Before Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson found Police Officer Jason Stockley not guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, St. Louis activists and religious leaders warned that it could get ugly. They said they were going to “shut it down.”
They were right about the “ugly” part.
Despite an estimated 140 arrests over the past weekend, demonstrators in St. Louis aren’t letting up in their protests against police violence. They have taken to the streets for the fourth consecutive day to denounce the not-guilty verdict given to a former officer for the 2011 fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, a 24-year-old Black man who was killed as he attempted to escape arrest.
A St. Louis judge issued a not-guilty verdict Friday to the white former police officer who killed a black motorist six years ago, leading dozens of protesters to take to the streets downtown.
Jason Stockley, 36, was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action for the December 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, an African-American, following a police chase after a suspected drug deal.
Former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, who was charged in May 2016 in the Dec. 20, 2011, death of 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith. (St. Louis Police Department)
A white former St. Louis police officer charged with killing a black man “executed” him after a car chase, then planted a gun in the slain drug suspect’s vehicle as an excuse for opening fire, a prosecutor told a court Tuesday.
