No arrests were made as protesters disrupted the first day of the Spring 2015 session in the Missouri Legislature. Banners were unfurled as demonstrators chanted now ubiquitous phrases like, “hands up, don’t shoot,” and “black lives matter.”
It was left to Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder, who was presiding over the chamber at the time, to suspend proceedings while police cleared the galleries. The Senate returned to business as usual within the hour, but the visitors’ section was kept clear for the remainder of the session.
Protest leaders like Kayla Reed expressed the hope that the legislature takes what they did seriously, proclaiming that they were “just getting started.”
The reality is that everyone should be taking what they did seriously. Just as rioters and looters stripped any possible legitimate message from “peaceful” protesters in Ferguson within days of the shooting, demonstrators who disrupted procedures at the capitol today accomplished only two things.
First, they ensured that any legislator who would have given them the time of day or a friendly ear will now think twice before doing so, because their first resort was to crash an official session and make the jobs of all Missouri legislators more difficult.
And second, because their actions resulted in the galleries being cleared and then restricted to all visitors, they ensured that no peaceful citizens who wanted to attend today’s session for any reason would be allowed to do so. They effectively killed the democratic process for every citizen in the state of Missouri.
