Pubdate: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) Copyright: 2001 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Contact: http://home.post-dispatch.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418 Author: Norm Parish, Denise Hollinshed Note: Jeremy Kohler of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report Reference: URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01.n1736.a08.html Reference: URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n248/a05.html BLACK LEADERS DENOUNCE DECISION Demonstration Is Held At Restaurant Many of the area's civil rights leaders and activists voiced displeasure Wednesday that federal criminal charges would not be filed against police officers who shot two black men last year at a Jack in the Box. But some said they were not surprised by the outcome. "How can you be surprised?" said the Rev. Earl Nance Jr., head of the St. Louis Clergy Coalition and education liaison to Mayor Francis Slay. "These kinds of cases happen all over the country." In the case here, two undercover detectives with the St. Louis County Police Department drug unit fatally shot the two men on June 12, 2000, in Berkeley. One man, Earl Murray, was a drug suspect. The second man, Ronald Beasley, was not suspected of any wrongdoing. The two unarmed men were shot as they tried to escape in a car, police said. Officers said they feared the men would run them over. But federal officials found that the men's car traveled only in reverse. "The car was in reverse and the officers were in front," Nance said. "Why didn't they just shoot the tires?" Slay had no comment on the Justice Department's report, said his spokesman Ed Rhode. Neither did St. Louis County Executive George R. "Buzz" Westfall. The Rev. Phillip Duvall, who heads the St. Louis County NAACP's police affairs committee, said there are too many unanswered questions. "We're going to have to put pressure now on the police department," Duvall said. "There's obviously something that they did wrong." Relatives of the two slain men were furious. VirgieAnn Murray, wife of Earl Murray, called the officers "licensed killers." "Why did they shoot them?" Murray asked. "They murdered them. They slaughtered them. That was unnecessary." The other victim's sister, June Beasley, was equally upset. "Regardless of which way the investigation would have turned out, the only thing that could have come out is that somebody could have woke me up from out of a bad dream," Beasley said. She declined to comment further. Earlier in the day, U.S. Attorney Ray Gruender met for an hour with about 10 civil rights and religious leaders. Three of the participants - Zaki Baruti, Sultan Muhammad and Anthony Shahid - were so displeased with the findings that they walked out. "This is a classic example of legalized lynching," Baruti said. Eric Vickers, who helped organize protests last year over the shootings, said, "Justice has not been served. "Now is a time for the community to get all the information. I think that we have to see all of the evidence to see if there was a justification for this shooting." Vickers was not at the meeting with Gruender. Baruti, co-chairman of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, gathered with about 15 members of his organization in the parking lot of the Jack in the Box later in the evening for a protest. He said his group would organize events to protest what he called "terrorism" by police officers. The group plans a motor caravan Oct. 22 to area locations where people have been killed by police. He likened some police officers to Ku Klux Klansmen and said, "As a black man, I would have to say to any black person who waves the patriotic flag ... it would be foolish in my estimation for black people to be talking about heading overseas to fight a war when we do not have social justice here. You have black men being shot dead in the street by people who are supposed to protect us." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth