FERGUSON, Mo. (CN) - Protestors in Ferguson enjoyed a festive atmosphere Thursday night on streets that had been covered with spent tear gas canisters and rubber bullets the night before. And on Friday, the Ferguson police chief released the name of the officer who shot Michael Brown, which set off the week of protests.
Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said Friday that the officer involved in the shooting is Darren Wilson, 28, a 4-year veteran of the department, who had worked for another police force for 2 years, all 6 years with a clean record.
Jackson said that Brown, 18, was believed to have been involved in a robbery of a convenience store shortly before he was shot on Aug. 9.
The Ferguson Police Department on Friday released its incident report of the convenience store robbery - but not of the officer-involved shooting that soon followed.
The New York Times on Friday posted on its website photos from a surveillance camera that Chief Jackson said showed Brown in a confrontation inside the convenience store. The photos are attributed to the Ferguson Police Department, which has not posted them on its own site.
On Thursday afternoon, Gov. Jay Nixon intervened , relieving St. Louis County Police from security and replacing them with the Missouri Highway Patrol. The change brought a more relaxed approach from police. Instead of closing roads and confronting protesters with automatic weapons and armored cars, a handful of police officers - all of them African-American - mingled with the crowds.
"They (the police) came here, they don't know anything about black folks and most of the people over here don't know anything about them," Deanel Trout told Courthouse News. "So they need to see somebody out they can relate with. The police officers are out, they're marching with them, it's not confrontational. It's almost like a festivity today. It's completely different."
Hundreds of protesters lined both sides of West Florissant, a major roadway in Ferguson. It was the most diverse group all week, with people of all colors, ages, religions and national origins side by side.
The crowd policed itself. Leaders, including the New Black Panthers, helped direct traffic through the rally.
"We just started tonight and I'm out here walking just to see what the people are talking about and feel how they feel, try to get a feeling on how they feel," Major Ronnie Robinson of the St. Louis Police Department told Courthouse News.
"It's a sad time in this community and we need to be out here paying attention to what they've got to say and recognize the good people and treat them accordingly."
Robinson was one of a few uniformed officers at the scene.
"We've got to listen to these people," Robinson said. "They've got a story to tell and the more we listen, the better it's going to be and it's a new day."
The only tense moments Thursday occurred when police cars approached the protest on two occasions.
The first incident was two cars responding to a 911 call. The second occurred after 9:30 p.m., when police cars appeared to attempt to close West Florissant south of the protest.
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