International Shia News Agency

Clergy arrested in ‘Ferguson October’ march

SHAFAQNA – Police arrested clergy members and prominent activist and academic Cornel West on Monday as they led hundreds of protesters in a march to the police station to draw attention to police shootings nationwide. The protests Monday were the culmination of four days of activism and civil disobedience, dubbed “Ferguson October,” sparked by the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed, 18-year-old black man, by a white police officer on Aug. 9 in the St. Louis suburb.

“Moral Monday,” as the activists called it, kicked off Monday morning at Wellspring Church in Ferguson. The demonstrators walked two blocks to the police station in heavy rain as leaders with bullhorns read the names of people killed by police nationwide. Last Wednesday, a white police officer in St. Louis shot and killed Venderrit Myers Jr., 18. Police say Myers, who is black, shot first.

At the police station, three activists drew a chalk outline of a man lying on the ground in front of the police officers in riot gear who formed a protective line between the activists and the police station. As the crowd knelt and prayed before the police, West and the Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, a march organizer, cross the police line. Police handcuffed both men and put them in a police vehicle.

West told a crowd gathered at an interfaith event on Sunday night that he wanted police to arrest him.

“I didn’t come here to give a speech,” West said. “I came here to go to jail!”

On Friday, protesters marched to the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office where they called on prosecutor Bob McCulloch to charge Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown. Wilson’s case is before the grand jury.

Source : http://www.usatoday.com/

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