Tuesday night, November 25, the section of West Florissant around Canfield Apartments--where Michael Brown lived and was executed--was blocked off. Police declared illegal and broke up a protest of about 60 at the corner of Chambers and West Florissant without provocation. On South Florissant police tear gassed and dispersed a protest of hundreds in front of the police station.
Wednesday, the 26th, I saw police violently shut down a mass demonstration in central St. Louis, pepper spraying some demonstrators and snatching people just for speaking out.
Intimidation on Black Friday
Friday, the 28th, I saw a big police presence, including undercover cops in Walmart's parking lot. When I went up to one regular car with a young Black man inside to ask him what he thought of the Black Lives Matter boycott, he said, "Step back from the car." I thought he just meant to back off a little, but when I tried to ask him a question he began to get out and said more loudly, "No, I mean step back from the car." I did. He was an undercover pig and there were more nearby. There was also a large police presence at the Galleria in Richmond Heights. (See reports on the Black Friday protests.)
One of the activists who shut down a Walmart in St. Louis County told me:
There were aggressive, armed security and dogs at Walmart. We started chanting, and rallied at the exit. There was a wall of police. Police were yelling at shoppers: "If you're gonna shop, shop"--as if to warn people, don't pay attention to them. When we were chanting outside Walmart, police officers put hands on their pistols! I found that shocking, if believable. Almost grotesque in the sense that this is just a store. You have a police presence in a store to protect private property, and this holiday, and these transactions.
The Blinding of Dornella Conners
On Saturday, November 29, Dornella Conners, a young, pregnant Black woman, was in a car with her boyfriend simply trying to drive away from a police clampdown. The police blocked the car, front and back, and fired a bean bag at the window. It shattered the glass, sending shards of glass into her face and blinding her in one eye. "I weren't looting or anything. I was just out with my boyfriend. We were just riding around respecting Mike Brown," she told a local radio station. "How can a pregnant person in a car be causing chaos?" her father asked.
A Broad, Countywide, Unconstitutional Pattern of Repression
These are not isolated incidents. Kris Hermes, the National Lawyer's Guild (NLG) legal worker vice president, described a broad multi-dimensional pattern of repression against the people and those protesting.
"Chasing people out of an area to disperse them, as happened on Tuesday, November 25, near the Ferguson Police Department, because of some property destruction, instead of allowing people to demonstrate--this was violating the constitutional right to assemble and protest."
So is using weaponry against protesters like rubber and plastic bullets, pepper spray, and tear gas. "This is not individual punishment for breaking the law, this is collective punishment," Hermes said. "Tear gas is indiscriminate. Shooting rubber bullets into a crowd is indiscriminate. Pepper spray is indiscriminate."
One particularly egregious example was the tear gassing of people at MoKaBe's Coffeehouse in south St. Louis in the early morning hours of Tuesday, November 25. This was supposed to be a safe space and people were in the cafe and outside on the patio having coffee, a popular hangout for people active in the struggle for justice for Michael Brown and VonDeritt Myers Jr., a young Black man who was shot eight times and murdered by St. Louis police on October 8. But around 1:00 am, police fired tear gas at people at the cafe, and then a little later even tear gassed people attempting to get to St. John's Episcopal Church, another safe haven. Jennifer McCoy, an NLG legal observer, told me that when people went into the church, there was so much tear gas on their clothes that they were forced back outside.
The NLG's Hermes said that widespread arrests as well as blocking off streets--a stretch of West Florissant in this case--are also a means of preventing or suppressing protest. One hundred twenty people had been arrested since Monday night when the grand jury decision was announced, 30 of them for felonies. Contrary to all the government and media talk about the uprising being driven by outsiders, Hermes said, "The vast majority were local residents."
Quigley--the CCR's constitutional law expert--wrote that the whole notion that the government can tell people when, where, and how to protest--as police have been doing in Ferguson--is unconstitutional. "The government will say people can only protest until a certain time, or on a certain street, or only if they keep moving, or not there, not here, not now, no longer. Such police action is not authorized by the U.S. Constitution. People have a right to protest, the government should leave them alone."
Quigley points out that police intimidation--showing up in full riot gear--is also an unconstitutional suppression of dissent.
