Wesley Bell charges Ferguson protesters before taking Cori Bush’s place

St Louis County Attorney General Wesley Bell is scheduled to enter Congress in January. He will replace Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., after ousting her in a Democratic primary in August, with $17 million in help from the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, American Israel Public Affairs Committee. As one of his final acts, Bell filed felony charges against at least eight protesters who demonstrated outside the Ferguson Police Department in August to mark the 10th anniversary of the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr.

Bell’s office accused the eight protesters of attempting to interfere with the arrests of other protesters, damaging a gate in front of the police department and attempting to disarm an officer. A man has been accused of attacking a police officer who fell to the ground after a collision on the sidewalk, leaving the officer with a serious brain injury. The defendant was held on $500,000 bail. Two of the other defendants are still in custody. The cases are pending in St. Louis County District Court.

A spokesman for the St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office said the majority of protest participants were not charged with a crime and the defendants were not targeted because they protested. “In these cases, we did not press charges against the protesters; Protesting is not a crime,” said Public Information Officer Chris King.

“Almost all of the people who participated in this protest were not charged with a crime because we were not presented with any evidence that they had committed a crime,” King said. “All defendants are presumed innocent.”

The decision by Bell’s office to prosecute those arrested at the protests confirmed to some that little has changed in policing in Ferguson in the decade since Brown’s killing. Protests in 2014 after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot Brown brought national attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2018, Bell campaigned as a prosecutor reformer and criticized his predecessor for failing to charge Brown’s killers. Bell’s office later declined to prosecute Wilson after reviewing the case. Ahead of last month’s primary, Bell’s critics complained that he had failed to implement the reforms he had championed. In a Bush campaign video released in July, Brown’s family said Bell failed to reform the office and used the family for power.

The protesters were arrested just days after Bell won the Democratic primary against Bush in August. Activists in Ferguson said they were frustrated that while they had seen little change in law enforcement under Bell, he was now moving to higher office after ousting Bush, a protest leader in Ferguson, with the help of the AIPAC super PAC .

“Right now, the police narrative is all we see,” said Sandra Tamari, a Palestinian organizer based in St. Louis who was active during the 2014 Ferguson protests. She is executive director of the Adalah Justice Project, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization, but spoke privately to The Intercept. “Of course we hope that the officer fully recovers from his injuries and that Elijah [Gant] “Sees freedom soon,” said Tamari.

“Now the police and Wesley Bell are trying to crucify a young black man for this reason. “This was a truly horrific accident that was, quite frankly, due to the aggression and negligence of the police,” she said. “They’re trying to scapegoat this young activist who, as you know, is now in jail on half a million dollars bail, which is crazy.”

Two organizers who People present at the August protest said police moved against people without warning and then tried to push a narrative after protesters turned violent. Both organizers spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation from law enforcement.

One of the organizers said the police response to the protests was emblematic of how little has changed in Ferguson in the last decade. “In the days that followed, it was disheartening to see that the mainstream narrative in St. Louis was overwhelmingly pro-cop and did not challenge the police’s blatant lies to protesters,” they said.

“In the days that followed, it was disheartening to see that the mainstream narrative in St. Louis was overwhelmingly pro-political.”

“It is clear to many of us that policing is not effective as a means of public safety as police continue to escalate unnecessarily and turn non-violent environments into violent ones,” they said. “In this case, their escalation has resulted in harm to their own officer and an entire community of activists who continue to be terrorized not only by police but also by a prosecutor who protects and perpetuates their deadly lies.”

The other organizer who took part in the protests said he saw officers making violent arrests. “The flashlight was very tight around the neck, people were being carried and dragged,” they said.

Organizers said they were initially encouraged when Bell ran for office because he wanted to bring about change in the criminal justice system and oust his predecessor, Bob McCulloch, who failed to charge Wilson in Brown’s killing. Now he’s charging protesters and getting money from AIPAC to take Bush’s seat.

Before her election in 2020, Bush was a nurse and activist who led protests against Brown’s killing in Ferguson and St. Louis. Her role as a protest leader helped propel her campaign against the backdrop of nationwide protests against police brutality in 2020 and led to her toppling a two-decade incumbent.

Bush was the second Squad member to lose his seat this cycle after being targeted by AIPAC in a Democratic primary. The lobbying group has spent more than $100 million so far this election cycle and had planned to use most of the money to oust progressive Squad members who have been vocal critics of U.S. military funding for Israel’s war on Gaza. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., another AIPAC target, lost his June primary to Westchester County Executive George Latimer.