Ferguson Protesters Demand Justice at Council Meeting

Ferguson activists disrupted a stunned city council meeting in St. Louis on Tuesday evening to demand an end to the continued delays of justice in the volatile aftermath of Michael Brown’s death.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the council listened for two hours as protesters raged against police and city leaders’ inaction after Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot to death by Officer Darren Wilson on August 9. Wilson remains free on administrative leave even as the FBI launches a civil rights investigation into the shooting.

One speaker gave the council a powerful warning for the future of the community if police and courts fail to bring Wilson to justice: “If Darren Wilson gets off, you all better bring every army you all have got. ‘Cause it’s going down.”

The demonstrators called for Wilson’s immediate arrest, the resignations of County Police Chief Jon Belmar and Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson, accountability from legislative officials, and the removal of controversial county prosecutor Robert McCulloch from the case.

McCulloch’s history shows a bias in favor of police officers and a pattern of racist prosecution. In 2001, when two white officers shot and killed two unarmed black men sitting in their car in a restaurant parking lot, McCulloch refused to charge them. He said of the deceased men, “These guys were bums.”

McCulloch has support from city officials; he was a key ally to Councilman Steve Stenger, currently running for county executive, during a previous political race. Activists on Tuesday called on Stenger to demand that his “BFF” McCulloch resign by noon Wednesday.

Stenger refused, telling KMOX news Wednesday, “I am standing by Bob McCulloch. I’ve been called upon to denounce him by noon today and I did not denounce him and I don’t intend to denounce him.”

But protesters made their message clear to Stenger on Tuesday—that his dismissal of their demands would be remembered in the ballot box.

“We will do everything in our power on election day because we see you sitting there with a smug look on your face,” one speaker told the councilman. “We will have our say in November when we go to vote.”