Ferguson, MO – The Don\u2019t Shoot Coalition, a coalition of approximately 50 St. Louis area organizations\u00a0formed in the wake of the police shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, released the\u00a0following statement in response to today\u2019s announcement that a grand jury in New York refused to indict\u00a0the officer who killed Eric Garner:<\/p>\n
Members of the Don\u2019t Shoot Coalition in St. Louis are outraged by a Staten Island grand jury\u2019s decision\u00a0not to bring criminal charges in the death of Eric Garner, a black man who died after being placed in a\u00a0chokehold by a white police officer.<\/p>\n
It is clear that the law enforcement and judicial systems do not respect Black lives. This is further\u00a0confirmation that unarmed and non-threatening people can be killed by police with impunity. Eric\u00a0Garner posed no threat to anyone; he was subdued and eventually killed in a chokehold, a technique\u00a0banned by NYC policies. Yet, no one is being held accountable for his death.<\/p>\n
The decision illustrates the fact that the death of Michael Brown Jr. and the lack of police accountability\u00a0is not isolated to Ferguson MO. This decision and so many others like it across the nation shows that law\u00a0enforcement can use unwarranted deadly force without fear of discipline. This is why 170 cities\u00a0protested in solidarity with the people of Ferguson after the decision to allow Darren Wilson to walk\u00a0free of accountability for killing Michael Brown. Communities around the country face this same\u00a0injustice and have decided it is time to demand change, work for change and make the change happen.<\/p>\n
The Don\u2019t Shoot Coalition stands in solidarity with the Eric Garner family in calling for justice. We pledge\u00a0to continue the struggle for justice for Mike Brown and other cases of police brutality in the St. Louis\u00a0region and across the country, an end to ongoing racial profiling across the St. Louis region and\u00a0accountability for police practices and policies, including effective civilian oversight and review of\u00a0shootings and other allegations of police misconduct.<\/p>\n
The movement sparked by Michael Brown’s death will continue. The Don\u2019t Shoot Coalition will not be\u00a0swayed. We will keep up the struggle and see it through until the change we all seek is accomplished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ferguson, MO – The Don\u2019t Shoot Coalition, a coalition of approximately 50 St. Louis area organizations\u00a0formed in the wake of the police shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, released the\u00a0following statement in response to today\u2019s announcement that a grand jury in New York refused to indict\u00a0the officer who killed Eric Garner: Members of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pep"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/ripmikebrown-300x300.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3546,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544\/revisions\/3546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}