Protestors have rallied in Ferguson, Missouri to commemorate the one year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death. Over the course of the gatherings and demonstrations, three youths have been gunned down and more than 100 protestors arrested.
On Monday, August 10, St. Louis County officially called a state of emergency in Ferguson after two charged days of protests. As Buzzfeed reports, “Monday’s protest at the courthouse came after gunfire broke out Sunday night in Ferguson, with a teen charged for allegedly firing at the police. Eighteen-year-old Tyrone Harris Jr. is in a critical condition in hospital after police said they returned fire.”
Two more teenagers, 17 and 19 years old, were shot in the chest early Monday by “a man wearing a red hooded sweatshirt.” Both have been hospitalized, and the injuries do not seem to be life-threatening. According to CNN, “the teens were walking on a sidewalk near where Brown was killed a year ago.”
Amid the violence, droves of demonstrators have been taken into custody, among them We the Protestors leaders Johnetta “Netta” Elzie and DeRay McKesson, as well as academic Cornel West.
McKesson filmed Elzie’s arrest:
All have since been released, and both Elzie and McKesson have documented their experiences on Twitter.
Elzie spoke with white protestors whose experience of arrest differed vastly in terms of aggression.
According to McKesson, he was taken into custody after questioning the grounds of Elzie’s arrest.
Those who came to Ferguson last August to report on police brutality and the protests against it are also being summoned to face charges. Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery “has been charged in St. Louis County with trespassing and interfering with a police officer and ordered to appear in court.” Ryan J. Reilly from The Huffington Post, also arrested on August 13, 2014, will face these same charges. Although both were quickly released after being taken into custody, they were dealt with violently: “Reilly described a police officer shoving his head against glass during his arrest, while Lowery said an officer pushed him into a soda machine.”
Events unravel still, but in the dark of the night, Mckesson’s words read clearly: “We will win.”
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Top Image via Getty. Embedded Images via Twitter.
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