Montague Simmons held a community meeting on the west side of St. Louis on August 9, 2014. The event, organized by black militant organizations, was suddenly interrupted by breaking news: an unarmed 18-year-old black man named Michael Brown had been killed by a white police officer.
Simmons, who now serves as director of strategic partnerships for the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), said the meeting broke up after members decided to respond to one of the calls for action at the police station.
“We felt like this was something different because we’d been involved in other cases and when things like this have happened before, it hasn’t necessarily been the community coming together,” Simmons told The Hill. “So to see other people actually make the choice to come together, we felt like this was definitely going to be a different moment.”
Over the next few days, the nation watched as protests, some peaceful and some violent, spread across St. Louis.
The unrest helped bring the Black Lives Matter movement to national attention in a way it hadn’t before, even after the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida.
“This is part of a long line of police killings,” Simmons said. “People were really reacting, watching and noticing a lot more than they had before. People’s nerves were already frayed.”
“This was also a key moment in terms of social media engagement,” Simmons added. “This wasn’t filtered by the news channels. They didn’t have to wait for a radio station. They were literally watching the live stream of people who were on the scene. They were hearing the frustrations of not only the community, but the frustrations of parents who were there but couldn’t get there.” [their kids] And it triggered a visceral reaction.”
Ten years later, Brown’s family, advocates and lawmakers say justice has still not been served.
Six years after Brown’s death, then-newly elected St. Louis County Attorney Wesley Bell vowed to get justice for the Brown family, but he never prosecuted Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Brown.
“Ten years since Ferguson means ten years without justice, ten years without accountability, ten years without healing,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) said in a statement to The Hill.
Bell, who recently defeated Bush in the state’s Democratic primary, said at the time that an independent investigation had failed to prove that Wilson committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law.
Brown’s family has expressed disappointment, with Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr., saying Bell “used his family for power” while supporting Bush’s reelection, after Bell defeated him in this week’s primary.
Wilson claimed he shot Brown because Brown reached for a gun. In its murder investigation, the Department of Justice (DOJ) determined there was no evidence prosecutors could rely on to “disprove” a belief that Wilson feared for his safety.
Following the Department of Justice’s decision, Brown’s parents, Leslie McSpadden, and her brother Brown said they were “saddened” by the decision but were still hopeful change would come.
“If that change occurs, then our son’s death will not have been in vain.”
Advocates argue that a lack of reform nationwide has led to more killings of black men and women since the Brown decision.
More recently, the murder of Sonia Massey in her Illinois home sparked outrage.
Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, was shot three times in her home by Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Shawn Grayson in body camera footage. Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Harris said in a recent statement that Massey “had a right to be safe” in her home.
“It is sad that 10 years after Mike Brown’s death, we are still advocating for reforms that could have saved his life and countless other Black lives,” said Derrick Johnson, CEO and president of the NAACP.
“Mike Brown had a bright future that was cut short when Missouri State Police took his life. His tragic death has rightly reignited the police accountability movement.”
That is not to say there haven’t been some successes in police reform.
Since Brown’s death, Simmons and other local grassroots activists have drafted reform proposals for de-escalation, dispatch and training, and have also begun meeting with elected officials.
In 2016, Simmons and other St. Louis activists joined forces with other grassroots organizations to present the national “Vision for Black Lives” policy agenda.
The vision calls for a move away from militarized police forces and investment in other community resources, including mental health professionals who can be called upon in emergencies.
Congressional leaders have sought to pass legislation to address police violence and its disproportionate impact on Black Americans.
These bills include the Families Responding Act, which supports families, schools, and communities harmed by police violence; the Responding People Act, which promotes a comprehensive, holistic, health-centered approach to public safety; and the BREATHE Act, which expands the Responding People Act.
“Over the last decade, we’ve taken the Black Lives Matter movement from Ferguson to Congress,” Bush said. “We’ll never stop fighting to build a world where Mike Brown is still here and where no more lives are taken at the hands of police violence.”
