Ferguson Police Officer Fighting for His Life After Michael Brown Protest

AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File

A Ferguson police officer was seriously injured by an activist last Friday night and is still in the hospital with a brain injury.

Last Friday was the 10th Anniversary of Michael Brown's death so activists held a rally in which they marched from the high school he attended to the street where he was shot.

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Once they reached Canfield Drive people were chanting "Hands up, don't shoot" which, as I pointed out last week, is based on a false depiction of what happened 10 years ago.

But as often seems to happen with BLM marches, what started off peaceful march turned into "mostly peaceful" as the night wore on. A group of activists went to the police station and blocked the streets. Police posted a car to ensure no traffic would lead to an injury. Then the activists started shaking a security fence which had been erected outside the station.

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Initially, police decided not to respond to this, but once the activists had broken part of the fence an arrest team was sent outside to make arrests of those responsible. And that's where things took a very bad turn. One activist named Elijah Gantt who'd been seen breaking the fence tried running from police when he was told he was being arrested.

The officer then wrote that he watched body camera footage of the officers ordering Gantt to stop because he was being arrested, but Gantt walked away from the officers, who chased him.

Gantt ran behind a car, Amos wrote, and shortly after that he saw Brown attempt to block Gantt's path and arrest him.

"I then later observed the defendant run into (Brown) without stopping or attempting to change his direction, knocking (Brown) over, and causing (Brown) to strike his head on the ground," Amos wrote.

Gantt kicked two more police officers before he was finally arrested. In addition, four other people were arrested, one of whom was just appointed to a Civilian Oversight Board by the mayor.

Keith Rose of St. Louis was charged with first-degree property damage. St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones appointed Rose this year to the Civilian Oversight Board, which reviews complaints against St. Louis Police. 

One of the activists on the scene was quick to claim that the injured officer, Travis Brown, slipped and fell.

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The irony here is that the body cameras, which will prove that's not what happened, were instituted because Ferguson activists demanded them ten years ago.

Elijah Gannt has been charged with "first-degree assault, resisting arrest, first-degree property damage and two counts of fourth-degree assault." The photo on the left is apparently his mugshot. I have no idea what he's smiling about.

Other activists are raising money for Gantt with no mention of why he was arrested.

Saturday night, Ferguson's police chief Troy Doyle held a press conference to discuss the incident. He was visibly upset and at one point, tossed his notes aside and went off script. "What are we doing? Ten years later I've got an officer fighting for his life. It's enough and I'm done with it," he said.

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Here's a photo of Officer Travis Brown. Hopefully he will survive and recover.

It's almost too obvious to bother saying but the wave of anti-police sentiment which was whipped up by the Michael Brown case a decade ago isn't doing anyone any good at this point. As chief Doyle said, it's enough.

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