The district
attorney of Baton Rouge, Louisiana will not take legal action against DeRay
Mckesson.
Last week the
out Black Lives Matter leader participated in a rally protesting the police
related death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling. Mckesson was arrested while
filming the march, walking alongside Airline Highway; he was charged with
obstruction of a roadway.
In total, Baton
Rouge police arrested 185 protestors. According to the Washington
Post, District Attorney Hillar Moore III is declining prosecuting 100 of
them because they are misdemeanors related to obstruction of a
roadway.
Despite this,
Moore’s statement seemed more concerned with the protestors than police
overreach.
‘While all
citizens have the right to assemble and protest, they do not have the right to
block streets and impede the flow of traffic.’
This past week,
on 13 July, Mckesson participated in a round table conversation with law
enforcement officials and President Barack Obama.
‘The bad news
is, as we saw so painfully this week, that this is really a hard job. We’re not
there yet’ Obama said to reporters following the meeting, according to CNN.
The sit-down,
which lasted approximately four hours, included Louisiana Governor John Bel
Edwards, mayors, and police representatives. According to CNN, the BLM
activist described the meeting as ‘productive.’
Obama, Mckesson
said, ‘challenge[d] people to think about the concrete things that both the
administration could do and law enforcement and activists could do to make sure
that we address the issue of police violence head on and also that our
communities are safe.’
This is good news. In light of the police shootings yesterday, I applaud the district attorney for trying to diffuse the situation. Perhaps law enforcement will re-think their capricious shootings of persons who are unarmed. Now that they see that their actions indeed have potential consequences, they will in turn behave more responsibly. Thanks for sharing this. Take care and stay bare!
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