A year after riots erupted over a decision not to charge Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, a crowd gathered at a St. Louis church last night night to look at whether changes spurred by the unrest were underway, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. At a “public accountability meeting,” hundreds of people heard a discussion of calls to action issued in the months after the August 2014 Brown shooting and the unrest that followed the shooting and the announcement Nov. 24 that Wilson would not face charges. Among the action cited by officials was a review of Missouri's laws on the use of deadly force and a plans to expand a youth jobs program.
The Rev. Starsky Wilson said much of the last year had been spent looking back. “We have quite a year ahead,” said Wilson, a co-chairman of the Ferguson Commission set up by Gov. Jay Nixon to address social and economic conditions highlighted by months of protests surrounding the Brown killing and to develop recommendations on how to improve them. The commission submitted a 198-page report to Nixon and is scheduled to meet through the end of the year to start carrying out some of the 189 “calls to action” it has adopted. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay cited a long list of reforms in the city, such as the expansion of a youth job program and plans for a pilot program for police body cameras. He promised to push to give the police oversight board subpoena power and more independence.