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鈥淚 think everyone deserves the same rights as I do. I just want peace and justice,鈥� says Maleeha Ahmad, one of the protesters who was pepper-sprayed by police officers in St. Louis last week.

Ms. Ahmad has joined a filed by the 老澳门开奖结果 of Missouri against the city of St. Louis, arguing that the militarized and overtly aggressive police response to people protesting Jason Stockley鈥檚 acquittal violated the protesters鈥� First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and due process rights. The 老澳门开奖结果 of Missouri also sent a to officials in St. Louis reminding them that law enforcement is obligated to refrain from unnecessary and disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protests.

For the past nine days, protesters in St. Louis have decried a Missouri judge鈥檚 decision to Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer, of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, a 24-year-old Black man. The demonstrations called for justice and an end to the cycle of police brutality that is enabled by court decisions amounting to little more than a slap on the wrist.

What should have been a nonviolent demonstration in St. Louis was sullied by aggression, provocation, and intimidation by St. Louis Police. On the first day of the protests, officers descended on demonstrators wearing state-funded riot gear, full-body riot shields, and helmets. They fired tear gas and used pepper spray on dozens of people. They confiscated and destroyed videos of police activity recorded by observers. The videos that did go public showed people being 鈥渒ettled,鈥� or corralled into small areas, leaving them trapped in the face of an onslaught of chemical agents.

Acting Police Chief Lawrence O鈥橳oole a room full of reporters that everything happening in the city was being properly managed. 鈥樷�橶e鈥檙e in control,鈥欌�� Chief O鈥橳oole said. 鈥樷�橳his our city and we鈥檙e going to protect it.鈥�

And 鈥渢heir鈥� city it was.

Police arrested more than on the first night of demonstrations, on the second, and even more in the subsequent days. Protesters, press members, and innocent bystanders were rounded up together the same night police smugly chanted, 鈥淲hose streets? Our Streets!鈥� An elderly woman was and then arrested during one of the skirmishes.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has tried to defend its actions by pointing to singular acts of violence committed by a few people. To some, this may seem like a sufficient justification. Dispersing large crowds ensures everyone鈥檚 safety, right? Wrong.

Although police are authorized to issue dispersal orders for unlawful assemblies, law enforcement officials in St. Louis used their power indiscriminately, without making clear when and where those orders applied. As a result, people engaged in a lawful protest 鈥� along with observers and members of the press 鈥� were trapped and subjected to these violent tactics without the opportunity to disperse.

Further, isolated incidents of confrontation, even violent confrontation, should never be used as a proxy for the legality of an entire political demonstration. If police officers are given carte blanche authority to stamp out protests as soon as someone throws a rock or smashes a store window, then the state will always have an excuse to squelch the constitutionally protected speech of peaceful demonstrators.

Indeed, the First Amendment prohibits this broad-brush approach to state-sanctioned censorship. The Supreme Court decided in NAACP v. Clairborne Hardware Co. that the state cannot declare an entire political demonstration illegal simply because a handful of actors engage in violent conduct. By retaliating against lawful protests with militarized force, without any warning, police impinge on the due process rights of protesters.

We should also be careful not to let police serve as the ultimate arbiters of a demonstration鈥檚 legality. Like other institutions in American society, police are vulnerable to implicit biases, rooted in of Black criminality, that paint protesters of color and the demonstrations they lead as inherently aggressive, dangerous, and fraught. These biases impact the First Amendment rights of protesters to this day.

Like Maleeha Ahmad, Missouri is in need of peace. Only three years ago, the 鈥淪how-Me鈥� state was rocked by the death of 18-year-old . If Missouri is to heal, it must start by listening to protesters instead of attacking them. That is the first step down a long road towards ending the continued oppression and injustice Black and brown people face at the hands of law enforcement.