Missouri rep: Protesters ‘despise’ man arrested in Ferguson shootings

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said early Monday that protesters in Ferguson, Mo., “despise” the man who allegedly shot two police officers in the city.

{mosads}Authorities say Jeffrey Williams, 20, was demonstrating, but protest leaders say is unknown to them.

“The thing is, the protesters despise this guy who damaged what they consider to be a movement,” Cleaver said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Police arrested Williams on Saturday for the shooting of two police officers during a protest last week.

Officials said Williams had been participating in a protest outside of the Ferguson Police Department. But many protest leaders told the press that they did not recognize Williams, and a minister who said he had spoken with Williams told CNN the suspect had admitted he had not been demonstrating.

Authorities also said William might not have been targeting the police officers. But Cleaver dismissed that as irrelevant.

“It doesn’t matter if he was shooting at a squirrel; he needs to go to jail,” he said.

On the night of the shooting, protesters had gathered outside of the police department following the resignation of Police Chief Thomas Jackson.

Jackson resigned after the release of a scathing report from the Department of Justice that found that Ferguson’s police department regularly violated the civil rights of African-Americans, in part to raise revenue through traffic tickets and other citations.

Updated at 3:36 p.m.