Following the incident on July 24 when two Gas Mart employees were caught on video kicking a black woman, Kelli Adams, in front of the store at Goodfellow and Delmar, frontline protest leaders met with the media at 5 p.m. Wednesday, July 25 to make their message clear.
Bishop Elijah Hankerson, president of the St. Louis Metropolitan Clergy Coalition, was in attendance to stand in unison with the community’s peaceful protest.
“We as the clergy are not staying behind the four walls of the church, but we are here standing with our young people,” Hankerson said. “We are here standing with those who have the spirit and the heart of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to let you know that you’re not by yourself.”
Tory Russell of the International Black Freedom Alliance (IBFA) led the group of speakers as they explained why they were continuing to occupy the Gas Mart, preventing it from conducting business and making money in their community as they chanted, “No justice, no profit!” and “respect us, or expect us!”
Russell and others were angered by what followed a corporate apology from the Gas Mart chain, along with a promise to close their store for seven days.
“They made a lie, a promise in writing, yesterday,” Russell said. “They brought family members up here saying, ‘We’re sorry,’ reading an apology. Those same family members said, ‘We are going to be closed for seven days until we meet with the community to see how we can invest in the community.’ They said, ‘We know when we are wrong.’ They turn around the next day and pull up with guns in the car.”
In a video posted by Real STL News, state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. talks to a man described as a relative of the Gas Mart franchise owners who is holding a gun as he sits behind the wheel of a car on the parking lot.
Later, as seen on a livestream by Shemika Russell, who posted the original video of Adams’ assault, a security guard came out of the Gas Mart and sprayed mace at the crowd. A 15-yearold boy and his mother were maced, causing him to pass out and his mother to have a seizure, and were taken to the hospital in an ambulance, according to Russell, Russell said he and 15 other people had their eyes treated by medical staff.
At the 5 p.m. media event, Russell vowed “another Ferguson” was looming, this time between the community and – not the police – but the store owners, whom he described as “Arab” and outsiders to the community.
“We’re not asking just for it to close, we are asking for this to be turned over into the hands of the black community,” Russell said at the 5 p.m. media event. “Now we going to ask you nicely or it can be another Ferguson in St. Louis city. We are going to be out here every day.”
