Streets in St Louis – and everywhere – belong to us. Not brutal cops | Steven W Thrasher

America has been rocked by countless protests over the past few years. One chant that has been heard from activists time and time again is: “Whose streets? Our streets!” That’s why it was so jarring when, this week, police in St Louis marched the streets shouting the line as they broke up a legitimate protest and arrested 80 people, including a journalist covering the events.

Sadly, St Louis isn’t the only place plagued by a high-profile police killing this week. A student was killed by campus police in Georgia, and a deaf Hispanic man was killed by police in Oklahoma (despite calls that “he can’t hear”). Still, St Louis has, once again, emerged as the place where the national crisis of American police violence against black people has come into the clearest focus.

Every night over the past week, hundreds of people have taken to the streets and malls around St Louis County. They were provoked by the outrageous acquittal of a police officer – Jason Stockley – in the death of Anthony Lamar Smith, a black man who was killed in 2011.

Stockley was recorded on dashcam footage saying he was “going to kill this motherfucker”, was carrying his personal AK-47 with him at the time of the shooting, and was accused of planting a gun on the late Smith (which only had his DNA on it, not Smith’s). Stockley was still found not guilty.

And when brave protesters expressed their understandable, righteous and constitutionally protected anger, police responded with teargas, mass arrest and intimidation.

These injustices, and their shameful response by law enforcement, are why protesters are still taking to the streets three years after Mike Brown’s killing by police in Ferguson – the death that amped up the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, after it was initially formed in response to Trayvon Martin’s killing in 2012.

Because police officers still kill black people with impunity.

Because law has failed to hold police officers who kill black people accountable.

And because, two years after it was announced, none of the recommendations of the Ferguson Commission Report – the widely heralded report co-authored by academics, Black Lives Matter activists and even the head of the Missouri police officer’s union – are being enacted.

The commission’s major calls for reform (to “Update Use of Force Statute for Fleeing Suspects”, “Establish Use of Force Database”, and “Revise Use of Force Policies and Training for St Louis police”) are just sitting on paper. And the commission’s call to “Prioritize De-Escalation and Tactical Withdrawal” was certainly not evident on Wednesday evening.

I witnessed St Louis police mobilize about one officer in riot gear for every peaceful protester (including children). As they threatened all of them with helicopters and teargas and batons and guns in hand, they were not prioritizing de-escalation and tactical withdrawal.

Still, the protesters defiantly declared: “Whose streets? Our streets!” Good for them. When the courts and the legislature and the mayor and the governor and two presidents from both major parties have all failed to address this crisis and have ignored the recommendations of a commission many of them hailed – agitating in the streets is the only way to move forward.

Whose streets, indeed?

When the police have to declare a constitutionally protected gathering an “unlawful assembly” and threaten children with teargas, the truth about “whose streets” they are becomes clear.

The streets of St Louis, like all the streets of the United States, belong not to fascist cops, but to us: the journalists, activists, citizens and marchers who comprise “we the people” and who are fighting for a more perfect union.