The Demonstrations on Ohio Occasioned by Ferguson Ruling

Ferguson Ruling Protest in Cincinnati

I literally stumbled upon this protest by chance while I was home in Cincinnati on Thanksgiving break. I am glad I did, though, because it was, far and away, the most passionate protest I have ever seen. The day after the Ferguson ruling was announced, protests were organized all across the nation. I had followed some of the protests on the news and noticed that they were, for the most part, in only major and large cities.

I was in downtown Cincinnati that day visiting former coworkers from my summer internship at The Cincinnati Enquirer. When I on my way home, I noticed picketers on an overpass nearby. I parked my car on a nearby street and walked over to the area where the protesters were congregated. It was already dark and fairly late in the evening, about 8 p.m., and the group grew in size by the minute. The ones I met were all young people, most were University of Cincinnati students. As the group grew, people of all ages, races and backgrounds began to join in.

The protesters I first saw shocked me—they were literally laying in the street, on an interstate overpass of all things, in protest. The idea behind this was to emulate how long Michael Brown had to lay in the street after he was killed. This made sense as it was explained to me and was a powerful image—of desperation, anger and shock—but I was also still fairly critical of this form of protest.

There was one close call that I saw, involving a car barely missing the protester on the street, because it was very dark and there was no notice farther up the road to get drivers’ attention before approaching the protesters in the street. After that close call, some protesters moved farther up the street and, eventually, stopped laying in the road altogether.

News media picked up on the protests quickly (I texted an Enquirer reporter who sent out a news alert about the protest), which seemed to have to double-edged sword effect on the protest. News media led an increase in coverage of the protest, including powerful photos and social media buzz. It’s possible that more people came to take part in the protest after heading about it on the news, but I didn’t meet anyone who told me that the news inspired them personally. However, as the news coverage picked up so did police activity.

The police never got physical or violent with the protesters that I saw. They blocked the street as they began marching and pointed them in a certain direction at one point as they walked (which I noticed was because of construction). I did see reports that 12 people were arrested, but I unfortunately did not see that happen. I read from a local news outlet that a protester attempting to block the street (I’m not sure if that was someone laying on the street or just kneeling in the street with their hands up, which also happened) was one of those arrested.

Many of the protesters wore masks. Most wore masks from the movie V for Vendetta, which we saw in class was a commonly used mask during the occupy movement. The movie is about anarchy and revolution, which makes some sense as to why it would be used in a protest setting.

The protesters carried signs that had statistics on them about the number of people killed by police and the high percentage that was black. They also carried signs with slogans like “Hands up, don’t shoot,” “Justice for Ferguson,” “Justice for Michael Brown,” “Stop Killer Cops,” etc. The chants were mostly “Hands up, Don’t Shoot,” and “We Want Justice.”

The protests lasted until late in the evening. I didn’t stay the entire time because I had already spent about $5 for a parking spot (and my Mom was really worried about me), but I felt like I got to see a “real” protest in person for the first time, and through a critical lens as someone who is more informed about political protests.

I felt that the diversity of this group was very interesting as well—people of all races and ages were in attendance voicing dissent. I am still very curious about the arrests of those few protesters, as everyone I met seemed rational, kind and non-threatening.