As the situation in Ferguson continues with little progress on the legal side of the Mike Brown murder, activist group Anonymous called for a nationwide “Day of Rage” on Thursday to show solidarity with those protesting in the St. Louis suburb. Thirty-seven cities were selected as points of protest by the group, with the Hillsborough Courthouse in Downtown Tampa serving as the base for the Bay area.
The protest drew more than thirty people, with many hidden behind the trademark Guy Fawkes masks of Anonymous and waving signs that read “keep the peace: no violence” and “you are 8 times more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist” while chanting the familiar refrain of all Ferguson protests, “Hands Up! Don't Shoot!”. This was far from an Anonymous exclusive rally however, with attendees ranging from children to elderly people of all races and ethnicities, all with a feeling of concern as to what seem to be increasingly common cases of police brutality along the military style response that has been applied to protestors in Ferguson.
“It seems like a day doesn't go by where we're not hearing about police shooting, killing and brutalizing children, elderly people or pregnant women and now people that are completely unarmed and posing no threat are being murdered,” said protestor Dezeray Rubinchik. “They're not using nonlethal deterrents, which they have at their disposal, they're just murdering people and I feel that the problem is that they know it. Across the board there is dismissals, acquittals, endless investigations, there's no answers, they're getting let off. I feel that a part of the problem is they know the minimal consequences they have to answer to and meanwhile people are dying left and right.”
Pointing out the constant incidents of young men being murdered by police was a sign carried by Kerrie Riggs which bore the names of John Crawford, Dillon Taylor, Kajieme Powell along with Brown, who have all died at the hands of police in the past three weeks. Riggs cites the Trayvon Martin saga as something of a catalyst in stirring such a reaction along with the actions of the Ferguson police force.
“I think that when Trayvon Martin was killed, it showed that there was a lot of racism still in this country and that young black men can be killed for nothing. I think that when this happened with Michael Brown, it's not just about what happened to him. I think it's also about the way the Ferguson police have treated the protestors and the press. It's absolutely deplorable the way the press have been treated. When the police no longer respect our civil liberties and the constitution, we have really gone to a military state at that point.”
As to what is hoped to be gained from these nationwide protests, the common theme was an end to the stories like Mike Brown and a way for the police to be held more accountable.
“I hope that these mothers and fathers don't have to go home at the end of the day knowing nothing is being done about it, that they're grieving and they have no retribution,” said Rubinchik. “They watch these cops get on paid vacations, while these endless investigations happen and nothing comes out of it. For those families I want to get some kind of justice for them and if its too late to help them and their families then for other families, for families being brutalized right now.”
From the courthouse the protestors marched to the Police Department on Franklin Street, in a bid to get their message across along with moving away from an Evangelical group that was also protesting outside of the courthouse. Several of the Evangelicals followed, responding to their chants of “No justice! No peace!” with “No Jesus! No peace!”
The next Ferguson protest is scheduled for 3 P.M. On Saturday at Lykes Gaslight Park.