A similar protest was held Saturday inside the Beavercreek Walmart where John Crawford III was killed on Aug. 5, by Beavercreek police officer Sean Williams, who responded to a 911 call of a man carrying a loaded rifle inside the store and scaring customers. The rifle turned out to be a BB gun, and a grand jury later declined to indict Williams.
Beavercreek is among other U.S. cities protesters have targeted where African-American men have been killed during encounters with police.
James Hayes, an student association member, said they chose to protest at Fairfield Commons since it was in the same city where Crawford was killed.
“Since (Crawford’s death), young people across the state, lead by black youth, have been calling for justice, saying, we’re are not going to forget and we’re not going to go home,” he said. “We need to talk about systemic structural changes in our law enforcement and community.”
Beavercreek police declined to provide information about arrests, but plan to issue a statement on Friday, according to spokesman Captain Eric Grile. Beavercreek police was assisted by officers from Fairborn, the Greene County Sheriff’s Office and the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
Protesters told the newspaper about six people were arrested after mall staff and police ordered the group to leave the premises. One of the protesters, Prentiss Haney of Dayton, was taken to the ground by several police officers as he addressed the crowd in the mall’s parking lot.
Others arrested included local civil rights activists Amaha Sellassie and Julius Eason. Vernellia Randall, a professor emeritus at the University of Dayton Law, said she was cited for trespassing on private property and “not moving fast enough.”
She said she was pushed down by a police officer while marching out of the mall with protesters. “I couldn’t move forward and the police behind me pushed me really hard in the back,” she said. “Because I have equilibrium problems, I started to fall. The people around me caught me.”
Despite her ordeal, Randall said she was pleased to see the students protesting.
“You have to be on the line,” she said. “You can’t fight it through email, through Facebook, and it doesn’t matter how old you are, you have to get out and be willing to get arrested and willing to be injured.”
Remember King’s message
Beavercreek Mayor Brian Jarvis, who arrived at the mall after the hour-long protest, said the protesters have the right to protest, but not on private property and should not have interfered with the shoppers’ rights to shop.
“I think that people forget that this is private property,” he said. “Once you go inside the mall and interfere with their business, then the mall has more of a right to stop that than you have a right to protest.”
Jarvis, who is serving as the city’s first black mayor, said the issues that brought the protesters to the mall should not be a “black-white thing.”
“After all these years since (Rev. Martin Luther) King (Jr.), it should be about your character and not by your color,” he said. “The people here elected me to be mayor. As far as I am concerned, color isn’t a major factor with this community. As a black mayor of a community that is 88 percent white, I have no issues at all.”
Some shoppers were mixed about the protesters presence.
“I cannot get out of the mall on Christmas Eve because of this,” said Haley Barlow of Beavercreek. “We were just shopping, and I watched this kid get arrested for walking pass the cop. He’s my friend from Beavercreek.”
Michael Hampton of Trotwood said, “I think it’s good to protest, because black lives are being taken unnecessarily. I think some of these shootings are uncalled for and (police) should take a little more time before they pull the trigger.”
Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, a former Beavercreek resident who now lives in Boston, Mass., attended the protest with her father, Don. She expressed disappointment that her hometown has attracted negative attention following Crawford’s death.
“Beavercreek was the place where I learned to love justice and what’s happening out here isn’t justice,” she said. “We’re going from place to place asking for justice…Who is going to create justice for these lost lives, and what are we going to do to transform our system so young people of color are not being murdered?”
Surveillance video from inside Walmart showed how police officers Williams and Sgt. David Darkow rushed to the area where Crawford stood talking on his cell phone and holding the BB/pellet rifle he had retrieved from a store shelf.
Police said Crawford was shot after he ignored instructions to put down the rifle.
A Greene County special grand jury on Sept. 25 declined to indict Williams.
Crawford’s family has filed a federal wrongful death civil lawsuit against the police department and Walmart, claiming that Crawford was not given enough time to respond to police instructions.
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