The National Guard--Actively Helping Suppress Protest
The National Guard has been portrayed as playing a passive role in simply protecting property, but Hermes emphasized this is not the case, that they are playing an active role in suppressing protest: "The National Guard has helped block off an entire stretch of West Florissant, preventing vehicular and pedestrian traffic, which is itself a suppression of rights.
Wednesday, the 26th, I saw police violently shut down a mass demonstration in central St. Louis, pepper spraying some demonstrators and snatching people just for speaking out.
Intimidation on Black Friday
Friday, the 28th, I saw a big police presence, including undercover cops in Walmart's parking lot. When I went up to one regular car with a young Black man inside to ask him what he thought of the Black Lives Matter boycott, he said, "Step back from the car." I thought he just meant to back off a little, but when I tried to ask him a question he began to get out and said more loudly, "No, I mean step back from the car." I did. He was an undercover pig and there were more nearby. There was also a large police presence at the Galleria in Richmond Heights. (See reports on the Black Friday protests.)
One of the activists who shut down a Walmart in St. Louis County told me:
The Blinding of Dornella Conners
On Saturday, November 29, Dornella Conners, a young, pregnant Black woman, was in a car with her boyfriend simply trying to drive away from a police clampdown. The police blocked the car, front and back, and fired a bean bag at the window. It shattered the glass, sending shards of glass into her face and blinding her in one eye. "I weren't looting or anything. I was just out with my boyfriend. We were just riding around respecting Mike Brown," she told a local radio station. "How can a pregnant person in a car be causing chaos?" her father asked.
A Broad, Countywide, Unconstitutional Pattern of Repression
These are not isolated incidents. Kris Hermes, the National Lawyer's Guild (NLG) legal worker vice president, described a broad multi-dimensional pattern of repression against the people and those protesting.
"Chasing people out of an area to disperse them, as happened on Tuesday, November 25, near the Ferguson Police Department, because of some property destruction, instead of allowing people to demonstrate--this was violating the constitutional right to assemble and protest."
So is using weaponry against protesters like rubber and plastic bullets, pepper spray, and tear gas. "This is not individual punishment for breaking the law, this is collective punishment," Hermes said. "Tear gas is indiscriminate. Shooting rubber bullets into a crowd is indiscriminate. Pepper spray is indiscriminate."
One particularly egregious example was the tear gassing of people at MoKaBe's Coffeehouse in south St. Louis in the early morning hours of Tuesday, November 25. This was supposed to be a safe space and people were in the cafe and outside on the patio having coffee, a popular hangout for people active in the struggle for justice for Michael Brown and VonDeritt Myers Jr., a young Black man who was shot eight times and murdered by St. Louis police on October 8. But around 1:00 am, police fired tear gas at people at the cafe, and then a little later even tear gassed people attempting to get to St. John's Episcopal Church, another safe haven. Jennifer McCoy, an NLG legal observer, told me that when people went into the church, there was so much tear gas on their clothes that they were forced back outside.
The NLG's Hermes said that widespread arrests as well as blocking off streets--a stretch of West Florissant in this case--are also a means of preventing or suppressing protest. One hundred twenty people had been arrested since Monday night when the grand jury decision was announced, 30 of them for felonies. Contrary to all the government and media talk about the uprising being driven by outsiders, Hermes said, "The vast majority were local residents."
Quigley--the CCR's constitutional law expert--wrote that the whole notion that the government can tell people when, where, and how to protest--as police have been doing in Ferguson--is unconstitutional. "The government will say people can only protest until a certain time, or on a certain street, or only if they keep moving, or not there, not here, not now, no longer. Such police action is not authorized by the U.S. Constitution. People have a right to protest, the government should leave them alone."
Quigley points out that police intimidation--showing up in full riot gear--is also an unconstitutional suppression of dissent.
The National Guard--Actively Helping Suppress Protest
The National Guard has been portrayed as playing a passive role in simply protecting property, but Hermes emphasized this is not the case, that they are playing an active role in suppressing protest: "The National Guard has helped block off an entire stretch of West Florissant, preventing vehicular and pedestrian traffic, which is itself a suppression of rights.
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