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Across The US People #ShutItDown Over Ferguson

National Eruption Over Ferguson Grand Jury

Roads Shut Down Across the Country

See Tweets from Across the Country Below

The major lesson from Tuesday night is that mobilized people have the power to shut down the country. We need to be organized to exercise our power.

A very important lesson was learned from tonight’s #ShutItDown protests sparked by the grand jury decision in Ferguson and abusive policing across the country: The people have the power to shut down the country if they mobilize. We need to share this lesson widely so we begin to understand our power. The protests across the country in more than 170 cities resulted in roads, highways, tunnels, bridges and buildings being closed down.

Across the country anger was shown as people said “enough!” to racially abusive policing. During the day people began to understand that the Ferguson grand jury, rather than having a prosecutor seeking the indictment of Officer Darren Wilson who killed Mike Brown, instead was led by a Darren Wilson’s defense lawyer who did all he could to prevent an indictment. Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, who should have recused himself but refused to do so despite conflicts of interests, announced the decision of the grand jury sounding like a defense lawyer for Wilson. The corruption of the grand jury process began with him and grew from the roots of systemic racist police enforcement in Ferguson. There have been numerous informed commentators making the point that the grand jury was handled in a way so that the “prosecutor” got what he wanted — no indictment.

In addition, people saw how the police behaved in Ferguson last night, calling out the National Guard even before the grand jury decision was announced, blocking marches, changing routes, using smoke bombs and tear gas and then after creating confusion and havoc blaming protesters for it. The police behavior is reminiscent of the protests in August when police similarly abused their power. This is the same police department that did not require Darren Wilson to write a report describing how and why he killed Michael Brown on the day of the shooting. They failed to photograph the scene, measure the area to show where events occurred, allowed Wilson to wash his hands and store his gun without investigating or photographing it and did not audiotape and description of the event by Wilson. All of this allowed Wilson to shape his story for the grand jury because he had no previous testimony limiting what he could say. Photos of Darren Wilson in the hospital added to people’s growing fury as they showed him to be uninjured. The photos were taken while Michael Brown’s body lay in the street for four and a half hours.

The #ShutItDown campaign urged by organizers in Ferguson has taken national root and will be the beginning of a campaign to change the relationship between police and communities of color. People recognize that across the country African Americans in particular are being killed by police without any punishment from the justice system. The justice system locks African Americans up in a disproportionate numbers and then allows police to abuse their communities without punishment. People are sick and tired of the injustice and demanding change. Will the government hear them? Government’s legitimacy depends on them responding to the demands of people for simple justice.

Below are tweets from across the country of people from the #ShutItDown campaign.

Dallas #ShutItDown

Los Angeles #ShutItDown

San Diego #ShutItDown

Cleveland #ShutItDown

St. Louis #ShutItDown

Chicago #ShutItDown

Milwaukee #ShutItDown

Los Angeles #ShutItDown

Los Angeles #ShutItDown

Atlanta #ShutItDown

Washington, DC #ShutItDown

Oakland #ShutItDown

Miami #ShutItDown

New York #ShutItDown

New York #ShutItDown

New York #ShutItDown

Oakland #ShutItDown

Brooklyn #ShutItDown

New YorkCity #ShutItDown

New York City #ShutItDown

New York #ShutItDown

Nashville #ShutItDown

Denver #ShutItDown

Dallas #ShutItDown

Oakland #ShutItDown

Nashville #ShutItDown

Washington, DC #ShutItDown

Washington, DC #ShutThemDown

Chicago #ShutThemDown

St. Louis #ShutItDown

New York City #ShutItDown

Atlanta #ShutItDown

Portland, OR #ShutItDown

Newark #ShutItDown

Houston #ShutItDown

Houston #ShutItDown

New York City, #ShutItDown

Washington, DC #ShutItDown

New York City #ShutItDown

Providence, RI #ShutItDown

Washington, DC #ShutItDown

New Orleans, #ShutItDown

New York City #ShutItDown

Miami #ShutItDown

Baltimore #ShutItDown

Baltimore #ShutItDown

Morgan State Students in Baltimore #ShutItDown

Minneapolis #ShutItDown

University of Minnesota #ShutItDown

Houston #ShutItDown

Austin #ShutItDown

New York City #Shut It Down

New York City #ShutItDown

St. Louis #ShutItDown

Providence, RI #ShutItDown

Cincinnati #ShutItDown

Washington, DC #ShutItDown

Washington, DC #ShutItDown

Memphis, #ShutItDown

Worcester, MA #ShutItDown

Toronto, Canada #ShutItDown

Seattle #ShutItDown

Cleveland #ShutItDown

Detroit #ShutItDown

Chicago #ShutItDown

Madison #ShutItDown

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