Marchers
confront riot police over Missouri shootings, more protests planned
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[October 13, 2014]
By Fiona Ortiz and Kenny Bahr
ST. LOUIS Mo. (Reuters) - More than 1,000
protesters shouted slogans at riot police in St Louis in the early hours
of Monday near the climax of four days of street rallies and sit-ins
over the police shootings of two black 18-year-olds.
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Many on the night march chanted "Indict, convict, put the killer
cops in jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell," in the city
where a white off-duty officer shot and killed teenager Vonderrit
Myers Jr. last week. Police said the youth had opened fire.
Almost two months to the day earlier, another white officer shot and
killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in the St Louis suburb of
Ferguson after what police described as an altercation.
The shootings have focused global attention on the state of race
relations in the United States and evoked memories of other
racially-charged cases, including the fatal shooting of black
17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012.
Officers in riot gear beat their batons on the ground in unison as
they faced off against the marchers, before letting them walk
peacefully on.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2014/Oct/13/images/ads/current/pest_control_bch_092414.png) "You make my heart easier," Myers' father told the crowd that later
gathered in the St Louis University campus and held a four-minute
silence.
Hundreds of activists have traveled from across the United States to
join four days of protests, dubbed "Ferguson October". Organizers
said the event would culminate in mass rallies later on "Moral
Monday".
Police arrested seventeen protesters staging a sit-in at the
entrance to a convenience store early on Sunday in the Shaw
neighborhood where Myers was killed.
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Brown's death triggered a national uproar in August over police
accountability and protesters have called for the arrest and
prosecution of the officer, Darren Wilson. A grand jury is
considering the case.
Protest leaders said they were also planning acts of civil
disobedience on Monday, without going into detail.
"I came here to go to jail," activist, author and academic Cornel
West told hundreds of people who turned out at an arena in St. Louis
on Sunday evening.
(Editing by Chris Michaud and Andrew Heavens)
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