"They're acting like this is Baghdad."

This is how a retired U.S. Army colonel who lives in Ferguson, Mo. describes the situation in his town, as he saw police officers dressed in Marine-camouflage pants and black bullet-proof vests and gas masks, facing off with protesters who merely wanted answers about the fatal shooting of teenager Mike Brown.

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Other residents tweeted that the Ferguson police force must have been issued military equipment by the Pentagon to respond to the protests that has been going on every night since Saturday.

The dramatic change in law-enforcement gear comes as police attempted to disperse around 300 protesters late Wednesday, firing tear gas, stun grenades, and smoke bombs into the crowds of people. TV footage on the scene showed a couple of police armored SWAT vans roaming the area, at one time stopping to dismantle TV lights and a video camera abandoned by reporters when a tear gas canister exploded right in front of the crew.

Meanwhile, reporters from the Washington Post and Huffington Post complained of being harassed by police inside a McDonald's restaurant in downtown Ferguson as they stopped by to eat and charge their cellphones.

Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of The Huffington Post were approached by police in full-battle gear and told to stop taping officers and were arrested.

"Multiple officers grabbed me. I tried to turn my back to them to assist them in arresting me. I dropped the things from my hands," Lowery wrote in a first person account published in The Wasghington Post.

Lowery said he was then slammed into a soda machine and taken into custody. He told Ryan Reilly to tweet that he had been arrested, but Reilly was handcuffed and arrested as well.

Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson later ordered the reporters released when he learned they were arrested.

Informed of the deteriorating situation in Ferguson, President Barack Obama called for peace and calm, while saying that "now is the time for an open and transparent process to see that justice is done," referring to the investigation being conducted about the killing of 18-year-old Mike Brown.

Brown was shot multiple times by a police officer whom authorities have refused to identify.

Obama said he had requested the attorney general and the U.S. attorney on the scene to brief him on the progress of the investigation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., released a statement saying it is hard to think that "scenes unfolding in Ferguson are taking place in an American city in the year 2014. The nation's eyes are on the city of Ferguson and we will be watching closely."

TagsFerguson, Barack Obama, mike brown