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Anger At Police, IU, Prisons, Other Institutions Voiced at Black Lives Matter Rally

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AUDIO LINK: https://wfhb.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/20161011blmFEATURE.mp3

More than an hour before hundreds of people would march through downtown, and hold a more than 20-minute demonstration in the street in front of the Bloomington police station, Liz Mitchell and several others stood in a parking lot fastening pieces of paper to black and white balloons. On each of the dozens of pieces of paper was a name.

“We have names of people who have died at the hands of police,” Mitchell said. “It’s just our way of saying black lives matter. People want to say all lives matter. Well, if black lives mattered, we wouldn’t be doing this. If you look at history, people of color, their lives don’t matter. ”

As Mitchell’s group finished inflating the balloons, a crowd gathered a few yards away at Indiana University’s Sample Gates. IU sophomore Isaac Paintsil was one of many people who stood talking in small groups before the demonstration began.

“I’m here just to rally the cause, bring awareness to the situation, the injustices that are going on, especially here at a predominantly white institution,” Paintsil said.

Another demonstrator, Iuri Santos, said he has lived in Bloomington for 20 years. He is African-Brazilian, and he says the issues addressed by Black Lives Matter are relevant in Bloomington — where he says he regularly hears of racist incidents — but also elsewhere around the world.

“In Brazil as well we have a Black Lives Matter movement that’s fighting because they’re doing kind of the same thing in the slums…the police,” Santos said. “I think it matters in a lot of parts of the world where African people…are being repressed for many, many years.”

The event last night was advertised as a Black Lives Matter rally organized by a group called Students Against State Violence. Shortly after 6:30PM, organizers began by reading names of black Americans killed by police in recent months:

Thirteen-year-old Tyre King, who was shot multiple times by an officer in Columbus, Ohio last month. 40-year-old Terrence Crutcher, shot and killed by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Keith Lamont-Scott, killed in Charlotte, North Carolina. Korryn Gaines, killed in Baltimore. Alfred Olango, killed in El Cajon, California.

An organizer with Students Against State Violence told the group the list was not complete.

“It’s very important to not only focus on male, cisgender or innocent victims of police violence,” the organizer said. “It is also necessary for us to do research about the names of black women and trans people who have suffered at the hands of the police and other forms of state violence, and to defend those who the media and politicians portray as undeserving of sympathy or defense.“

Several speakers took to the microphone to address the crowd. Yassmin Fashir is an IU student.

“I go to class every single morning knowing that this institution was not made for me,” Fashir said. “Every single institution in the United States of America is meant to bend the black body for the white people to stand on top of us…We act like racism is our problem. We act like it’s our fault, like white people didn’t stand on top of us to make themselves stand taller. And when we understand what happens in America, we are enraged all the time.”

The president of the Black Student Union, Kealia Hollingsworth, also spoke to the crowd. Hollingsworth says black students at IU often immerse themselves in the campus’s black community. She mentioned spaces like the Neal Marshall Black Cultural Center and Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. But she says the university at large doesn’t do well at dealing with issues like social justice and inclusion.

“The university does not do enough to address or encourage these conversations on campus,” Hollingsworth said. “Whenever IUPD is still racially profiling, professors and students are afraid to talk about race, and people of color are not treated with the same respect and care that we deserve, the work of the institution and all of its students is not done.”

After comments from Hollingsworth and several other speakers, including representatives from a Black Lives Matter group from Indianapolis and prisoners who spoke by phone from Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, organizers detailed plans to march. Nick Greven, with Students Against State Violence, spoke to the group.

“This is an unpermitted march,” Greven told the demonstrators. “We’re going to be marching in the street, so just be aware of the risks involved with that.”

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Around 7:30PM hundreds of people moved into the street, proceeding west up Kirkwood Avenue until they met College Street and turned left. Several cars were delayed a few minutes as the crowd passed by, though there were no major disputes with drivers along the route. Some onlookers joined in the march and others took cell phone camera footage.

The marchers eventually moved east on Third Street until they reached the corner of Lincoln and Third, right in front of the Bloomington Police Station.
Demonstrators formed lines around the entire intersection, effectively blocking traffic, including one city bus. Most vehicles opted to turn around after a few minutes, although a few drivers did shout at the protesters. A few different times, drivers tried to maneuver around the crowd, only to find themselves blocked again by demonstrators.

In one instance, the driver of an SUV tried to plow through the crowd, then stopped after a few yards.

Although other media reports suggested protesters somehow damaged the vehicle involved in that incident, WFHB did not witness any damage and no witnesses we talked with did either. Most media reports have focused largely on that incident, which took place in a few brief moments and was not even seen by many of the protesters.

One of the stated reasons for stopping in front of the police station was to draw attention to the case of Joseph Smedley, an IU student who disappeared last year and was later found dead in Griffy Lake. His death was ruled a suicide but many local residents have joined members of Smedley’s family in questioning the police investigation into the incident. Andrea Sterling addressed the crowd, saying that Bloomington Police have not provided Vivian Smedley with information about her brother’s death, which many don’t believe was caused by suicide.

“Details have changed,” Sterling said. “At one point (Joseph Smedley’s) bookbag had rocks in it to weigh him down – (then) suddenly his bookbag had nothing in it. They hadn’t let out the detail that he had bruises on his back. (Vivian Smedley) had to find that out herself.

“So when we talk about what we can do for black people, one of the things we can do is put pressure on the Bloomington Police Department to get that information to Vivian,” Sterling continued. “She is the legal next of kin, but they are not giving her necessary documents.”

The group held the intersection at Lincoln and Third for more than 20 minutes before continuing the march down Third Street and then to the intersection of Indiana and Kirkwood avenues, where speeches continued until shortly after 8:30PM.

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