Protesters around the country flooded department stores and malls on Black Friday, denouncing a grand jury’s decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
In St. Louis, demonstrators temporarily shut down three malls on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. A large crowd marched through stores shouting, “Stop shopping and join the movement!” One group paraded through Target aisles chanting, “What do you want? Justice!” A group staged a “die in” in the center of one shopping mall, with dozens of people laying on the ground impeding the paths of shoppers.
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Walmart workers across the country rage against Black Friday for fairer wages. Read more here.
Later in the evening, police arrested 16 people outside Ferguson police headquarters for disturbing the peace, impeding traffic, resisting arrest, and assault, media outlets reported. Police said only one of the people arrested was from Missouri, with the rest coming from as far away as New York, Chicago, and California.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has called for an emergency legislative session “to provide critical funding” for security measures in Ferguson following a week of destructive protests. Nixon announced the request late Friday night on the state’s website.
Demonstrations also created Black Friday disturbances in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and more than a dozen other metropolitan areas.
In San Francisco, the entire BART public transportation system was shut down when protesters chained and duct-taped themselves to a train platform, local media reported. The act was meant to block off the passage of trains for four hours, the amount of time Brown’s corpse was left in the street in Ferguson. Protesters also hurled objects at police.
Darren Wilson to grand jury: ‘I had to kill him.’ Read more here.
In Seattle, protesters took over the Westlake shopping center area chanting “Black lives matter.” Seattle police reacted to protesters on the streets by launching flashbang stun grenades.
State of Emergency: Ferguson, Missouri. Watch the VICE News dispatches here.
In New York City, protesters marched through Macy’s department store chanting “hands up, don’t shop,” referencing the common “Hands up, don’t shoot” refrain of the Ferguson protests.
Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter: @merhoffman
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