Protest organizers: More work lies ahead

Associated Press

FERGUSON, Mo.

The protesters who spent eight months pressing for changes in Ferguson’s police practices after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown take credit for this week’s resignations of the city manager and the police chief.

And they insist they still have unfinished business, with many planning to stay in the streets until the mayor of the St. Louis suburb is forced out and the entire police force is dissolved.

“We will protest until we see everything in our favor. This movement has legs,” Derrick Robinson, a protest organizer, declared Friday. “We’re out here fighting for justice and equality, and that’s what we’ll continue to fight for.”

Part of the movement also has been channeled into legislative change. On Wednesday, about two dozen people from the Don’t Shoot Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union traveled to the Missouri Capitol in support of the “Fair and Impartial Policing Act,” a measure that would strengthen state laws about racial profiling by police and require law officers to undergo “anti-bias” training.

The Justice Department fueled the sense of achievement among activists, announcing in a scathing report last week that it had found widespread racial bias in the city’s policing and in a municipal court system driven by profit extracted from mostly black and low-income residents.

That same report also cleared former Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 death of Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old who for protesters became a symbol of unjustified use of force and unfair treatment of minorities by police.

In the months after Brown’s death, some demonstrations were marred by looting and arson that targeted businesses. Organizers blamed those incidents on outside agitators.

That was the case again Thursday, when two police officers helping monitor protests outside the police department were shot in an attack that is still under investigation. The officers were later released from the hospital.

The gunfire drew instant, broad condemnation from activists. Dozens of protesters gathered Thursday night in Ferguson, expressing sympathy for the wounded officers and praying for peace during a candlelight vigil.