Sunday, November 30, 2014

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Darren Wilson, Officer in Ferguson Shooting, Resigns From Police Dept. - New York Times




Slide Show|5 Photos

Marching From Ferguson to Missouri’s Capital



Marching From Ferguson to Missouri’s Capital


Ruth Fremson/The New York Times






FERGUSON, Mo. — The white police officer a grand jury declined to indict last week in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager has resigned from this city’s Police Department, his lawyer said on Saturday night.


The officer, Darren Wilson, who had worked in the department since 2011, submitted a resignation letter, said Neil J. Bruntrager, the lawyer. In the letter, first published in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mr. Wilson said: “It was my hope to continue in police work, but the safety of other police officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal.”


For months, some here had called for Mr. Wilson, 28, to step down or be fired following the killing of Michael Brown and the unrest that followed, in August and then again last Monday, after the grand jury decision was announced.



Adolphus Pruitt, of the N.A.A.C.P.'s St. Louis chapter, said the resignation “not only fulfills one of the demands of the protesters, but also provides for one of the steps necessary for the wholesale reconstructions of law enforcement in Ferguson.”




Darren Wilson St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office

Yet on Saturday night, as protesters gathered near the police station here, as they have on most nights since Mr. Brown’s death, many seemed unsatisfied with the news, which they said was inevitable. “We want an indictment and we’re still going to stand for that,” said Alicia Street, 29, who lives in nearby Florissant.


Late on Saturday night, there were reports of shots fired near the police station, sending the authorities speeding along South Florissant Road. A short time later, officers appeared to be searching for bullet casings in front of City Hall, as National Guard soldiers, their rifles visible, protected the building.


It was not clear whether the reported gunfire was related to Saturday’s protests.




A protester was arrested after demonstrating in Ferguson, Mo., Friday night. Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Earlier in the day, about 100 marchers led by the N.A.A.C.P. set off from the street where Mr. Brown was killed on a weeklong walk to Missouri’s Capitol, 120 miles from this fractured city. They invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1965 march in Selma, Ala., the Freedom Rides and other civil rights-era pilgrimages for justice.


The group sang as it made its way up West Florissant Avenue, past the burned-out husks of an auto-parts store, a beauty parlor and other businesses destroyed in the chaos after the grand jury’s decision. A trumpeter played “We Shall Overcome.”


“It’s going to communicate that black lives are important, that police officers are here to protect us,” said Mary Ratliff, the N.A.A.C.P.'s Missouri president, who walked near the head of the line. “We are here to say we’ll no longer stand for this.”




Demonstrators yelled at police and National Guard troops across from the Ferguson Police Station in Ferguson on Friday night. Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

On Saturday, for the first time since the unrest, West Florissant was left open to traffic and pedestrians in the evening, as National Guard soldiers and police officers stood watch. The decision to leave the street open after dusk was made with little fanfare.


During the march, police cruisers crept along with the crowd, and organizers exhorted the line to keep a tight formation. The marchers paused to speak with a woman standing along the side of the road whose antiques store had been destroyed in the looting and arsons. When the marchers raised their arms into the warm November afternoon and shouted, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” two little girls watching from their front yard did the same, before ducking into their garage.


“It’s not a color thing,” said Carlos Carter, 41, who was taking a week off from his job as a barber to make the trip to the capital, Jefferson City. “We want to see everybody’s kids grow up and thrive, give everybody their chance.”



Graphic



Here’s what you need to know about the situation in Missouri, including information about how the grand jury made its decision.




OPEN Graphic



The march was part of demonstrations here and across the nation touching on police tactics, race and poverty that are stretching toward a second week since the grand jury’s decision.


More than 100 protesters marched through a shopping plaza in the affluent St. Louis suburb of Brentwood, lying on the ground in a “die-in” to represent Mr. Brown’s shooting. As they marched along the sidewalk, they were shadowed by dozens of police officers.


At the memorial to Mr. Brown near the Canfield Green apartments in Ferguson, dozens of motorcyclists swirled through the streets in a show of solidarity. Outside the St. Louis County Courthouse in Clayton, where the grand jury had met, more than 100 protesters circled in silence.





OPEN Timeline



Timeline: Tracking the Events in the Wake of Michael Brown’s Shooting


At Greater St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church here, scores of people met to sort out what comes next for the protest movement. Some were members of organizations focused on issues like poverty and criminal justice. Others said they had come here on their own, some from places like Chicago and Los Angeles.


Among items on a draft list of goals: firing the Ferguson police chief; urging passage of legislation requiring a special prosecutor to be appointed in cases like Mr. Brown’s involving the police; consolidation of small police departments; and a requirement that all Missouri police departments publish an annual report on episodes of deadly force.


The peaceful daytime demonstrations came as Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri sent state lawmakers a letter outlining what he called an urgent need to cover the ballooning costs of maintaining hundreds of National Guard troops and state police officers who are deployed here on the streets, day and night. The governor has called a special legislative session.


The march from Ferguson to the governor’s mansion, called a “Journey for Justice” will be carried out in 17-mile increments, with marchers heading back to churches in St. Louis and Jefferson City at the end of each day.


As she marched, Regina Sias, 43, who drove here from Atlanta after seeing images of the unrest, shook her head at the sight of destroyed stores and boarded-up buildings. “This is not the answer,” she said. Farther back, Angela Hawood-Gaskin, a charter-school principal, said she was walking not just for Mr. Brown, but for her own son, whom she said had been pulled over because he is black.


“It’s all across the board,” she said. “All of our children of color are facing it.”


Correction: November 30, 2014

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a picture caption in a slide show with this article misstated Missouri’s capital city. It is Jefferson City, not Lansing.





John Eligon contributed reporting from Brentwood, Mo., Mitch Smith from Clayton, Mo., and Alan Blinder from Ferguson.



A version of this article appears in print on November 30, 2014, on page A32 of the New York edition with the headline: Police Officer Who Shot Teenager in Ferguson Submits Resignation.










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