St. Louis City police arrested and deployed pepper spray on several people at City Hall, who were protesting against police brutality and the Ferguson grand jury decision.
The protestors had stopped at City Hall as part of their march around the downtown area, which started at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. After being denied entrance into the building, protestors sat down on the steps and chanted, “No justice, no peace.” Ten minutes later, law enforcement from the Sheriff’s Office and St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department formed a semi-circle around the protest site. Shortly after, SWAT police in riot gear marched across the street from the St. Louis Police building. They then formed a line on the street in front of City Hall.
Snow fell as several people yelled, “We are not unlawful.” The group of about 100 people included elders, infants and young children.
Derek Laney, organizer with Missourians for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), said when he saw the circle form, he knew they were going to either start beating or arresting people. Laney was there with his 9-year-old daughter and immediately got her out of range.
“It was another example of over-policing of people who were peacefully assembling to show their outrage of the grand jury’s decision,” he said.
After forming a line, a SWAT officer stepped forward and yelled in a hoarse voice that they had one minute to disperse. By then, the protestors were on their feet and several started to leave. One young black woman yelled at him, “Who’s building? Our building.”
Police arrested two men and a younger woman.
Upon seeing the riot police marching up, MORE executive director Jeff Ordower called Mayor Francis Slay’s office in attempts to de-escalate the situation. He was told not to worry – that the police’s actions would “play out slowly.”
However, they did not. After arriving, the SWAT team only gave the one-minute warning before advancing on the group. Ordower said in the 20-something years that he has been organizing non-violent protests in the city, he had never seen anything like it.
“I have never seen riot cops called out for protestors doing nothing than trying to get into a public building,” he said. “It was deplorable. There’s only one reason why the mayor (Slay) is reacting this way. This is a protest about race.”
When the St. Louis American asked why police took action on the group so quickly, police spokeswoman Leah Freeman said, “Officers did not give multiple warnings to disperse and used pepper spray only after the gathering became unlawful and crimes were committed, such as the assault on a city marshal outside of City Hall.”
Ordower insisted that protestors did not harm or make contact with the city marshal when they were trying to get into the building.
“Protect us from them,” activist Deray McKesson said while walking past National Guard upon leaving City Hall. “Protect us from the police.
“They should be ashamed of themselves,” he said pointing to a group of officers dressed in riot gear. “We did nothing wrong.”
Several other protestors were just as shaken by the police’s aggressive action towards a peaceful group. Many compared the SWAT team’s behavior to a “police state.”
Earlier at the Old Courthouse, the group had held a mock trial for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch and Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed unarmed Michael Brown Jr., 18, on Aug. 9. The mock judge found Wilson guilty of murder. They also found the Unified Command law enforcement team guilty of excessive force, attempted murder and tampering with evidence.
After the mock trial, the group marched on Market Street and shut down the intersection of Market and Tucker Boulevard for 4.5 minutes, representing the 4.5 hours that Brown’s body lay dead in the street of the Canfield Green neighborhood before police removed it.
This is the third day since a St. Louis County grand jury chose not to indict Wilson in Brown’s fatal shooting. Immediately after the grand jury’s announcement, protests broke out nationwide. Thousands of protestors shut down the streets in major cities in more than 30 states, including Cincinnati, Boston, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco and New York City.
In New York City, groups shut down the Lincoln Tunnel, Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge.
According to reports on social media, the direct actions show no signs of slowing.
