Conyers Calls For Peaceful Ferguson Protests, Says There Could Still Be Indictment, Trial
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - Protesters upset by a grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer in the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, demonstrated peacefully around Michigan on Tuesday.
About 60 people chanted outside a federal courthouse in downtown Detroit, hours after a vigil there the night before when authorities in Ferguson announced that officer Darren Wilson would face no charges in Michael Brown's death.
Brown was unarmed when Wilson shot him during an Aug. 9 confrontation in the St. Louis suburb.
"It was a serious blow to justice when this grand jury came back with a decision not to prosecute," said the Rev. Charles Williams II, president of the National Action Network's Detroit chapter. "This is the reason why we are calling on another layer of justice - which is the United States Department of Justice - to step in and send this thing to trial so that folks will have the opportunity to see and hear transparently what the issues are when it comes to Michael Brown.
"We are reaching a boiling point in this country."
"I was concerned about it all the time," said Michigan Congressman John Conyers. "But I realize even now that with two investigations going on in the department of justice at the direction of (U.S.) Attorney General Holder, there could still be an indictment and a trial."
"I think a rational discussion about the fairness and justice of the treatment of African Americans with their law enforcement is a good way of improving relations," added Conyers.
"I have children, I have sons, I don't want my sons leaving and don't come back - you know - for nothing. So for Michael Brown, for young African American men in general," said Manisha Hurt.
"I'm not scared, I'm just saying I'm going to fight for our rights, our freedom because I don't want to walk down the street and get shot up for no reason at all and they just call it self-defense," said 9-year-old Aidan Carpenter.
It did just that Monday night in Ferguson, where protests ignited into violence. There were 61 arrests overnight, many for burglary and trespassing, and another 21 arrests in St. Louis. At least 18 people were injured.
A number of businesses were set afire and store display windows smashed.
"I understand your pain. I understand what you're going through, but I do not condone it," Maurice L. Hardwick said of those involved in the Ferguson violence.
Hardwick's "Live in Peace" movement joined the National Action Network demonstration Tuesday in Detroit.
"We are just sick and tired of injustice," he said. "We must stand up as a people of calm and intelligence and not savages."
About 100 people met around midnight on the Michigan State University campus beside a rock painted "(hash)BLACKLIVES MATTER" and "WE STAND WITH FERGUSON." Students at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo rallied Tuesday around the flagpoles on the school's campus.
At Grand Valley State University in western Michigan, close to 150 students and faculty members also protested Tuesday afternoon.
"Don't let today be the last day that we are head over heels for intolerance of racism and then turn a deaf ear tomorrow," Grand Valley State's Black Student Union President Brianna Pannell said in a release. "This isn't just an ethnic/racial issue but a human race issue."
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