Protest leaders in Ferguson and New York and around the US are still feeling deep outrage and sadness a week after the news came from New York City that no criminal charges would be brought against Daniel Pantaleo, the white police officer who choked a black man named Eric Garner to death while arresting him in July. That news came just 10 days after the Ferguson grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown, who was unarmed, on 9 August.
I was in Ferguson when the news came about New York, because Sojourners, the social justice ministry I lead, had convened a retreat there for national Christian leaders and local pastors of all racial backgrounds to look deeply at the foundations of the Ferguson events and reflect upon how the Church must respond. Some of us began to weep – one young man wailing, "This time it was all on video … and it still didn't matter! How can I as a black man bring a black son into this world?" Lament and prayers followed with a resolve to act to reform our broken criminal justice system.