Last night downtown Wilmington heard the echo of the chant, “No Justice. No Peace. No racist police.”
It was part of the Black Lives Matter protests that have been held around the country in the wake of the two police shootings of two black men last week.
The Wilmington News Journal reports that there were not only African Americans in the protest but also infants as well as the elderly as well as Christians, Muslims and Jews.
The paper reports that Reverend Donald Morton, executive director of Complexities of Color, told the crowd that they were asking police who know that some shootings are bad to “get a backbone.”
Morton praised the new set of recruits from the Wilmington Police Academy for being the most diverse that he has seen.
But he added that more black officers need to be recruited for the Wilmington Police Department.
The community has been rocked by the shooting death of Jeremy McDole who was killed in a confrontation with police while sitting in a wheelchair.
Police say he had a weapon and appeared to be reaching for it when police fired their weapons.
