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Police line up as protesters gather Friday in downtown St. Louis, after a judge found a white former St. Louis police officer, Jason Stockley, not guilty of first-degree murder in the death of a black man, Anthony Lamar Smith, who was fatally shot following a high-speed chase in 2011. (AP photo)
By JIM SALTER
and SUMMER BALLENTINE
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS -- Noisy demonstrators marched through two malls in an upscale area of suburban St. Louis Saturday to protest the acquittal of a white former St. Louis officer in the shooting of a black man, picking up after a night of mostly peaceful demonstrations that escalated into scattered acts of vandalism and violence.
A few hundred people walked through West County Center in Des Peres, an upscale community west of St. Louis, loudly chanting slogans such as "black lives matter" and "it is our duty to fight for our freedom" to decry the judge's verdict Friday clearing ex-St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. A short time later, they demonstrated at Chesterfield Mall and at a festival featuring restaurant food from across the region. No arrests were reported at any of the demonstrations.
The mall protests followed raucous daytime marches in downtown St. Louis and through the city's posh Central West End area during the night. Protesters were making it clear, they said, that the entire region, not just predominantly black areas of St. Louis, should feel uncomfortable with the verdict and its impact.
"I feel helpless and I feel just rage," Susanna Prins, a 27-year-old white woman from University City, another St. Louis suburb, said. She carried a sign reading, "White silence is violence."
"Not saying or doing anything makes you complicit in the brutalization of our friends and neighbors," Prins said.
Smith's death is just one of several high-profile U.S. cases in recent years in which a white officer killed a black suspect, including the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson that sparked months of angry and sometimes violent protests.
Republican Gov. Eric Greitens was highly critical during his 2016 campaign of how former Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon managed the Ferguson protests, suggesting that with the right presence and leadership there could have been peace by the second night.
In advance of the Stockley verdict, Greitens met with Smith's fiance, black state lawmakers, black St. Louis faith leaders and law enforcement in the hopes of projecting a shared message that peaceful protest would be tolerated but violence wouldn't.