Ferguson: Protesters demand action, Obama outlines plan

Now this is about much more than Michael Brown and a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who shot him.

From Harvard to Texas A&M to Stanford, college students nationwide have walked out of classes or staged “die-ins” to decry police violence and racial profiling.

They’ve been joined by demonstrators across the country, who say they won’t stop clamoring for change until they see real action.

And more and more, the protesters reflect a wide array of races and backgrounds.

“We come from a privileged background, and it’s easy for many of our friends to deny what’s going on in this country,” one white prep school student told CNN affiliate WABC as he protested Monday in Manhattan. “But we feel it’s our duty to speak up for what’s right — speak up for justice.”

Outside Harvard Law School, a sea of students lay on the cold bricks to draw attention to Brown’s death. Others did the same in St. Louis and in front of the Justice Department in Washington, mimicking the way Brown’s body lay on a street for 41/2 hours.

In cities across the country, one sign was so prolific that the words on it proved true, “Ferguson is everywhere.”

After meeting with law enforcement officials and activists on Monday, President Barack Obama outlined several new efforts.

“I’m going to be proposing some new community policing initiatives that will significantly expand funding and training for local law enforcement, including up to 50,000 additional body-worn cameras for law enforcement agencies,” Obama said.

The president addressed concerns about “whether we are militarising domestic law enforcement unnecessarily.

“He ordered a review after the widely criticised heavy-handed police response to Ferguson protesters in August, and that review suggests largely leaving intact federal programmes that provide surplus military equipment to local police departments.