Ferguson forging new normal 1 year after shootingGrade Level 9Word Count 970



Ferguson Has Changed, But Is It Enough?
Backlash Prompts Other Cities To Make Changes
Businesses Rising From Ashes After Protests
New Faces Occupy Some City Positions But Mayor Still In Place
Continue On Path Toward Reform, Councilman Says
A Sea Of Small Towns With Similar Woes
By Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff
08.14.15





Michael Brown Sr. (center) leads a march in remembrance of his son, Michael Brown, Aug. 9, 2015, in Ferguson, Missouri. That day marked one year since Michael Brown was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Photo: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
The sound of a white police officer’s gunshots in Ferguson, Missouri. A black 18-year-old named Michael Brown killed on a street in his own neighborhood.
Angry black residents — tired of poverty, tired of getting pulled over, tired of being fined for seemingly senseless traffic stops — finally hit their breaking point as Brown lay in a pool of blood.
Officer Darren Wilson’s shooting of Brown after a struggle in the street was only the first chapter of a story with no end in sight.
A year later, Brown’s death and the protests that overwhelmed the mainly black St. Louis suburb have changed hundreds of lives. They also unleashed a national debate on race and policing that continues to dominate headlines today, while Ferguson quietly struggles forward.
“Things have changed, a lot,” said David Whitt, a father of three who lives in an apartment complex near where Brown was killed. But, Whitt said, “the issue still remains that somebody was killed by police, and people say, ‘We haven’t got justice.’”
The shooting on August 9, 2014— and the clashes with police that followed for days — enraged a group of young people who have helped turned the slogan “Black Lives Matter” into a national movement. This movement is now putting pressure on the 2016 presidential campaign.
A U.S. Justice Department investigation found that Ferguson’s city justice system was driven by racial profiling, and ticketing and jailing poor residents. That led to reforms throughout Missouri and deeper discussion of the issues.
“We are making progress,” said Jerryl Christmas, a St. Louis-based attorney who represents several activists arrested during demonstrations in Ferguson. “A lot of issues have been raised and a lot of conversation is going on, but we still need more action.”
Federal and grand jury investigations found that Wilson had done nothing criminal. But now police shootings around the country are being examined closely as public officials look at their policies and push for body cameras in hopes of keeping their community from becoming another Ferguson.
The nation saw what happened in Ferguson and attitudes changed. Surveys showed a sharp increase in the number of whites who now agree with what black Americans have long been saying: Race is still a problem in America.
But in Ferguson, pain mixes with optimism as the city has tried to make its way back to normal, or toward something better than normal. The results have been mixed.
“I think we’re going to come out of this, and eventually we’re going to come out of it even stronger, in my opinion,” said Wesley Bell. He is one of two black members newly elected to the formerly white-dominated Ferguson City Council.
The businesses burned down by arsonists after the grand jury’s decision in November not to indict, or charge, Wilson have been swept away. Some shops on West Florissant Avenue, once the site of nightly clashes between demonstrators and police, have welcomed returning customers.
“We’re starting to get back into the swing of things, people starting to come slowly but surely,” says Antonio Henley, a barber and the owner of Prime Time Barber Shop, which lost a lot of business when protests began. “We were down 20, 40, 50 percent when it first happened. But we survived.”
Near where Brown died, a memorial plaque has replaced a pile of signs and stuffed animals, but Whitt said that some in Ferguson would just as soon forget what happened last August.
“They’re trying to erase this memory of this tragedy that happened right here,” he said.
Change has also come to the city government, though nothing resembling the revolution many protesters sought.
After a Justice Department report revealed racist emails sent by city officials, several resigned. Now Ferguson has a new police chief and city manager, but it still has the same mayor, James Knowles III, who is white, and who has resisted calls to resign.
The six-seat city council had only one black member before Brown’s shooting. Now it has three. During the April election, more than twice the number of people voted, but candidates backed by activists largely failed.
City officials remain locked in negotiations with Department of Justice officials pushing for an agreement that would probably reform the city’s police department.
The city spent $1 million related to the street protests and rioting. Officers also handed out about $1.1 million less in tickets, city Councilman Mark J. Byrne said.
He said the city had already put reforms in place to cut down on the number of arrests and fines. “I think we’re on the right path on everything — we just have to get it done,” he said of justice reforms.
Thomas Harvey is the executive director of ArchCity Defenders, a nonprofit group that seeks an overhaul of St. Louis County municipal court systems. He says that Ferguson’s new municipal judge, Donald McCullin, is treating people with respect.
Nonetheless, Harvey added, “it doesn’t change the fact the people are being pulled over and ticketed for essentially what amounts to being poor and black.”
Ferguson is just one small town surrounded by other small towns with their own police departments and their own municipal courts and with many of the same problems.
“If you ask a person who lives in St. Louis County what’s different, they’ll say nothing,” Harvey said.
Brown’s parents have filed a lawsuit in hopes of holding Wilson accountable for the death of their son. Many activists remain angry at Wilson despite investigators’ doubts that Brown had his hands up when the officer killed him, as some witnesses have claimed.