Thirteen people were arrested during protests Friday in downtown St. Louis after a judge found former police officer Jason Stockley not guilty of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of black motorist Anthony Lamar Smith.
Four police officers were assaulted, with one treated for a hand injury, officials said.
Soon after the verdict, protesters and activists gathered outside the courthouse to voice displeasure. Some could be seen locking arms and praying together, while others held signs, chanting, "No justice, no peace."
[Protests Erupt After Ex-Cop Jason Stockley Found Not Guilty In Black Man's Death, By Dakin Andone and Faith Karimi, CNN, September 15, 2017]
Stockley was only charged because he was a heterosexual white cis-gendered white male, just as all the police officers or civilians charged for shooting black criminals in self-defense were, whether it was Darren Wilson, George Zimmerman, Daniel Pantaleo, or Timothy Loehmann. In fact, the case against Stockley was taken not from the facts of the case—prosecutors and racist Black activists seem to have taken a scene from an 90s movie, Internal Affairs, where corrupt Los Angeles Police Department officers plant a switchblade on a suspect who was shot by a trigger-happy cop.
It is time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to drop charges against Schwartz and end the campaign against law enforcement officers protecting themselves and others from armed Black and Hispanic criminals.