Protests resume ahead of Ferguson anniversary

As the one year anniversary of the shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown approaches, a group of 500 protesters stood in front of the Ferguson Police Department on Saturday, chanting and dancing in the streets, reasserting their demands for justice.

In the year that has passed, the U.S. Department of Justice released a scathing report showing systematic abuse through bench warrants for minor offenses of the city's primarily African- American population. Since then the head of the Ferguson Police Department has been ousted and a replacement has been installed.

But Mel Moffitt, an activist with Lost Voices, explained that despite the work that's been done, there is still progress to be made. "We don't need them policing our community, we can do that ourselves, because every time they police our community, one of us ends up dying, and that's something we're flat-out tired of."

Protester Durand Hines told Xinhua that he was pleased with some of the progress made, but still has reservations. "They got some people off, and started putting some black people in, to make it equal ... but at the same time, we all gotta get past each other's skin color. It's about the character about a man, right?"

Three protesters purchased a four-foot-long roast pig, and put a police patch around its neck and a police hat on its head, then invited Missouri State Highway Patrol's Ronald Johnson, and Ferguson Police's Colonel Andre Anderson, the Interim Chief of Police to partake in eating the pig. Both officers declined, but soon after Colonel Anderson was later seen having corn-on-the-cob, having a friendly conversation with several protesters.

Shortly after midnight on Saturday, a person was shot in a parking lot on West Florissant Street. Police blocked off roads and secured the parking lot with crime scene tape.

Several events are planned to commemorate the tragedy in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, where Michael Brown lived and was killed by white police officer Darren Wilson during a confrontation on Aug. 9, 2014.

Brown's death stirred up a nationwide spate of protests -- some of which turned into riots -- and soul-searching, which has continued as one black suspect after another died controversially at the hands of police.

According to the conclusion about Ferguson of the U.S. Justice Department, the police, largely white, have for years systematically bullied and harassed the minority black citizens, using traffic stops and other arrests for minor violations to collect fines.

Anger still lingers on a year after Brown was killed, for neither a grand jury nor federal justice officials called for criminal charges against the police who shot him dead. Endite