Former CO police chief weighs in on Ferguson shootings

“When you shoot police, it doesn’t move the cause forward,” said Gabe Crocker with the St. Louis County Police Association.

For more than half a year, police have been a prime target of marches and last night, those demonstrations nearly turned deadly.

“I’m surprised it didn’t happen more often, to tell you the truth,” said Joel Shults.

Shults turned from police officer to author and writes about police strategy and blogs online. He wrote three books for police officers after he spent decades as a police chief at Adams State College in Alamosa.

He was in Ferguson days after the protests began in August.

“I was trapped in the command post, wondering what would happen if the line of officers were breached,” he said. “It was very frightening, Molotov cocktails being thrown, bricks being thrown, shots fired earlier that night.”

He admits, change needs to happen, and some of it had already begun with the resignation of former Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson.

“I was a great supporter until I read the DOJ report,” Shults said.

Despite that resignation, police distrust is still at an all time high.

“Until we can get people to stop blaming individual officers, until that calms down, I’m not sure what our best approach is going to be,” Shults said.

What’s helped – direct messages from the nation’s leaders.

“What happened last night was a pure ambush.

This was not someone trying to bring healing to Ferguson.

This was a damn punk.

A punk,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.

For those officers, still on the job, his advice: “Remember the heart of your job,” he said.