The Ferguson teenager’s body lay in the street for over four and a half hours and a swift, militarized police response stoked outrage and a backlash from Black youth fed up with racial profiling, humiliation, targeting and abuses by police. White officer Darren Wilson, who remains out of public view, shot the unarmed 18-year-old to death. Local police say the young man charged the officer after an encounter and struggle initiated because of jaywalking. Instead of ending up with a traffic citation, the teenager had at least six bullets pumped into his body. Witnesses screamed that the police were lying and an autopsy paid for by the family seemed to verify what witnesses said happened that Saturday afternoon. Mike Mike was shot with his hands up, said witnesses.
When social media beamed videotaped images around the country and the world—Black resistance had begun.
Youth protestors have taken to the streets to protest and demonstrate their anger and frustration with the shooting deaths of two young, Black men in Ferguson and St. Louis, Mo.
|
‘No justice, no peace; no racist police’
“Black lives matter! Black lives matter!” chanted demonstrators regularly throughout a weekend that drew Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, labor, socialists, Muslim and Palestinian and other groups to St. Louis and Ferguson. The weekend was organized by the Organization for Black Struggle, a longtime activist group in St. Louis and new youth groups born out of two months of protests, arrests, pain and struggle. These groups include Hands Up United, Millennial Activists United and Lost Voices, which was composed of young people who literally slept on streets in early nightly standoffs against rubber bullets and tear gas in Ferguson, less than 15 miles from St. Louis.
While “Turn Up Don’t Turn Down, We Do This For Mike Brown!” was an initial battle cry, by Monday, Oct. 13, “Justice for Vonderrit!” was added to the cry. The 18-year-old Black male was killed by an off-duty officer in St. Louis who was moonlighting as a security officer in the city’s Shaw neighborhood. Police chief Sam Dotson told the media the youth was killed after firing a weapon at the still unnamed officer. The shooting victim’s family denies the young man was armed. All he had was a sandwich after exiting a shop in the multi-racial neighborhood when the officer aggressively approached him and friends, they said.
Protestors gathered in the Shaw neighborhood to call for justice for Vonderrit Myers, Jr., and Michael Brown, Jr. They stopped traffic and sat-in at a convenience store. Police responded in a militarized fashion to peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience, activists said.
About Post Author
