FERGUSON, Mo. -- The Missouri Highway Patrol seized control of a St. Louis suburb Thursday, stripping local police of their law enforcement authority after four days of clashes between officers in riot gear and crowds protesting the death of an unarmed black teenager shot by an officer.

The intervention, ordered by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, came as President Barack Obama spoke publicly for the first time about Saturday's fatal shooting and the subsequent violence that has threatened to tear apart Ferguson, a town that is nearly 70 percent black but patrolled by a nearly all-white police force.

Obama said there was "no excuse" for violence against the police or by officers against peaceful protesters who are seeking justice for Michael Brown, the slain 18-year-old who had planned to start college this week.

Residents in Ferguson have complained about the police response that began soon after Brown's shooting with the use of dogs for crowd control -- a tactic that for some evoked civil-rights protests from a half-century ago. The county police force took over, leading both the investigation of Brown's shooting and the subsequent attempts to keep the peace at Ferguson's request.

After a particularly violent Wednesday night, Nixon said Thursday that local police were no longer in charge of the area although they would still be present. He said Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson was in command.

The change was meant to ensure "that we allow peaceful and appropriate protests, that we use force only when necessary, that we step back a little bit and let some of the energy be felt in this region appropriately," Nixon said.

"Ferguson will not be defined as a community that was torn apart by violence but will be known as a community that pulled together to overcome it," the governor said at a news conference in the nearby community of Normandy.

Johnson, who is black, said he grew up in the area and "it means a lot to me personally that we break this cycle of violence."

He said he planned to keep heavily armored vehicles away from the scene and told his officers not to take along their tear gas masks.

By late afternoon, Johnson and state troopers were walking down the street with a group of more than 1,000 protesters as they chanted "Hands up, don't shoot," a reference to witness accounts that described Brown as having his hands in the air when the officer shot him multiple times.

Johnson planned to talk to the demonstrators throughout the night.

"We're going to have some conversations with them and get an understanding of what's going on," he said.

Earlier Thursday, Obama appealed for "peace and calm" on the streets.

"I know emotions are raw right now in Ferguson, and there are certainly passionate differences about what has happened," Obama said, speaking from the Massachusetts island where he's on a two-week vacation. "But let's remember that we're all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes the belief in equality under the law, respect for public order and the right to peaceful public protests."

Officials alarmed

After an intense scene in Ferguson on Wednesday night -- which included the detention of two journalists -- top elected officials expressed alarm Thursday over the heavy police response.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement Thursday that he was "deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message" to the community and that law enforcement agencies "must seek to reduce tensions, not heighten them."

Holder also said Ferguson police had accepted the Justice Department's offer of crowd-control help as the department continues to investigate the Brown shooting. And in a phone call later Thursday, he promised Brown's family a full, independent civil-rights investigation of his death.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., also said Thursday that the strong police response to protests in Ferguson had become a problem.

"I think the demilitarization of the response is going to help a lot" to ease strife in the suburb, she said. When asked about community tensions, she described the problems as "a wound that's not going to heal overnight."

St. Louis County Police Department spokesman Brian Schellman said officers on Wednesday night tossed tear gas to disperse a large crowd of protesters after some threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at officers. More than 10 people were arrested in Ferguson.

"In talking to these guys, it is scary," Schellman said of officers on the front lines of the protest. "They hear gunshots going off, and they don't know where they're coming from."

County Police Chief Jon Belmar said his officers have responded with "an incredible amount of restraint" as they've had rocks and bottles thrown at them, been shot at and had two dozen patrol vehicles destroyed.

But at community meeting Thursday morning, dozens of Ferguson residents and community leaders filled the pews at the Christ the King United Church of Christ in neighboring Florissant to express their concerns over the police response to the demonstrations.

Sierra Smith, 27, lives in the Canfield apartment complex not far from where Brown was shot and where many of the worst clashes with police have occurred. Speaking into a microphone, she described how the police blocked the streets to the apartment complex at night, making it almost impossible for residents to get in or out.

A neighbor had a baby three weeks ago, Smith said, and had run out of formula and diapers for her newborn. The police blocked them from going out for more.

"We get up to the top of the street, and they tell us to turn around," Smith said. "'Go back where you came from.'

"If you go out, you better be wearing the armor of God."

Tremaine Combs, 32, said fear had overtaken his 5-year-old son in recent days.

As they were leaving a nearby Walgreens store on Wednesday evening, he said, his son spotted a police officer driving by.

"He was so terrified that he started crying," Combs said, adding that he went to Thursday's meeting because he didn't want his son to grow up feeling like that.

ACLU sues for records

The city and county also are under criticism for refusing to release the name of the officer who shot Brown, citing threats against that officer and others.

St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said Wednesday that details about the shooting would not be released anytime soon. He urged anyone with information to come forward and promised that every piece of evidence would be reviewed, presented to a grand jury and eventually made public.

By withholding details from the public during the criminal inquiry, investigators would be better able to gauge witnesses' credibility, he said.

But the ACLU of Missouri filed a lawsuit Thursday to obtain copies of initial police reports regarding Brown's shooting after police rejected the group's open-records request for the incident report.

Meanwhile, the hacker group Anonymous on Thursday released a name purported to be that of the officer involved in Brown's shooting, but the Ferguson police chief said later that the name was incorrect. The county police said on Twitter that the name was "not even an officer with St. Louis County or Ferguson."

Twitter quickly suspended the Anonymous account that posted the officer's purported identity and personal information. The site's code of conduct forbids the publication of private and confidential information without permission.

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said Thursday that officials would again discuss whether to release the name of the officer but that a decision had not yet been made.

"We're having some conversations about that today," he said.

Police have said Brown was shot after an officer encountered him and another man on the street. They say one of the men pushed the officer into his squad car, then physically assaulted him in the vehicle and struggled with the officer over his weapon. At least one shot was fired inside the car. The struggle then spilled onto the street, where Brown was shot multiple times.

Dorian Johnson, who said he was with Brown when the shooting happened, said the officer ordered them out of the street, then grabbed his friend's neck and tried to pull him into the car before brandishing his weapon and firing. He said Brown started to run and the officer pursued him, firing multiple times.

Another witness said Brown was was the street with his arms raised in submission when the officer shot him.

On Thursday evening, people in more than 90 cities were observing what organizers called a "National Moment of Silence" in honor of people who have died at the hands of police. The events came in response to the deaths of Brown and a New York City man who recently died after being put in a chokehold by an officer.

People in cities across the country were expected to rally. They were asked to wear a red ribbon, cloth or bandanna in a show of solidarity.

In one of the rallies, about 40 people gathered outside the federal courthouse in Reno, Nev. Many carried signs in support of the NAACP, and several passing drivers honked in support.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement that the public deserves full disclosure of the facts surrounding Brown's shooting and events that followed. He said, "Every community in America deserves equal justice and equal protection under the law."

Information for this article was contributed by David A. Lieb, Jim Salter, Alan Scher Zagier, Jim Suhr, Rhonda Shafner and staff members of The Associated Press; by Matt Pearce, Lauren Raab, Maya Srikrishnan and Ryan Parker of the Los Angeles Times; and by Julie Bosman, Michael D. Shear and Timothy Williams of The New York Times.

A Section on 08/15/2014