File any charges against officer wilson. I would like to reiterate my call for peace, calm and restraint. This is not the time to turn on each other. We are one community. He was asked to resign, basically, he was fired. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have had him by my side for two years. No deal on Irans Nuclear program. We dont want just any agreement. We want the right agreement. Theres a growing body of evidence that the happiest part of our lives begins in our 50s. If you have been told in the past that you had spots on your x ray. We cant get the medical assistance we deserve, how can we move forward. For most folks this may be the only chance they get. We begin with a case that captivated and sharply divided america. The shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by Police Officer wilson. They returned a notrue bill on each of the five indictments. The shooting death sparks months of demonstrations including a couple of weeks of protests that sometimes turned violent. The missouri governor declared a state of emergency leading up to the decision and called up the national guard. He pleaded for calm and so did Michael Browns family who issued a statement that read in part moments after the grand jury decision was announced i spoke with al jazeera correspondent robert ray from clayton, missouri. Robert good to see you, you were there as the prosecutor for st. Louis county announced the grand jurys decision. What was the reaction of the crowd near you . Reporter well, antonio, good evening, in front of the Justice Center here in clayton, missouri, you know it was silent to be honest with you. Here where we are at you could hear a pin drop as people were listening to the prosecuting attorney inside there our correspondent was inside the room, and you know what, interesting, some details game out. The grand jury started meeting on august 20th. They met for 70 hours over the course of the past three and a half months. They were able to hear over 60 witnesses and they came to the conclusion that there will be no indictment, that officer wilson was reacting at a split second like an officer should, they thought. Thats the decision, and what everyone is going to have to deal with here, as this is now a closed case and an open file as the prosecutor just said. So we should get more details when those files get out to all of us in in the coming days. Hopefully well receive that tonight. But you know what, its quiet here, but over in ferguson, the streets are filling up. The mother of Michael Brown was listening to the grand jury verdict while she was sitting on top of a vehicle. She broke down in tears and some of the demonstrators took her away. So clearly a lot of people looking at this as a very tough night. And hopefully there will be no violence on the streets. Thats what the brown family is calling for, pastors and priests are calling for. The president of the United States is going to make a statement regarding this announcement. So everything very fluid at this moment, antonio. That was earlier, and sadly it did not take long for some protesters to turn violent. Also, police in ferguson have reported gunshots fired and have told al jazeera crews to take shelter. For more lets bring in jamie floyd, and were also joined by former Missouri State senator, jeffery smith. He is the author of ferguson black and white. Very good to have you both here. Jeff you actually went to school with Michael Browns mother. What was injury reaction . I wasnt that surprised to the verdict. The Missouri State law is very liberal towards officers. A fleeing felon can be killed in there is a belief on the part of the officer that that felon constitutes a threat to other people. So given the statutes, i wasnt very surprised and also given the jury pool which was threequarters white. Jamie . I agree entirely. The law of selfdefense is very, very favorable to Police Officers. You get the state of innocence and the state of mind of the Police Officer. And a grand jury is not asked to find beyond a reasonable doubt its probable cause. Right. We know this, right, antoine know . So they really were given complete leeway in this case to find for the officer, and he testified and testified for hours, so he told them what his state of mind was at the moment he pulled the trigger, so that gave them the opportunity to think the way the officer was thinking at that moment in time. So no matter how much sympathy they had for this unarmed teenager, assuming they had sympathy for him, they really put themselves in the shoes of that officer at the time he pulled the tradition trigger. Jeff you wrote the book on ferguson and talking about the racial divide there. The anger runs very deep. This is about a system that people have felt for decades is very unjust. There is about 30 municipal oits that make up st. Louis county. And many of them derive, 20, 30, 40, even 50 of their annual budgets just from traffic stops. And in a lot of cases the Police Forces are overwhelmingly white. And that leads to a massive chasm and a lot of distress where the constituents feel like the budget is funded just by pulling them over. And even had there been an indictment in this case, that wouldnt have resolved the underlying tension in this community. Even if there had been a conviction, that wouldnt have resolved the underlying tension in this community. The problems in ferguson and the problems that are not being addressed in communities like ferguson run much deeper. And this of course is something that is not just a problem in missouri, its a problem in in lots of parts of this country. But unfortunately then you see what is happening tonight. The violence thats happening there, and theres going to be a reaction from others that are going to say, this is ju just there are going to people who say police need to crack down because of this kind of violence. Sure, and thats what you saw in august after people started protesting. Unfortunately the protests allow a lot of people in this country to focus on the