St. Louis is once again the center of protests after yet another St. Louis-area officer was acquitted by a judge for shooting and killing an unarmed man, despite evidence that included audio Jason Stockley, the now former police officer, saying, “we’re killing this motherfucker!” as they pursued Anthony Lamar Smith in a car chase. Stockley used his own personal AK-47 pistol and another handgun, neither of which were issued by his department. It is also believed Stockley planted a gun on Smith. The .38 caliber gun didn’t have a trace of Smith’s DNA, but it did have Stockley’s DNA and Stockley was seen obscuring his body camera just before the “discovery” of the gun in Smith’s vehicle.
So, St. Louis residents once again are taking to the streets and once again, St. Louis police are accused of being “overly aggressive” toward the largely peaceful crowd. On Sunday night, journalists overheard the St. Louis PD, dressed in their riot (combat) gear, moving in on the protesters and chanting, “whose streets, our streets,” a common protester chant during marches for justice. David Carson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was covering the protests and first reported seeing and hearing the officers chanting:
After questions from Twitter followers, he is 100% positive about what he heard.
Carson later reported he spoke to the commanding police officer on the scene about the chanting and the officer said it the "chant was not acceptable, said he would deal with it." But, that’s not the only unacceptable behavior the St. Louis police need to deal with when it comes to their own officers. Check out these other instances of police acting inappropriately, even downright violently toward protesters. Here’s video of police officers indiscriminately firing rubber bullets at protesters and journalists.
In fact, St. Louis police appear to have boxed in the protesters, coming at them from all four sides. St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk was among the protesters and these were his last tweets before he was arrested. Police cared not that his media credentials were on full display (seen in the photo below.)
Faulk wasn’t the only misguided arrest, ACLU legal observers on the scene were also reportedly arrested. Over the weekend, the ACLU of Missouri sent city officials a letter detailing the improper police interactions with protesters, calling for them to follow legal guidelines. From the St. Louis American:
Dear Mayor Krewson, Lt. Col. O'Toole, and Sheriff Betts:
On Friday, the ACLU of Missouri sent each of your offices a letter. We implored you to remind law enforcement to allow the community to continue to express its outrage, pain and grief by protecting their First Amendment right to protest.
They didn’t.
We know there were sporadic moments of violence and vandalism – these are not covered by the Constitutional right to protest. However, outside of these moments, officers broke their vow to protect the public by engaging in illegal activities and actions that violated policies of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and agreed-upon rules of engagement made during 2014 protests.
The ACLU of Missouri works closely with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) of St. Louis. Together, we train legal observers to monitor demonstrations for violations of civil liberties and Constitutional rights.
On Friday, legal observers saw officers:
- Attacking people indiscriminately with gratuitous use of pepper spray, pepper balls, rubber bullets, and tear gas when no apparent illegal activity had occurred.
- Excessively using of force, including violent arrests that caused injuries.
- Deploying chemicals, such as tear gas and pepper spray, without warning.
- Deploying tear gas on routes where people were leaving.
- Arresting people with questionable probable cause.
- Illegally searching bags and other possessions.
- Not wearing name tags and not identifying themselves.
- Blocking access to public spaces without apparent cause of officer safety, ongoing investigation, or public safety hazard.
- Forcefully blocking recordings of police conduct in public spaces at safe and reasonable distances.
- Selectively enforcing access to public spaces.
- Entering safe spaces against policy and with questionable probable cause.
- Using intimidating displays of force, explicitly contrary to agreement prior to release of verdict.
This is unacceptable.
On a video that went viral over the weekend, St. Louis police were seen trampling on an older woman who stumbled trying to escape their advancement and then violently arresting people who were trying to help her off the ground.
Here’s what it looked like on the ground, just before she hit the pavement:
It is time for a federal intervention in St. Louis. Time to de-escalate a tense situation, beginning with the police themselves. Unless they drastically change how they interact with the public, especially day-to-day interactions with citizens, this scene is going to play out time and time again. In other administrations, it is likely the Department of Justice would get involved, but in Department of Justice run by Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions III? Fat chance.