ST. LOUIS – Protesters have broken a front window and splattered red paint at St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s home, and police have responded in force, using tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Several hundred chanting protesters marched to the house Friday night following the earlier acquittal of a former police officer in a 2011 shooting death. Two rang the doorbell but no one responded.
After the window was broken, police in bullet-proof vests and helmets arrived and demanded that the protesters get off the lawn and out of the street in front of the house.
Several dozen more officers with shields and full riot gear later arrived and forced the protesters down the street toward another equally large group of police in full riot gear. One man resisted and was arrested.
Shortly before the window was broken, one of the protesters said over a bullhorn, “We think we have the right house.”
The protests began Friday morning after a white former St. Louis officer was found not guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a black suspect.
Former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley says he understands how the video of him fatally shooting Anthony Lamar Smith after a car chase in 2011 looks bad to investigators and the public, but he said the optics have to be separated from the facts and he did nothing wrong.
Stockley, who is white, was found not guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Smith, who was black. The ruling Friday sparked hundreds of people to protest in St. Louis. Stockley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the burden of having to kill someone never totally lifts. He said he’s concerned for first responders and protesters and doesn’t want to see anyone hurt over the ruling. He said he “can feel for” and “understand” what Smith’s family is facing, but that he’s not to blame.
Hundreds of protesters continued to march Friday night in the upscale Central West End section of St. Louis, chanting and carrying signs with anti-police slogans and “Black Lives Matter” on them.
After attempting to march onto Interstate 64 Friday night but being thwarted by police who had blocked the path, the group marched back to a commercial intersection and staged a sit-in for about 20 minutes. The group was silent for some minutes, with the only noise being the sound of a news helicopter overhead.
The group later began marching down Euclid Avenue in an area with restaurants, bars and shops. A protester threw a rock through a restaurant window. Another group of protesters burned an American flag as other demonstrators cheered. In another instance, a man began to burn a flag and other protesters made him stop.
