US Police Arrest 50 Protesters in Ferguson Demonstration

Local Editor

More than 50 people were arrested in a series of protests in the St. Louis area of the United States on Monday, staged to draw attention to police violence after a white officer killed an unarmed black teenager in August.

Several dozen protesters - many of them ministers and activists from out of town - were arrested in civil disobedience acts in Ferguson, the suburb where Michael Brown, 18, was shot dead.

Over the weekend, there were marches, rallies, vigils and teach-ins in Ferguson and St Louis and organizers livestreamed events.

Clergy, civil rights groups, activists and community organizers from across the US have helped to lead the demonstrations, which they said is aimed at creating a national movement against police brutality and police mistreatment of African-Americans.

The protests, called the Weekend of Resistance by organizers, began on Friday outside the office of the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, Robert P. McCulloch, who has been urged to step aside in the case of a white police officer from Ferguson who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in August.

The organized rallies began at a moment when the St. Louis metropolitan area again found itself in the midst of racial turmoil, after a white off-duty St. Louis police officer killed a black teenager in the city's Shaw neighborhood on Wednesday night. The police have said the teenager, Vonderrit Myers Jr., opened fire on the unidentified officer, but Myers's family has insisted that he was unarmed.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team