2 years after Ferguson, recriminations roil governor's race

(AP) — It has been two years since a white police officer fatally shot black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, touching off days of rioting, but the political repercussions from the incident have only intensified, fanned by a governor's race in which all four Republican candidates are pledging an aggressive law-and-order approach.

The candidates also show no indication that they believe black students were justified in launching protests over racial issues that toppled the administration of the University of Missouri last year.

In police incidents, "I don't want it to be a fair fight for our police; I want them to be able to show overwhelming force," one of the candidates, former U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway, said in recent debate remarks echoed thematically by her rivals.

Strong talk has been common nationwide amid a seeming surge in international attacks and deadly domestic incidents, including the fatal police shootings of black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, and the subsequent shootings of police by black men in Dallas, the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin and Baton Rouge, where the shooter was a Kansas City resident.

A similar theme pervaded the Republican National Convention this past week, where the slogan for the opening day was "Make America Safe Again" and presidential nominee Donald Trump declared: "I am the law-and-order candidate."

The governor's race is wide open because Democratic incumbent Jay Nixon, who was sharply criticized following the sometimes violent protests in Ferguson, has run into term limits.