Ferguson violence worries Barack Obama

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: US President Barack Obama is concerned and disappointed at the violence that broke out after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer for the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, a White House aide said on Tuesday.

Obama, who was to make remarks in Chicago on immigration, was delayed leaving the White House for the trip to get a briefing about the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, from Attorney General Eric Holder, according to White House spokesman Eric Schultz.

"We are all deeply worried and disappointed - and concerned about the violence, any sort of violence and that's why the president went out and spoke about it last night," Schultz told reporters traveling with Obama to Chicago."

"Again I would remind you the vast majority of protests in Missouri and around the country were peaceful and constructive," Schultz said.

Schultz said Obama would address the situation in Ferguson while in Chicago.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon ordered hundreds more National Guard troops to the Ferguson area on Tuesday, following a night of looting and destruction of businesses in the aftermath of the decision to clear white officer Darren Wilson of criminal charges in the August shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown.

Black lawmakers in Congress and local activists pinned their hopes for justice on an ongoing U.S. Justice Department probe into whether Wilson violated Brown's civil rights through excessive force, and whether Ferguson police systematically violated people's rights through excessive force or discrimination.

"I am confident that the investigation will bring us closer to the justice that Brown's family and the entire Ferguson community deserve," said Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Rev. Michael McBride, who has been in Ferguson with other clergy since August training in peaceful protests and meeting with officials, said Brown's death "has been spit upon by the criminal justice system" in the Missouri city.

"Now is the opportunity for the president to really be my brother's keeper," said McBride, who is from Oakland, California. "As a black man he knows the experience of what it is to be a black man in this country. Eric Holder knows. We need the two most powerful black men in this country to take action."