Rain dampens protests over police shootings

Associated Press

CLAYTON, Mo.

A cold, steady rain dampened the start of widespread weekend protests over the two-month-old death of Michael Brown and other fatal police shootings in the St. Louis area and elsewhere that demonstrators say are racially motivated.

Organizers of the four-day Ferguson October events expected 6,000 participants from the local area and across the country, but the initial protest Friday outside the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office in Clayton didn’t draw nearly that amount.

Protesters huddled beneath umbrellas, raincoats and ponchos as they renewed their call for county prosecutor Bob McCulloch to charge Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson officer, in the Aug. 9 death of the unarmed Brown, who was black. A grand jury is reviewing the case, and the U.S. Justice Department has opened a civil-rights investigation into Brown’s death and a broader inquiry into the Ferguson police force.

“We are here to demand the justice that our people have died for,” chanted protest organizer Montague Simmons of the local group Organization for Black Struggle. “We are here to bring peace, to bring restoration, to lift our banners in the name of those who’ve been sacrificed.”

Police in Clayton reported no arrests, and officers escorted the several hundred demonstrators through the suburb’s downtown as they marched past high-end restaurants, jewelry stores, banks and law offices.

Still, tensions remained high in the wake of another black 18-year-old’s shooting death by a white police officer Wednesday night in St. Louis. Police say Vonderrit D. Myers shot at the St. Louis officer, who was in uniform but working off-duty for a private neighborhood security patrol. Myers’ parents say he was unarmed.

The officer’s name hasn’t been released.

“It’s important for this country to stand with this community,” said protester Ellen Davidson of New York City, who was making her second trip to the St. Louis area since Brown’s death.