Silence, march in Ferguson on police shooting anniversary

Several hundred demonstrators stood in silence at the spot where an unarmed black teen was shot dead by a white police officer one year ago, once again shining the spotlight on America's troubled race relations.
Two white doves were released over the crowd that gathered to mark the anniversary of 18-year-old Michael Brown's death in a fateful encounter on August 9, 2014 with officer Darren Wilson.
The crowd, about 300 strong, observed four and a half minutes of silence - one minute for each of the four and a half hours that Brown's body lay face down in the street before being taken away.

The killing in Ferguson, Missouri - a suburb of St Louis - set off a summer of protests and intense scrutiny of heavy- handed police tactics in a series of cases that ended in the deaths of unarmed blacks.
Yet another high-profile shooting occurred Friday, when a Texas police officer fatally shot 19-year-old unarmed college football player Christian Taylor after he drove his vehicle through the front of a car dealership.
Many in the crowd in Ferguson wore T-shirts emblazoned with Brown's portrait and the word "Choose Change." Others carried signs, including one that read: "STOP killing black children."

They then set off in a silent march through Ferguson to the Greater St Mark's Church, which served as a sanctuary during the protests that followed Brown's death.

Brown's father, also called Michael, said he was grateful so many people had turned out for the march.
"If it wasn't for y'all this would be swept under the carpet. So I just want to give my love out to y'all," he said to the crowd.
In New York, dozens of people gathered at Union Square to hold a vigil for Brown in solidarity with protesters in Ferguson and to call for ongoing demonstrations against police killings of minorities.
About 100 people gathered in Brooklyn earlier, staging a symbolic "die-in" to protest Brown's shooting, an AFP photographer said. Police arrested several people.

One year on, black leaders say they have witnessed a dramatic change in American attitudes toward race, but see little action by lawmakers to enact reforms in policing.
The head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the country's oldest civil rights group, called the pace of legislative change "glacial."
"In terms of legislative action, 40 legislators have taken up some measure of holding police departments accountable but only a tiny fraction of which actually moved towards holding police departments accountable," said NAACP president Cornell William Brooks in an interview with CBS's Face the Nation.