No justice, no peace

Though protesters had begun staging — preparing signs, gathering groups of clergy and friends and other interested parties — in various locations in the Ferguson area earlier in the afternoon, they met at 5PM in front of the burned out and abandoned QuikTrip convenience store, where rioters had looted on Sunday night and set fires that turned the place into a charred shell. From there, protestors walked from the Celebrity Restaurant to Greater St. Mark Family Church — a mile-and-a-half long trip. No one was angry. There was no shouting beyond the chants of "No justice! No peace!" and the rallying cry that’s become synonymous with Michael Brown’s killing: "Hands up! Don’t shoot!" (Witnesses say Brown was unarmed and holding his hands above his head when a police officer shot him in the back on Sunday.) Cars honked at the line of protestors on the sidewalk in short chirps.

When the protesters arrived at St. Mark’s, Everett Hatfield was with them. A 63-year-old longtime St. Louis resident with graying hair, he camped out in front of the church with his daughter and granddaughter. He explained why he’d decided to protest tonight.

"I think its time that the police and the jurisdictions that support the police embrace the community," he said. "That means all of us."

"The police have carte blanche when it comes to killing black people."

The problem, he continued — and the reason why he and so many people had decided to protest here in Ferguson and elsewhere — "is that the police have carte blanche when it comes to killing black people. They know that they can get away with it." And what’s more, he said, "They have a fear of the community they’re policing. They are much more willing to respond in a violent manner than they would if they were policing their own communities."

In the end, he said, "Michael Brown is an unarmed kid who got shot in the back. If an unarmed citizen of the United States of America is shot in the back, somebody should be in jail."

That was a recurring theme over much of the evening. After an hour or at the Greater St. Mark Family Church, protestors walked back to the QuikTrip. Some migrated south to the Celebrity Restaurant a block away. There, Gerard Marshall, a 54-year-old St. Louis city resident picked up on Hatfield’s comments without being prompted to do so.

"What has to happen is transparency," he said. "We need the officer’s name" — the man who shot Michael Brown. "And we need the autopsy report. And we need to know what kind of record the officer had on the police force. Did he come from another force with disciplinary actions? We need to know. If people knew those three things, these people would not be out here today. Release the report, that’s it."

"Why the secrecy?" Marshal said. "They say the officer’s life is in jeopardy? Bullshit. They can protect him"