ABSTRACT
On 9 August 2014, Darren Wilson, a uniformed and on-duty white police officer, fired 10 shots from his service weapon in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St Louis. At least six of the bullets fired by Wilson hit their intended target, Michael Brown, an unarmed black youth who died on the scene (United States [US] Department of Justice 2015). In the weeks and months that followed, the residents of Ferguson – a majority black city where nearly all city officials are white (Robertson 2015) – expressed their longstanding concerns regarding the racialized enforcement strategies of the local police. 1 Vigils and protests were held nationwide; meanwhile, in Ferguson, peaceful demonstrations led to some violent clashes and moments of unrest, which were described by some as ‘riots’ (Bucktin 2014, Thompson 2014) and ‘uprisings’ (Howard and Lang 2014, Maupin 2014).
