The June 28 demonstration took place at noon with protesters demanding justice for Earl Murray and Ronald Beasley, who were killed by a team of local cops and agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. The two men were shot June 12 by cops while sitting in their car in a fast food parking lot. The police fired at least 20 shots into the automobile.

The march was the latest event in a series of protests against the killings by the cops. The protesters gathered in the parking lot of the Jack in the Box restaurant in Berkeley, where the killings took place, and car caravaned to Shaw Park in Clayton. The demonstrators then parked their cars and marched to the Justice Center and demanded to see County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch.

Mary Williams from Pagedale said she was there because "when I heard about the murders of Beasley and Murray, I wanted to support the families, so I went to their funerals. And then I went to the meetings and have been coming to the protests. This is happening to all of us."

A videotape of the shooting, taken by one of the surveillance cameras in the Jack in the Box parking lot, was confiscated by the police. McCulloch refused to meet with the protesters. He told the news media that he would not release the tape to the public.

Clayton police ordered the protesters to leave the inside entrance of the Justice Center building or they would begin arresting them. More than 20 people were eventually arrested. The remaining demonstrators began marching through Clayton, a mostly white suburb of St. Louis. At one point, they marched out into a circular intersection, tying up traffic for several minutes.

Office workers and others stood on the sidewalks watching the march. Some waved and cheered the protesters. Paul Naugles, who works at a Schnucks grocery store and is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655, joined the march. "When I saw the march, I thought it was my duty to be with the people protesting this injustice," he said.

Following the release of those arrested, the crowd was invited to come to a meeting the next night at the All Saints Episcopal Church in St. Louis. About 70 people attended. The meeting was organized by the National Action Network, the NAACP, the Rainbow Coalition and Eric Vickers, a local attorney and Democratic party candidate for Congress.

The speakers told the crowd that if the tapes are not released, on July 12 they would organize a shutdown of Interstate 64/40.

Candlelight vigils condemning the killings have been taking place in the Jack in the Box parking lot in Berkeley over the past several Mondays.

Tiahmo Ra-uf from the National Action Network has announced that on August 26 a reenactment of the March on Washington is being organized to protest cop brutality and racial profiling.

Alyson Kennedy is a member of UNITE and the Socialist Workers Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri  
 
 
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