protests as opposed to focusing on the underlying problem. We click on garbage can fires. We are drawn to Television Screens when they show people overturning cars. Thats a small minority of people out there. There have been 100 days of protests going on since august 9th. And for the most part it has been completely peaceful, and even when there wasnt violence, 95 were peaceful thats a very good point. There is is a distinction between peaceful protests and violence and riot. But when there are riots we have to ask ours what is the cause for that kind of corruption . When those situations arise, are there causes that we need to be examining for that kind of eruption, because there may be legitimate reasons for those kinds of eruptions that we are not examining honestly and truth 6ly. Clearly the significant underlying tensions. The president spoke out tonight and brought that up. He called for calm on both sides for police to react with calm and peace from the protesters, which, again, im sure a small minority did not heed what the brown family called for, what the president called for, and even what officer Darren Wilson called for. There was new information tonight. Any prosecutor justified why the grand jury found the way they did not to indict the officer. He did. He talked about a lot of the conflicting evidence brought forth by witnesses, which i think for some people reinforced the need for a jury trial to sort a lot of this out. But one question was how far away was Darren Wilson when he is shot Michael Brown. To me thats sort of the crux of the case. Lets talk about some of the points you just made. Why as you were saying, its not reasonable doubt, its only probable cause, so even though missouri law protects the officers, why not say, hey, there was a shooting here, one person was unarmed. Why not then go to a full court case . Well, i think what the prosecutor would say to you is, were going to release that evidence. Take a look at it when it comes out. And this is, again, a grand jury proceeding. Different standard, different burden of proof, not the same as a trial. And again it is the normal procedure to take this to a grand jury. Is it one procedure. And what the critics would say is he two things that he could have done differently. First of all he gave them all of this evidence. He gave them all of the potential charges. Usually the way you do it is you hone in on a potential charge and you give them a theory of the case, and he didnt do that. The prosecutor pretty much points them in the direction of where they should go. So maybe he didnt do as much as he should have done, some critics might say. And he says that we kept hearing about the witnesses that were damming to officer wilson. He says there are a number of witnesses that say the opposite the witnesses were all over the place, as they always are in a case. But one of the things he brought up is a couple of the bullets were fired inside the police car, which leads to you know, or might lead you to support or to think that the theory that michael that there was a struggle, and that shots were fired inside the car. There was clearly a struggle in the car, who initiated that, we dont know. But its not an answer to every question people have. If there was a skirmish in the car, we dont know who initiated that. And there was 153 feet between the car and where mike browns body was. So we know he was running away. And were asked to believe that a kid who had two shots fired at him, ran 153 feet, and then turned around and ran into a hail of bullets and charged at the officer. Thats one of the things that the prosecutor brought up as a possibility as to what happened. One other thing that he addressed and we are going to see all of the evidence of the grand jury, which is not a usual situation, but one thing that came out is that officer wilson did know that Michael Brown was possibly the perpetrator of that robbery earlier. Yes, that is part of what factored into his state of mind when firing, and that apparently affected the grand jurys decision, yeah. Should the state of mind of the officer affect the grand jury decision . Absolutely. That would be entirely part of their decision, and its not supposed to be a reasonable person. Im thinking so what, if im a cop, thats not enough for me to pull the trigger. But its supposed to be Darren Wilsons state of mind. And this is where the race question becomes so critical, because it does become a subjective white Police Officers state of mind visavis that young black teenager, and thats why i think we need to rethink our selfdefense law in this country. Thats where it takes us back to trayvon martin, and all the way back to emmett till. The which would view each other in this countries is dysfunctional, because it isnt an objective reasonable persons standard. And while there have been improvements we have a long way to go. A long way to go. Lets talk about what happened today. Do you think as a former missouri legislator that this was a smart way to do this . To push this announcement of the grand jury decision to such a late hour of the night. Clearly that was unwise. Anyone that has been on the front lines, i have been back to missouri to interview protesters, and had several call into my classes, and they all agree that the difference between day and night is literally day and night. All of the day protests have been peaceful, and after about 9 00, 10 00, different people come out. So announcing it at this time was a bad idea. And why did they do it that way . And to back up a step, i think having a special prosecutor for all policeinvolved shootings would seem to be a better way to do things to regain some of the trust of the community. There is legislation that is going to be introduced in a month and a half to do that. It has bipartisan support. So that could be one potential positive outcome to come from this. That would be excellent. In all of my years of covering cases, when there is a major case, and we have covered many of them, you hear from the judge or the court or