Ten years ago, Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, Jr. during a confrontation on a city street. The city of Ferguson, the St. Louis region, Missouri, and the United States would never be the same.
Brown’s death sparked both protests and demonstrations that quickly spread across the country and overseas, and helped lead to the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement. The protests in Ferguson turned violent and the city put a curfew in place. Tensions eased after a few weeks, then flared up again in November when a grand jury cleared Wilson of any wrongdoing in Brown’s death.
Just as some politicians were criticized for their response to Ferguson, like then-Governor Jay Nixon, others in the grassroots later made their way to politics. Congresswoman Cori Bush was active in protests then and was endorsed in her latest run by Michael Brown, Sr. The challenger who defeated her in Tuesday’s primary election, Wesley Bell, told KMOX Radio in St. Louis that he has “Ferguson City Council member” on his resume.
“You know, what Ferguson taught me was how important it is to figure out ways, even when we disagree, to sit down and be able to work together,” Bell said.
Bell was seen on the street, trying to lower the temperature between police and protesters.
“You know, I literally, at times, stood in between police and protesters to help calm tensions, because I recognized the only way we were going to move Ferguson and the region forward is by working together,” he said.
At the time of the Ferguson protests, Bell was a municipal court judge in a nearby town and a community college professor.
DeRay McKesson helped organize some of the protests back then. He now heads Campaign Zero, which advocates for policies designed to discourage violent responses by police officers. He told Missourinet that a 2015 law passed by the state legislature has helped, that limits how much revenue from traffic citations a city can include in its budget.
“The fines and fees work that emerged from the conversations, specifically in St. Louis County, because there were all these municipalities that were making a ton of money off of fining people a lot for very small things,” McKesson said. “That work changed so many things across the country.”
He also said that more work needs to be done to reduce the threat of violent confrontations.
“It would be great for Missouri to do things at the state level, around limiting or banning neck restraints, around requiring officers actually to use de-escalation, like these sort of common sense things that are just not (state) law,” McKesson said. “Municipalities get to pick and choose (them).”
Missourinet also unsuccessfully reached out to the current mayor and police chief in Ferguson.
This report was co-authored by Marshall Griffin and KMOX Radio.
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