WASHINGTON:
Hundreds of US teens walked out of school and thronged a protest at Wisconsin’s state Capitol after a police officer shot and killed a 19-year-old black youth who allegedly assaulted him.
A banner reading “Black Lives Matter” was slung over a railing in the heart of the legislative building, while students marched on the streets outside chanting “this is what democracy looks like!” according to images posted on Twitter using the hashtag #Justice4Tony.
“Again, young people give me so much hope. Seeing such huge numbers turn out to demand #Justice4Tony was incredible,” said Twitter user @jagerschnitzels.
A member of slain teen Tony Robinson’s multiracial family said that while Americans may have equal rights in theory, practice is something else.
“I encourage everybody to show support regardless of race because this is truly a universal issue… We don’t want to stop at just ‘black lives matter,’ because all lives matter,” Robinson’s uncle Turin Carter told reporters.
Officer Matt Kenny shot Robinson on Friday, the latest in a series of police shootings of unarmed black men that have triggered nationwide protests.
Robinson’s death “highlights a universal problem with law enforcement and how its procedures have been carried out, specifically in regards to the systematic targeting of young black males,” his uncle said.
“Tony’s racial ambiguity reinforces the fact that America’s racial lines are completely, 100-percent blurred… My sister is a white mother of black children who had black and white relatives.”
Police Chief Mike Koval said that Kenny was responding to a report of a battery and had forced his way into an apartment after hearing a disturbance inside.
The officer then administered CPR, and the wounded youth was taken to a hospital where he died. He said an initial search found no gun or other weapon at the scene.
Koval later told CBS television the boy was shot “multiple times.”
The shooting comes just days after the US Justice Department said it would not prosecute the white policeman who shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, whose death sparked riots and outrage.
But the report did find that the St Louis suburb’s local police force had systematically targeted African Americans.
