In the wake of a grand jury in suburban St. Louis declining to indict a white police officer for fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager, hundreds of students at Minneapolis South High School staged a sit-in near the main office Tuesday morning before moving their protest to a nearby police precinct headquarters.
School District spokesman Stan Alleyne said there were peaceful protests at several high schools and that participants would not be disciplined "as long as the protest remains peaceful." Later on Twitter, Alleyne wrote: "We are proud of how our students are handling themselves."
One of the South High protest organizers, junior Thomas Bates, said up to 400 students filled the commons area of the south Minneapolis school for about an hour to show their dismay with the outcome of the case Monday night against the Ferguson, Mo., officer who shot Michael Brown earlier this year.
About 10:30 a.m., about half of those students left the school and most walked about three-fourths of a mile to the Third Precinct on Minnehaha Avenue near Lake Street, where some took turns with a megaphone and told the "experiences they have with racism," Bates said.
Bates said the school's principal, Ray Aponte, told students that whoever left the building would not be allowed back in for the rest of the day.
In a statement on the school's website, Aponte said that not only will students be barred from returning to classes Tuesday, but "they will not be able to participate in after-school activities and they may receive an unexcused absence."
Aponte added that "students, their families and our staff have many different perspectives about the teenager's death, law enforcement's response and Ferguson as a whole. … We recognize that we don't know all the facts. We intend to listen to our students and ask open-ended questions so we can better understand their perspectives."
At Southwest High School, students staged a silent sit-in and "passed out related writing, essays, etc.," participant Isak Keller said in a text message.
Keller wrote that he and his fellow students "began silence at 9:16" and then walked out at 1:46.
"[That's] 4 and a half hours, for the time Mike Brown was left in the street."
During the walkout, "we marched around the neighborhood chanting with signs," Keller added. "We came back to the school and gathered, and students performed poetry and spoken word concerning the issue."
Later in the day, there are at least three other demonstrations planned in the Twin Cities in response to the Ferguson case: 3 p.m. at the University of Minnesota's Coffman Memorial Union, 4:30 p.m. near the same police precinct where the South High students gathered, and outside the State Capitol at a time yet to be announced.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482
