FERGUSON • Panelists and public speakers at National Public Radio's town hall meeting Monday night called for more police accountability for the seven area police shootings in St. Louis city and county since August. They also said a host of other changes were needed to eliminate racial inequities in local governments and in treatment by law enforcement.
Monday night's Ferguson forum — called "Ferguson and Beyond: Continuing the Community Conversation" — was hosted by NPR's Michel Martin, who hosted an earlier meeting in August at the same Ferguson church. City officials and law enforcement were represented on the panel at the first meeting, but Martin said that Ferguson's mayor, acting police chief and others from law enforcement who were invited this time declined or said they had other engagements.
This time — seven months after the shooting death of unarmed African-American youth Michael Brown — Martin asked community leaders and residents what has changed since the August shooting and what still needs attention. She also asked whether the panelists were encouraged or discouraged by events so far, and the answers were mixed.
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State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, one of the panelists, reiterated her position that the Ferguson Police Department should be disbanded but not replaced by St. Louis County Police. In response to a public radio reporter's question, she said the county police were "the ones who called my citizens animals and monkeys." She said that county police also established the "five-second rule" that required protesters to keep moving; it was later thrown out by the courts. No county police official was present to respond.
Unlike the last combative NPR community forum in Ferguson, the meeting at the Wellspring Church on Monday night drew a crowd of more than 200 and speakers and panelists with apparently like-minded ideas.
Nadal, the only elected official on the six-person panel, said that she disagreed with the Department of Justice's decision to clear Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson in Brown's death. She praised the DOJ report that was critical of the Ferguson police and government and said it "validated" those who had been harmed.
She called police shootings "socially accepted genocide."
Various panelists and speakers said they would continue to work for changes to end racial disparities and continue the protests. DeRay McKesson, another panelist and a leader of the protests, said he also appreciated that the DOJ report had pointed out "deep injustices" and said that "our rage and anger are justified."
Asked why protesters continued their protests, McKesson responded: "Why are the police still killing?"
He added: "The (Ferguson) chief resigning and getting a year of pay is not justice."
McKesson said: "We are not anti-police, we are anti-police brutality."
Other panelists were the Rev. F. Willis Johnson, pastor at Wellspring Church and a frequent protester; Chris Krehmeyer, president and CEO of Beyond Housing, which helps low-income families; and two members of the governor's Ferguson Commission, co-chair Rich McClure, who is former president of the UniGroup, and Brittany Packnett, executive director of Teach for America-St. Louis.
Johnson quoted poet Robert Frost and said that those seeking change still had "promises to keep and miles to go before (we) sleep." Johnson also said he believed the Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III should apologize to the community.
McClure, co-chair of the Ferguson Commission, said that there was no easy solution and "not one game changer," but that a "series of milestones" were needed addressing health care, poverty, education and municipal courts.
Krehmayer said he was encouraged by some projects that will help north county residents — senior housing, a theater and grocery, for example.
Packnett emphasized that "accountability" for wrongful actions was paramount to whatever change occurs.
She added that the "accountability must be urgent and swift."