By Janell Ross and Wesley Lowery; The Washington Post:
Outside the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, where police shot and killed Alton Sterling, a crowd gathered Tuesday night to hold a vigil and protest the Justice Department’s decision not to charge the officer. They held signs and gave speeches. They prayed and cried.
It was a vastly different scene from the one that had played repeatedly on cable news after Sterling’s death last July, when activists blocked intersections, riot police arrived in armored vehicles and hundreds of people were arrested.
In recent years, policing has been among the nation’s most visible issues as people outraged by use of force and racial disparities in punishment took to the streets under the “Black Lives Matter” banner. But news related to controversial police encounters with black Americans has been met with relatively subdued responses in recent weeks.
A viral video showing police in a Michigan town pointing a gun at unarmed black boys. An officer in a Dallas suburb fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager. A plea deal for a onetime North Charleston, S.C., officer who shot a fleeing suspect in the back.
No massive protests. No nonstop news coverage.
“If they’re not here tonight, I think they’ll be here tomorrow,” said Rafael Bobb, 41, who was hanging out in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Mart on Wednesday, hopeful that it was just the weather deterring activists. “At the end of the day, somebody’s got to be held accountable.”
But activists say the movement’s efforts have entered a new phase — one more focused on policy than protest — prompted by the election of President Trump.
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