(St. Louis Public Radio) – St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger may lift a state of emergency order on Wednesday if protests in Ferguson remain calm tonight.
The Democratic official issued the state of emergency order after a violent Sunday night that included a police-involved shooting. In effect, the state of emergency gave Stenger the power to provide orders to the St. Louis County Police Department – an entity the county executive typically has limited control.
But Stenger said things went smoothly enough on Monday, adding that there were “no shootings, no shots fired, no burglaries, no lootings and really no property damage.” He said if the situation in Ferguson calms down further, he may lift the state of emergency order.
“We remain under a state of emergency. But we will not be under a state of emergency any longer than we need to be,” Stenger said. “So if we have a good night tonight, there’s a chance that we might lift that the next day depending upon how tonight goes.”
Stenger praised St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, who he said helped cool tensions last night.
“One of the chief concerns was that all of the progress that we’ve made over the last year did not quite literally wind up in ashes,” Stenger said. “So with that said, I think key to a lot of this was Jon Belmar and his top staff repeatedly went to the crowd and tried to de-escalate. And I think in all cases really were successful in doing that. And they had individuals that were in the crowd de-escalating.”
Still, police still arrested nearly two dozen people last night. And some protesters and journalist captured some especially tense moments, including officers deploying pepper spray.
For his part, Stenger said officers were successful into calming things down.
“It was necessary to arrest 23 individuals who after multiple warnings would not comply with the law,” Stenger said. “And I will tell you, I just think it was the efforts of de-escalation and also I think having a structured environment that really, really worked well last night.”
