ST. LOUIS_Former St. Louis police Officer Jason Stockley was found not guilty Friday of murdering a man while on duty, setting off hours of angry protest.
St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson's highly anticipated verdict found the white former St. Louis police officer not guilty of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the December 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, a black drug suspect, after a high-speed pursuit and crash.
Protesters began gathering immediately after the verdict was announced. They tried to get on Interstate 64, but were blocked by police, and marched to police headquarters and to Tucker Boulevard.
Police pepper-sprayed a few protesters in the early afternoon as they tried to block officers from traveling on Tucker Boulevard between Clark Avenue and Spruce Street.
More than 100 police personnel, many with batons and riot shields, formed a line at Tucker and Clark as protesters hollered, chanted and held up signs.
"My goal is to resist the power of the state," said the Rev. Renita Lamkin Green, pastor of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Cape Girardeau, after standing in front of the line of police. "The power of the people is greater than the power over the people."
At one point, protesters climbed on top of a police SUV and smashed its windshield. Four officers sustained minor injuries, and more than a dozen people were arrested, police said.
At about 5:30 p.m., police said the downtown protests were no longer considered peaceful, and they asked people to leave.
Shortly after, protesters moved to the Central West End, where more than 1,000 marched on Euclid Avenue and on Kingshighway near Highway 40 (Interstate 64). Later Friday night, protesters gathered outside the Central West End home of Mayor Lyda Krewson, breaking windows. Krewson did not appear to be home.
Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens praised the mostly peaceful nature of the protests, but warned: "Violence will not be tolerated."
"Unfortunately, we did have some people who decided to engage in acts of violence," he said after meeting law enforcement officials in St. Louis. "Assaulting a law enforcement officer is not a peaceful protest. Breaking windows is not a peaceful protest. Destroying and vandalizing police cars is not free speech, and we are not going to tolerate it in the state of Missouri."
Activists, with support from some of the city's black clergy, had pledged disruptive protests ahead of Wilson's verdict. Wilson addressed such statements in his order:
"A judge shall not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor or fear of criticism."
Damone Smith, 52, an electrician headed to work, was among the motorists being rerouted from the protest area.
"I think the verdict is disgusting," said Smith, who is black. "I'm proud of these people protesting. If you look like me, then you feel like there is no other way to express yourself in the face of this kind of verdict. Time and time again, African-American men are killed by police and nobody is held accountable."
In an exclusive interview with the Post-Dispatch Friday, Stockley said: "I can feel for and I understand what the family is going through, and I know everyone wants someone to blame, but I'm just not the guy."
The judge explained his rationale for the verdict in a 30-page document filed about 8:30 a.m. Friday.
"This court, as the trier of fact, is simply not firmly convinced of defendant's guilt. Agonizingly, this court has pored over the evidence again and again ... This court, in conscience, cannot say that the state has proven every element of murder beyond a reasonable doubt or that the defendant did not act in self-defense."
Because the state failed to prove Stockley did not act in self-defense, Wilson wrote that he could not address lesser charges of homicide or manslaughter.
Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said at a news conference that she was disappointed with the decision.
"While officer-involved shootings are very hard to return a guilty verdict, I am confident that we presented sufficient evidence at a trial to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jason Stockley was guilty of murder in the first degree," Gardner said. "But at the end of the day, it was the judge who served as the finder of fact. ... I must respect Judge Wilson's decision but I stand by the evidence we presented in court."
Mayor Krewson released a statement following the verdict saying, "I am appalled at what happened to Anthony Lamar Smith."
"I am sobered by this outcome. Frustration, anger, hurt, pain, hope and love all intermingled. I encourage St. Louisans to show each other compassion, to recognize that we all have different experiences and backgrounds and that we all come to this with real feelings and experiences," she wrote.
Krewson's comment drew a rebuke from Neil Bruntrager, Stockley's lawyer.
"How do you promote all those things by creating distrust in a system that clearly worked under these circumstances?" Bruntrager said. "It is irresponsible and a disservice to the community to make statements like that. It's an insult to Judge Wilson to make statements like that. And it falsely encourages the belief that an injustice was done here when in fact justice was done."
More than a month has passed since Stockley's bench trial ended, a case that has rekindled racial tensions not seen in St. Louis since the Ferguson uprising and police killing of VonDerrit Myers Jr. in the second half of 2014.
Ahead of the verdict _ and the threat of violent protests _ Gov. Greitens took steps to activate the National Guard, although it was not in evidence as of early Friday evening.
