On the last Saturday afternoon before Christmas, activists from One Struggle KC staged a protest event as part of the national 'Black Lives Matter' movement and successfully shut down Interstate 670 in Kansas City, MO, for 30 minutes. The action, on December, 20, 2014, was designed to draw attention to the controversial grand jury outcomes in the Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and other recent cases of questionable use of deadly force by police. The 150 or so multi-ethnic, multi-racial protesters held a rally at Parade Park and then began a planned march to the Sprint Center in downtown Kansas City. Instead of marching down the announced Truman Rd. route, they deviated from the plan after crossing the Paseo and marched up the exit ramp for Interstate 670 which parallels Truman Road at that location. Protesters made it to the top of the ramp before being stopped by police, who also immediately shutdown eastbound traffic in order to prevent vehicles from potentially exiting the interstate into the crowd of protesters on the ramp. The highway standoff lasted 30 minutes. 7 protesters were arrested. Two of the protesters were arrested initially after reaching I-670. An almost entirely white (with the lone exception of Kansas City Police Chief Darryl Forte) force of 20-30 police prevented the protesters from moving onto the highway. After allowing the other protesters a few minutes to express their views, they were given a warning that they would be arrested if they did not begin to vacate the ramp within two minutes. Kansas City Police Chief Darryl Forte took the lead in diffusing the situation by walking and talking with the protesters and was successfully moving the crowd back down the ramp when the protesters started chanting and yelling at police to "let them go" as they passed the original two protesters that had been previously arrested and who were sitting on the ground awaiting transport to jail. During the verbal confrontation over these initial arrests, four others were arrested after they apparently objected to one of the protesters being pulled by the arm down the ramp toward the Paseo. It appeared to escalate as the female protester slipped on the curb as she resisted being pulled by an officer. The sudden movement of her stumbling and the movement of a couple of other protesters around her, caused nearby officers to immediately take the female and two other protesters down to the ground and arrest them. One of the ranking officers pointed out a fourth protester and said "This guy goes." after which he was also arrested. The additional arrests were enough to mute the crowd's demand to release the original protesters. For the most part, the police were able to keep the situation under control without resorting to excessive force. Similarly for the most part, protesters were well behaved and respectful in carrying out their civil disobedience action. Only one of the protesters (who was not arrested) was seen hurling f-bomb invectives at officers while filming the officers who simply ignored him. Kudos to those officers for showing restraint. After all the protesters had vacated the ramp and had regrouped on the sidewalk next to St. Stephen Baptist Church a 7th protester was removed from the crowd and also arrested for an unknown violation. Interestingly, all of the arrested protesters appeared to be white. After 20 minutes of further protests next to the church, a smaller group of protesters resumed their original march route to Sprint Center in the Power & Light District. Uploaded to YouTube by the Working Journalist Press http://www.WorkingJournalistPress.com

• published: 21 Dec 2014
• views: 2993