Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder tells KTRS‘s McGraw Millhaven and Kelly Jackson that Governor Jay Nixon ignored the Mayor of Ferguson’s desperate pleas last night to send in the National Guard when riots erupted in his town.
Kinder adds that Nixon also ignored Mayor James Knowles for most of the three and a half months since the August 9 shooting of Michael Brown. Kinder wonders if Nixon was pressured by the Obama administration and the Holder Justice Department to not send the Guard in to assist police.
“The Mayor of Ferguson James Knowles is a friend–not a close friend but a friend of 15 years and he called me in the wee hours with a desperate phone call that I got up at 5:30 this morning and heard his message. He was calling asking anyone in state government to help him, because of what he claimed was a complete abdication of responsibility by Governor Nixon,” said Kinder.
“This was a desperate reaching out by Mayor Knowles while his city was burning. And the National Guardsman were being held back. The National Guardsman who the governor mobilized and declared a state of emergency almost a week ago were somehow held back. The Mayor pleaded with him and it somehow fell on deaf ears. I spoke with him very early this morning when he returned my call and he’s crying out for someone in state government to exercise some leadership. Now the Lieutenant Governor has no Constitutional power or statutory power to act here. All executive authority rests with the governor.”
Kinder adds that Mayor Knowles “tried to reach out to the chief executive to this state, who by the way has not been communicating with him over the three and half months since this erupted on the 9th of August.”
Kinder finally asked, “It is so inexplicable. It is so hard to understand why the governor would not deploy the forces he had at the ready. Is it because he was leaned on not to send them in–leaned on by the Obama administration and the Holder Justice Department?”
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