After police killed a black man in St. Louis recently this eye witness report was given by a bystander.
The report was posted on Face Book and later with permission placed on this blog.
"A crowd gathered yesterday at the scene where police killed another young Black man in St. Louis. The group that gathered was seasoned protestors and (mostly) grieving neighbors, the grief was raw. And because this killing happened in a neighborhood where children live, children were also on the street last night. Lots of children. Innocent, precious, children.
The gathering of saints unwilling to be silent victims to state violence is heartening. Standing on the sidewalks and sometimes in the street, the crowd was processing grief peacefully and legally. It was about 5:30 when I got there on my way home from work and by then people had been coming and going for hours, the police had already been through with tanks and tear gas earlier in the day, and the mood was tense.
What happened an hour or so later is still beyond my comprehension but no longer beyond my experience. In the distance we saw a line of police cars with lights and sirens approach. Then go silent. Then a sea of police with clubs behind shields approached. Behind the police was a tank. The advance was slow and deliberate and utterly menacing.
Never was there an order to disperse from the sidewalk.
Never was there any communication from the police that we were an unlawful assembly. This is, after all, a neighborhood.
Never was there any communication from the police that we were an unlawful assembly. This is, after all, a neighborhood.
Yet with military precision they advanced and occupied the neighborhood. Soon we realized that we were surrounded. That additional tanks were on the street behind us. There was no where to run, even if we wanted to.
And people stood on their front porches and watched in horror as the assault unfolded.
I had walked to a side street before the canisters of gas were thrown and thought I was safe, the tank followed down the side street. I watched in horror as the sniper on the top was shooting into the crowd. (I think they were bean bags or rubber bullets?) And I watched as the canisters whizzed. As the tank rolled by me, I froze and it passed... but then an arm emerged with a canister of pepper spray. As I dove into a car with friends, the same tank threw a canister of gas directly at us, it rolled under the car and we moved as quickly as we could.
The night went on, the stories too. It was quite literally a nightmare beyond imagining. Except that it happened. In St. Louis city. In America. I watched the police take siege on a neighborhood and literally open fire on the children. And I will never be the same.
But let me be clear: I drove away last night. I showered and ate and slept in my bed in a neighborhood where police have never opened fire on a civilian. I never had to choose between standing up for my right to be alive and sheltering my children from tear gas. And no mother should.
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