These protesters are shutting down highways, looting, rioting, throwing bricks and explosives all in the name of an 18 year-old black guy who pulled a gun on a cop. If you pull a gun on an officer, you are going to get shot and probably killed. It’s a no-brainer. Yet, Martin’s girlfriend cries about how good he was… how scared he was… Yeah, he was so scared he pulled a gun on a cop that had the serial number filed off. How innocent. Never mind the officer shot in self defense. This moron just won a Darwin Award as Judson Phillips correctly puts it.
BERKELEY, Mo. — Minutes before Christmas Day officially started, a few dozen activists stood outside the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis, Missouri, with lit candles and posters in memory of Antonio Martin, a black 18-year-old who was fatally shot by a police officer Tuesday night in the St. Louis suburb of Berkeley.
“The intent is to gather people in honor of him and other people who have been slain by police,” Lydia Marie, 23, an intern for Amnesty International who coordinated the demonstration, told The Huffington Post. “This is another Christmas Eve a family is spending without their child who was lost to police violence.”
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A few hours earlier, several hundred protesters in Berkeley had shut down an interstate highway. Nearby, gunshots were fired and at least two women were arrested after several people attempted to loot a beauty supply store, breaking its windows and doors. It was not immediately clear whether protesters or police officers had fired the shots. Dozens of police officers, some in riot gear and others holding clubs, patrolled the crowd, which also staged a “die-in.”
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Berkeley Mayor Theodore Haskins said during a press conference Wednesday that Martin’s death shouldn’t be compared with Brown’s. According to Hoskins, surveillance footage from the Mobil showed Martin pointing a gun at the police officer, who then ran backward and opened fire. The officer’s name has not been released.
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Hoskins added that the majority of Berkeley’s leadership is black, including the mayor and the police chief, along with much of the police force and 85 percent of the town’s residents.
Wednesday’s events in Berkeley came as tensions have been increasing between police officers and protesters in New York City, where two police officers were assassinated over the weekend.
New York officials have insisted that 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who shot officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos execution style while they were parked in front of a Brooklyn housing project and then killed himself in a nearby subway station, suffered from mental illness and was acting alone. But the head of New York City’s largest police union blamed Brinsley’s actions on the anti-police rhetoric spouting from demonstrations that have gripped the city since a grand jury declined to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in the choking death of unarmed black man Eric Garner just a few days after Wilson’s non-indictment.
Although New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called on protesters to halt their actions until after Liu and Ramos’ funerals, hundreds of New Yorkers marched through the city Tuesday night, claiming lawmakers had no right to encroach on their First Amendment rights. While many demonstrators have also participated in vigils honoring Liu and Ramos, they say the tragedy shouldn’t take away from their larger message about racial inequality in America.