There was a crackle, a scream and then chaos in the final minutes that protestors marched through downtown Friday night.
“They got Cap,” a female protester yelled. “They electrocuted Cap. Come back y’all, they got Cap!”
Cap is Calvin Kennedy – a familiar face among protestors since Ferguson. He is often seen on the frontline wearing a PEACEKEEPERS shirt.
“He wasn’t doing anything. They just electrocuted him,” she said.
He was not killed by the Taser, only incapacitated. He was on the ground. His body was still jerking a bit from the Taser. Police put zip ties on him and carried him off.
Hardly anyone in the protestor group saw what happened, because the mass of them were headed south on Broadway, but several in the group demanded answers from the police.
“Why did you do this?” a man asked. “In 15 seconds the whole thing would have been over.”
Rasheen Aldridge, a Democratic committeeman for St. Louis’ 5th Ward, attended the protests on Friday. He said the use of Tasers on protesters is a sign that their tactics are escalating.
“The fact that they tased them was completely uncalled for,” Aldridge said.
Aldridge himself was pepper-sprayed by a police officer on Friday.
“There was never a warning that we needed to disperse, they were just using chemical agents,” Aldridge said.
In the wake of a not-guilty verdict for former St. Louis Police Officer Jason Stockley in the fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, St. Louis police have been widely criticized for their use of force against protestors. The ACLU of Missouri filed a lawsuit calling on the city to comply with the U.S. Constitution in its policing of protests.
The suit was filed in the Eastern Missouri District of United States District Court. It accuses the City of St. Louis of violating the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitutions.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Maleeha Ahmad and Alison Dreith, two St. Louis residents, “on behalf of themselves and a class of similarly situated individuals”.
Plaintiffs Ahmad and Dreith alleged they were sprayed with pepper spray without any warning on September 15.
“I think everyone deserves the same rights as I do. I just want peace and justice,” said Ahmad. “If it hadn’t been for my fellow peaceful protestors – strangers who came to my aid – I don’t know how my eyesight would be today. I would have been left out in the sun, on the ground, with my face burning.”
The lawsuit claims the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) unlawfully used chemical weapons on protesters on a number of occasions; the suit lists seven. In the incident on September 17, the suit said, police used these chemical agents on protestors and media caught in the kettle without giving adequate warning to disperse.
The ACLU alleges the SLMPD routinely engages in several illegal behaviors.
“The City of St. Louis has a custom or policy of retaliating against protestors expressing
disapproval of the actions of law enforcement officers, and has done so on occasions
before these particular protests,” the lawsuit says.
The ACLU will ask the court to award the plaintiffs attorneys’ fees and to issue a permanent injunction ordering the SLMPD to follow the Constitution in their use of chemical agents and interactions with protestors.
“St. Louis should be a place where all people feel safe against retaliation from law enforcement, and all should receive due process,” Dreith said in a statement. “We should strive to be a place where every citizen feels supported by the communities we call home. This is the vision that drives us into the streets and inspires us to hold our leaders accountable when they betray our values.”
Two documentary filmmakers have also filed a lawsuit against the city and three unidentified police officers after being caught up in the kettling mass arrest on September 17. The documentarians, married couple Drew and Jennifer Burbridge, allege that the officers retaliated against them for exercising their First Amendment rights.
The Burbridges’ lawsuit says the officers violated due process by using the kettling tactic, in which police officers close in on a large group of protestors from all sides and arrest as many as possible.
The suit claims the officers interfered with the couple’s constitutionally protected right to record officers and then used excessive force in arresting them. Drew Burbridge said he was restrained with zip ties, sprayed with chemicals and beaten with batons until he lost consciousness briefly. The suit said any dispersal orders issued by the police could not be heard by the Burbridges.
Their suit is seeking actual and punitive damages against the City of St. Louis.
The Burbridges are part of a group who have been a vital part of the conversation about the post-Stockley protests: livestreamers and citizen journalists. Livestreamer Jon Ziegler (RevolutionaryZ) recorded himself being pepper-sprayed during kettling events. Livestreamer Heather de Mian said she was pepper-sprayed while filming an arrest and then officers took her camera and erased her footage.
“I was just sitting in my wheelchair and the cops [expletive] maced me for no [expletive reason],” De Mian told the audience watching her live stream. She squinted, coughed and spit her way through the statement.
The ACLU has also come out in favor of a new St. Louis Board of Aldermen bill aimed at protecting protesters’ free speech rights. The bill would prevent the police from declaring constitutionally protected protests “unlawful assemblies,” from using chemical sprays on people who are restrained, and from concealing or not wearing name tags at protests.
The bill was introduced by Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green.
“If we are to change the relationship between police and the community in St. Louis, we must begin by protecting the First Amendment rights of the people to express their concerns and grief without fear of being injured or retaliated against by officers,” said Green.
Aldridge sees recent events as an indication that officers have no fear of being held accountable by their supervisors or by city officials. However, he said, the increasing militarization of the SLMPD is costing the department public support, causing more people to align with protestors.
“There’s a huge issue in the African-American public with law enforcement,” Aldridge said, “but nowadays it’s becoming more like the general public.”
Jessica Karins is an editorial intern with the St. Louis American from Webster University.
