Prominent Ferguson Protester Darren Seals Shot Dead

By teleSUR

07 September 16

An aspiring hip-hop artist, Seals formed part of the Bottom Boyz Movement and was a vocal critic of white supremacy and police brutality in the United States.

rominent Ferguson activist Darren Seals, 29, was found shot dead inside a burning car Tuesday in St. Louis Country. He was found at 1:50 a.m. local time and suffered a gunshot wound before his vehicle was set on fire, according to police, who say they're investigating the shooting as an homicide.

Seals was close to the scene when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson on Aug. 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson—a white police officer—and became active in the protests that followed.

After prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced on Nov 24. 2014 that Wilson would not be indicted following the shooting of Brown, Seals told MTV how he held Mike Brown’s distraught mother in his arms.

“For Mike Brown’s mother to be right there in my arms crying—she literally cried in my arms—it was like I felt her soul crying. It’s a different type of crying. I’ve seen people crying, but she was really hurt. And it hurt me. It hurt all of us.”

The killing of Brown provoked weeks of protests in Ferguson, which continued following the decision not to indict Wilson.

“I don’t recall anyone having a longer protest, a more productive protest, a more creative protest than what we did. I don’t think people will ever really appreciate what we did until years from now. We really did the best we could,” Seals told MTV in the same interview.

An aspiring hip-hop artist, Seals formed part of the Bottom Boyz Movement and was a vocal critic on social media of white supremacy and police brutality in the United States.

On his Twitter account, he described himself as “Revolutionary, Unapologetically BLACK, Afrikan in AmeriKKKa, Fighter, Leader.”

Social media has responded with messages of support for Seals’ family while also questioning the nature of the shooting.

Author, activist and documentary producer Tariq Nasheed tweeted a conversation between himself and Seals in which he warned the Ferguson activist of “certain people” he “suspected of being agents.”

Other Twitter users point to a tweet by Seals himself, when he said “10 detectives pulled me over” and “told me ‘choose your enemies wisely.’”

No arrests have been made.