Roughing-up reported at St. Louis march

ST. LOUIS — Several people have claimed that they were roughly arrested by St. Louis police last weekend even though they were not participating in protests over the acquittal of a white former officer in the killing of a black suspect.

Protests continued Saturday, when several people were arrested at the upscale Galleria mall where more than 200 demonstrators marched and chanted among shoppers. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that officers briefly cleared the mall after some marchers became unruly.

Last Sunday, 120 people were arrested — most for failing to disperse — about two hours after vandals broke some windows and threw objects at officers. The officers used a tactic called “kettling” that boxed in demonstrators and others in the area.

Police said people were arrested only if they didn’t follow orders to disperse, but some people said they had nowhere to go because police had boxed them in.

One of those people was an undercover police officer who was mistaken for a suspect who was carrying chemicals that could be sprayed on officers, the Post-Dispatch reported. When the man refused to show his hands, he was knocked down and hit several times while his hands were tied behind his back, and his mouth was bloodied, the newspaper reported.

On Friday, Mayor Lyda Krewson asked the director of public safety to investigate how the officer was treated.