After four consecutive nights of protests over the killing of Michael Brown had ended in sirens, blasts, smoke, and fear, a downtown demonstration Thursday night ended in silence and peace.
A crowd of more than 500 gathered in the lawn between the Gateway Arch and the Old Courthouse to remember the slain teen. At 6:20 p.m., protesters observed a minute of silence for him. Several people, including Brown’s cousin Eric Davis, used a megaphone to call those on hand to continue demanding justice through peaceful protests—peaceful, as Michael was, he said.
As the sun set over the courthouse, a racially and geographically diverse crowd lingered on the lawn for nearly two hours, chanting many of the chorus lines heard in Ferguson throughout the week: “Hands up, don’t shoot.” “No justice, no peace.” “We are Mike Brown.” Many wore red arm bands as a sign of solidarity to the Brown family. One demonstrator said the bands were to symbolize that the protesters were all “cut from the same cloth,” regardless of race or where they live.
The protest remained non-violent and peaceful on the grounds. Police were present, but hardly seen. It took only a moment, however, for many in the crowd to remember how different the mood was Wednesday evening in Ferguson, when police in riot gear drove protesters down West Florissant and into neighborhoods with tear gas, rubber bullets, and a sound cannon.
An explosion downtown brought that context back to mind. Chants were dropped. Conversations halted. The crowd turned to the southwest, where the blast originated. A moment later, uneasy laughter swept many in the crowd. The explosions were fireworks from Busch Stadium. Jhonny Peralta’s home run had just put the Cardinals up 2–0 over the San Diego Padres.
Protesters gave several reasons for coming to the rally downtown, rather than in Ferguson. One was a belief that it would be safer. A father who gave the name T and whose 5-year-old daughter, Sky, sat on his shoulders said he wouldn’t have brought his daughter with him to protest in Ferguson. Darrell Satterfield said he had been gassed and shot at with rubber bullets in Ferguson earlier this week and came downtown to avoid that happening again.
But neither demonstrators in the city nor North County encountered any munitions Thursday evening. Gov. Jay Nixon’s appointment of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Capt. Ronald Johnson to take control from the St. Louis County Police Department in Ferguson brought a less-combative tone to the evening. Protests in both areas remained almost unequivocally peaceful.
When demonstrators downtown began marching from the original site of the rally to the northwest corner of Busch Stadium, officers drove in front of the crowds to clear oncoming street traffic. The same happened when the crowd later marched around Ballpark Village, to the northeast corner of the stadium. As the crowd made its final march back to the Old Courthouse grounds, several protesters thanked nearby police officers.
Around 9:30 p.m., a group of protesters, numbering less than 100, again observed a moment of silence for Michael Brown. They did so while on their knees and with their hands in the air. It’s a pose some say Brown held just before being fatally shot Saturday and a pose some protesters struck earlier in the week, before being driven away by tear gas canisters and rubber bullets.
Thursday night, there was only silence.
