Missouri is again at the center of a racially charged conflict after a judge acquitted a white former St. Louis police officer of first-degree murder in the death of a black drug suspect.
The Sept. 15 verdict provoked angry protests in a state still not fully recovered from the unrest that followed the 2014 death of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old shot by a white officer in the suburb of Ferguson.
Scholars and activists say the latest demonstrations in Missouri, like the Ferguson protests, aren’t just about another police shooting. They reflect unaddressed racial disparities going back generations.
The current conflict “has everything to do with a lot of the continuing, underlining social inequities,” said Kimberly Jade Norwood, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, who is black. “Poor public education, poor housing … lack of access to jobs. All these issues are prominent in the protests.”
Hours after a judge acquitted Jason Stockley in the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, downtown St. Louis came to a standstill as marching protesters blocked traffic. The demonstrations went on for days, with multiracial protest crowds swelling to thousands of people and spilling into a popular nightlife district in western St. Louis, the hip Delmar Loop area of nearby University City and into two shopping malls.