BY JOHN SARGE
ST. LOUIS - Chanting "The human rights problem in the world
today, is right here in the U.S.A" and "Hey, hey, ho, ho,
killer cops have got to go," 25 people picketed the South
Patrol Division of the St. Louis police May 8.
The protest came one day after Julius Thurman, a 19-year-old Black man, was buried. Thurman died April 26 in police custody. An autopsy showed that he died of a massive skull fracture from a blow to the back of the head. The police claim that Thurman, along with two others, was attempting to burglarize a pawn shop when they grabbed him. One of the two people accused of the same crime told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he saw the cops arrest and stomp on Thurman. Then one officer hit him repeatedly with a heavy flashlight.
In a press conference the day of the funeral, Virginia Thurman, Julius's mother, protested the cops' actions. "Who asked those two [cops] to be God, judge, and jury?'" she demanded.
The funeral became a protest of the cop killing. Community figures spoke out against police brutality. Prince Carter, a spokesperson for Citizens Against Police Brutality whose nephew was killed by cops three years ago, called the killing "a modern-day lynching." The funeral procession went out of its way to drive past the St. Louis City Hall, the police headquarters, and the St. Louis circuit attorney's office.
In a break with past practice, this case went through a preliminary court hearing, which is public, instead of a closed door grand jury. The two cops, Robert Dodson and Stephan Capkovic, have been charged with second degree murder. And the picket line of 25 had film crews from all the local television news departments, and coverage by a major news radio station.
The protest was one of a weekly series of actions called by Citizens Against Police Brutality. Carter explained the South Patrol Division is targeted because the last two police killings were carried out by cops from this station and at least two women have charged other cops with harassment. He reported that on April 2, Jerome Ruffin, a 22-year-old Black man, was killed by cops for "drinking beer and running." Carter told the press that in his opinion the quick action in the Thurman case was an attempt to "sweep the Ruffin case under the rug."
Kimberly Browning-Hoffman, a young office worker who is Black, came to protest her treatment at the hands of the St. Louis police. On April 8 she was harassed and then arrested while waiting for her baby-sitter. Two cops took her identification, then announced that she was going to jail for nonpayment of a parking ticket. While trying to see into the police car so she could identify the cops she "was pushed onto the trunk by the male officer and the female officer handcuffed me while my baby was in the back seat of the car." She said the two cops then called for back up and "two paddy wagons and four or five cop cars responded."
Police also threatened her while in a cell at the South Patrol Division, Browning-Hoffman said. They refused to give her husband any information when he got there and referred to him as "my babies' daddy, like we weren't even married."
The protests are planned for 3:00 p.m. every Saturday in front of the South Patrol Division on Sublett Avenue.
John Sarge is a member of the United Auto Workers in Detroit.