Brown and the officer, who is white, are involved in a scuffle, followed by gunshots. On Sunday they stood at the spot where blood trickled from his body, since repaved and adorned with soft toys and candles, while supporters packed on to balconies overlooking the site.
Advertisement
In the year since the teenager’s death, she said, “there’s been an awakening”. “This was the epicentre of a movement, of Black Lives Matter”. A grand jury and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to prosecute Wilson, who resigned in November, but the shooting helped spur a nationwide “Black Lives Matter” movement that raised hard questions about law enforcement treatment of minorities and police use of military-grade equipment while controlling crowds.
In an interview with the BBC, Brown Sr. expressed ongoing sorrow at the loss of his son, tempered by satisfaction with what he saw as progress stemming from the shooting. The Task Force recommended that local police departments increase community engagement and accountability, implement procedural justice training to restore trust and legitimacy, and consider the role of technology in promoting accountability and public safety.
During this past year, numerous other unarmed African American victims have succumbed to police violence, including Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray.
A towering presence with an intensely mournful stare, Brown Sr, 38, has not cut his beard since the day his son died, leading one US magazine to note he had taken on the appearance of “a figure from the Old Testament”.
“I see things moving in a positive way, but I don’t see enough”, he said.
Some of the demonstrators carved and ate from the head of a roasted pig, which earlier in the day had the name “Darren Wilson” written on the side of the animal. Anthony Gray, a Brown family attorney pressing a wrongful-death lawsuit against Ferguson, Wilson and his former police chief, suggested that justice will be served on Michael Brown’s behalf. For Native Americans, the rate was 8.6 times more likely than whites.
Reverend Susan Nanny and her son, Jordan Nanny-Holmes, embrace while listening to poetry in Ferguson.
The anniversary also has sparked renewed protests, though ones much smaller than those a year ago.
Though there was a silent march on Sunday, hundreds of protesters had demonstrations over night and marched to police headquarters where they started yelling at police officers behind barricades.
Advertisement
Arlington police said Taylor was shot as police investigated a burglary at a auto dealership in the Dallas-area city. But as the minutes of silence concluded and crowds prepared to line up behind his father for a quiet walk to a nearby church, clouds parted and the sun cut through.