from the officer of the court 10 00 am tomorrow morning, were going to announce the decision. Not the dribs and drabs we had in this with anxiety in the community, and now we see the result. So i think what you are proposing is much, much better. Even if that one small change could come out of it that would be a good thing. Because you have to wonder of whether this accumulated in part because of the way it was handled before and on monday. Jamie always good to see you. Jeff real pleasure to have you with us. There has been an big outcry on the internet on all sides of this. And to see how social media is rea reacting, lets check in with h hermila. Several hashtags have been trending strong reaction the naacp say we join our brothers and sisters across the country in outrage. But alexis says our viewers also took to twitter to share their thoughts. Garrison says but gary sees it differently we want to know what you think. You can tweet us. Antonio passions running very high online. And well have to see what the evidence does show when it comes up. We have had plenty of major news outside of ferguson, a shake up in the Obama Administration. And a white house reverse on iran. When did they agree to an extension of talks just days after they said they wouldnt. And what do you think . Stories that impact the world, affect the nation and touch your life. Im back. Im not going anywhere this time. Only on al jazeera america. Despite the u. S. Military being effectively at charge in iraq, syria, and afghanistan, chuck hagel suddenly announced he will step down. I have today submitted by resignation as secretary of defense. It has been the greatest privilege of my life. The greatest privilege of my life to lead and also to serve with the men and women of the Defense Department and support their families. I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished during this time. While president obama praised hagel, his third secretary of defense, and someone he has been friendly with going back to their days in the senate. It was clear that hagel was essentially fired. Joining us is the director of research for the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in u. S. Defense strategy, the use of force and american Foreign Policy. There had been rumblings that there would be a shakeup in the administration after the midterms. You suggested today that hagel is a scapegoat. Theres a certain amount of scapegoating going on. I think hagel has been a solid and reasonable secretary of defense but perhaps not a superstar, and you could argue that its reasonable in these difficult International Times to go looking for a superstar. To say somebody is just solid is not good enough. However, i think its important to note that the orrins of the problem in iraq and syria, to the extent they had some roots in the Obama Administration, go back to the first term when chuck hagel was not yet in any administration, and most of the mistakes were made primarily out of the white house, by president obama choosing to withdraw troops from iraq, and not engaging with the syrian opposition, and also watch the iraqi political system beginning to deteriorate. All of those predate hagel. So its a little bit unfair he take the blame for most of that. But, again, there may be somebody better waiting in the wings. But there are all sorts of reports of anonymous senior officials being wroted saying the white house had lost confidence in hagels ability to lead the pentagon, were hearing things as rough as he wasnt up to the job. Well, you also hear john mccain saying that hagel felt constrained by the white house. That he couldnt develop a serious policy for syria, another the time when the administration was not even willing to do a nofly zone over the country. And the rumor mill doesnt add up to a cohesive story to my mind at least. I dont quite believe it so far. Most of the Big Decisions on iraq and syria in particular, the places where we had the greatest trouble came out of the white house. And on certain other issues around the world, like the asia pacific rebalance, i think hagel was doing a respectable job. So where does that leave you . We probably do need some really strong new ideas, and perhaps a successor to hagel could come up with some of those. I hope the white house will continue if thats the case. It is going to require some openmindedness on the washington side of the river as well. And you bring up senator mccain, he also said that hagel was frustrated with some aspects of the administrations, National Security policy and their decision making, one quote was the next secretary of defense will be president obamas fourth as much as any other president has ever had, which of course, raises the question which you have raised, is the problem on the washington side of the river or on the pentagon, the virginia side of the river . Right, and i dont want to overstate im not trying to say that mr. Obamas Foreign Policy is falling apart everywhere. Some elements are looking very good. I think his overall strategy has been reasonably sound. I think on russia and ukraine, the fairly calm reaction on sanctions has been correct. But on a iraq and syria and to some extent afghanistan and the broader middle east in general, i think we have seen a loss of direction that has come from president obama. And its his own doing that we have these predicaments today. Is that split between the white house and pentagon much deeper than just between secretary of defense hagel, and president obama . I would tend to say the answer is overall no. Because i believe there is unity on a few big issues. Asia pacific rebalance which is a mildly greater emphasis on that part of the world than before. There is general cooperation with the uniform military and the white house on sequestration. Same thing on iran, and russia and ukraine trying to use economic sanctions rather than military threat. So i think on most issues there has been some cooperation, and on iraq policy the last few months we have been nudging our involvement gradua