interview more than 100 people about the shooting of Michael Brown.  It’s believed the probe could expand into a wider inquiry into the practices of the Ferguson police.

“He really listened a lot to the residents. I think he has a good sense of what’s going on,” said local civil rights leader Adolphus Pruitt.  “He spent most of his time hearing from residents, how they feel about everything and getting a good idea about what their concerns were and that he understood and that he wanted to focus a lot on having people in the room that can help them on what they need to do in the long term after the cameras go.”