The St. Louis County executive declared a state of emergency as officials and activists sought to regain control of the volatile streets after plainclothes police officers shot and critically wounded an 18-year-old black man who they said was firing on them late the night before. The police said the man, Tyrone Harris Jr., was among two groups of young people who exchanged gunfire near peaceful protests late Sunday on the first anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager who was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson. Prosecutors on Monday charged Mr. Harris, of the St. Louis suburb Northwoods, with 10 counts, including four of felony assault on a law enforcement officer. According to police accounts, the 18-year-old Harris shot at a police vehicle and was followed by the police, which led to a gun battle. Two black teenagers were also shot by undercover officers on the same street where Michael Brown was shot last year. Several young black men were wrongfully arrested for the possession of firearms during the protest, while white men belonging to the Oath Keepers militia walked through the protest carrying rifles and attired in body armour and camouflage vests. This display has been seen by some as a reflection of the state of race relations in the country. While the largely white anti-gun control lobby and the National Rifle Association refuse to allow the state to propose even the mildest of gun control measures, unarmed black men continue to be shot and arrested on suspicion of carrying weapons.
The grand jury may have failed to indict the police officer responsible for the death of Michael Brown but the people of Ferguson clearly still want justice. The ripple effect of the death of Michael Brown continues to this day. Brown has become a symbol for the systemic, institutionalised racism of the US police and the dangers of racial profiling. After the uproar following Brown’s shooting, several cases of innocent black men being shot on suspicion of wielding guns have caught public attention. There has also been an incident of a black man dying as a result of a chokehold by the police for a crime as minor as selling loose cigarettes. It is tragic that the death of one man has led to so much violence in Ferguson, but the police cannot end this cycle of violence without addressing the root of the problem. As the protests became chaotic, police, equipped with military vehicles, bombarded the crowds with tear gas. Yet, as the last year in Ferguson and other parts of the country have shown, the police’s attempts to quash these protests by force have not worked. There must be justice for all the innocent African-Americans that have died at the hands of the police, who have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. There is a string of incidents like the Michael Brown shooting that lead back to the country’s history of slavery and the civil rights movement. These incidents are not isolated. The police must be trained to not jump to conclusions when their suspects belong to racials minorities and must be held accountable for killing suspects who have not committed a crime.
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