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Puzzling number of Black men tied to Ferguson protests are dead

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News sources have started to notice that an alarming number of the Black men that were involved in the unrest that shook the Missouri city of Ferguson after the death of Michael Brown several years ago have died. It’s been suggested that something ominous is at play with the deaths of six men connected to the protests. Two were found dead inside torched cars, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Three more allegedly died from suicide and another man collapsed on a bus after a reported overdose. Social media especially has been abuzz with suggestions that something is amiss. Police claim the deaths are unrelated to the protests and only two were actually considered homicides. However, there are some activists that say there may be a possible connection, even though it’s been more than four years since protests erupted in Ferguson. Indeed, the city is on edge.

The Rev. Darryl Gray said he found a box inside his car. When the bomb squad arrived, no explosives were found, but a 6-foot python was inside. “Everybody is on pins and needles,” Gray said of his fellow activists. No arrests have been made in the two homicides. St. Louis County police spokesman Shawn McGuire said witnesses have simply refused to come forward, leaving detectives with no answers for why the men were targeted.

“We don’t believe either one was connected to each other,” McGuire said, adding, “It’s tough to come up with a motive without a suspect.” Deandre Joshua’s body was found inside a burned car blocks from the protest. The 20-year-old was shot in the head before the car was torched. Darren Seals, shown on video comforting Brown’s mother that same night, met an almost identical fate two years later. The 29-year-old’s bullet-riddled body was found inside a burning car in September 2016. Four others have also died, three of them ruled suicides. MarShawn McCarrel of Columbus, Ohio, shot himself in February 2016 outside the front door of the Ohio Statehouse, police said. He had been active in Ferguson.

Edward Crawford Jr., 27, fatally shot himself in May 2017 after telling acquaintances he had been distraught over personal issues, police said. A photo of Crawford firing a tear gas canister back at police during a Ferguson protest was part of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage. In October, 24-year-old Danye Jones was found hanging from a tree in the yard of his north St. Louis County home. His mother, Melissa McKinnies, was active in Ferguson and posted on Facebook after her son’s death, “They lynched my baby.” The death was ruled a suicide.

Bassem Masri, a 31-year-old Palestinian American who frequently live streamed video of Ferguson demonstrations, was found unresponsive on a bus in November and couldn’t be revived. Toxicology results released in February showed he died of an overdose of fentanyl. The Ferguson protests added momentum to the national Black Lives Matter movement, but they also generated resentment from people angered by TV footage of protesters hurling rocks and insults at police.

Amid lingering anger, activists and observers say that while they see no clear connection between the deaths and the protests, they can’t help but wonder about the thoroughness of the investigations. “These protesters and their deaths may not be a high priority for (police) since there is this antagonistic relationship,” Washington University sociologist Odis Johnson told the Chicago Tribune.

“I think there is a need for them to have a greater sense of urgency.” Activists say that in the years since the protests, they have been targeted in dangerous ways. “Something is happening,” said Cori Bush, a frequent leader of the Ferguson protests. “I’ve been vocal about the things that I’ve experienced and still experience — the harassment, the intimidation, the death threats, the death attempts.” Bush said her car has been run off the road, her home has been vandalized, and in 2014 someone shot a bullet into her car, narrowly missing her daughter, who was 13 at the time. She suspects White supremacists or police sympathizers. Living under constant threat is exhausting, she said, but she won’t give in. “They shut us up and they win,” Bush said.

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