Photo from tweet by @Melzerz9
St Louis – A silent protest organized by the Black Lives Matter movement under the banner of #ShutDownBaseball on Friday night began at Kiener Plaza around 8:15 p.m. before marching to the Cardinals game at Busch stadium in downtown St Louis. The goal: to raise awareness and call for an end to police brutality on people of color.
The demonstration was largely peaceful and fairly uneventful outside of people standing with signs, some of them in a line crossing the road at the entrance to the stadium, an area already closed off and crowded by baseball fans.
#ShutdownBaseball @AaronWBanks @PrissiKrissi3 pic.twitter.com/3XwO9i2dt0
— MelzerzB (@Melzerz9) May 30, 2015
 It wasn’t until the last 13 remaining protesters started to head home around 11:30pm when things got out of hand. People still motivated to bring attention to their cause had decided to leave the sidewalk and walk in the street. Faced with a myriad of options, when the commands given to leave the roadway were not met Lt Dan Zarrick made the decision to make arrests.  What we see in the video below (supplied by the female taser victim) shows what happened after that decision was made.
When the video starts off two people are already in custody and at least 6 officers are already on the scene. Some people had left the area already when arrests began, leaving 6 trying to walk away on the sidewalk. At that point you can hear an officer say “Grab anybody, they were all in the street,”  and then an officer with a taser in hand hurries to head off the people who were walking at a normal pace away from the scene of arrests. Seconds later aiming his less than lethal weapon at a man who was at the front of the small group that officer says “get back.”  Obviously not wanting to be tased and to avoid being arrested the man tries to evade the officer with a sidestep, when he is then tased.
The woman taking the video and the other 3 people are grabbed from behind when another officer begins to deploy less than lethal force by firing his taser on her. It is unclear why this officer felt it necessary to deploy less than lethal force on a woman walking away instead of simply or at least attempting to place her under arrest without incident. She is then heard agonizing in pain saying repeatedly “Ow my god, Ow my god” and asking “why did you do that?” I didn’t do anything.” An officer can be heard saying “put your hands behind your back,” she replies repeatedly “Please Stop, please stop, your hurting me, I can’t, it hurts, I can’t, it hurts so bad” when we hear the sound of her being tased yet again by the officer. She then says, obviously in a severe amount of pain “why are you doing this to me, I’m on the ground” before the video ends.
8 of the protesters were arrested. Â Six protesters were arrested for impeding the flow of traffic. The remaining two protesters were arrested for impeding the flow of traffic and resisting arrest. All have since been released. Two of them went straight to the hospital to get checked. One for the tasing and the other for a head injury from being slammed to the pavement.
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Live streamer Heather De Mian @MissJupiter1957 recorded several hours of the night’s protest at Busch stadium that shows the demeanor and laid back atmosphere of the event.
