Activists protest Stockley verdict with banner at Cardinals game

A group of activists revealed a banner that read “Stop Killing Us” during the Cardinals-Brewers game on Friday night, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Sitting on the upper deck of Busch Stadium in deep left field, the group also chanted, “no justice, no baseball,” a modification of the anthem “no justice, no peace” that has accompanied weeks of protests following the not-guilty verdict in the murder trial of Jason Stockley, a white former St. Louis police officer who shot and killed Anthony Lamar Smith, a black man, in December 2011.

Earlier Friday evening, about 100 protesters blocked traffic in the street, the Post-Dispatch reported, but the protests were peaceful.

Stockley, who graduated from Althoff Catholic High School in 1998, also graduated from West Point and was a soldier in Iraq. Later, he joined the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in 2007, according to previous reporting by the News-Democrat.

After killing Smith, Stockley went to his squad car to retrieve something, but dashcam footage does not show what. The prosecution argued Stockley planted a gun in Smith’s car, but Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson wasn’t convinced.

In his decision, Wilson wrote, “The court does not believe Stockley’s conduct immediately following the end of the pursuit is consistent with the conduct of a person intentionally killing another person unlawfully.”

A Facebook Live video showed the banner being unfurled during the game.

This story was originally published September 29, 2017 at 9:39 PM with the headline "Activists protest Stockley verdict with banner at Cardinals game."