On Saturday, Dec. 20, the usual holiday hustle at the Beavercreek Walmart was disrupted as nearly 200 protesters and activists took to the aisles to demand justice for the late John Crawford III, a 22-year old black man shot and killed by the local police department earlier this year.
 

The crowd first amassed in the pet department of the store, marking the spot where Crawford died. Once enough people gathered in the confined aisles, thus congesting the flow of shopping, Walmart management demanded all shoppers and protestors alike evacuate the store. For nearly two hours, all commerce came to a halt.  The protesters remained.

That’s when the demonstration kicked into high gear.

“We're here to make a statement, to question and combat a system that is in fact not broken, but operating exactly as designed,” said Julius Eason, one of the protestors. “In regards to injustice toward black people and other people of color in this country: it's exhausting us, it's killing us, and we're sick of it.”

Protesters began chanting slogans like “Justice for John! Did you hear what we said? Young John Crawford should not be dead!” and “Black lives matter!” Soon, people were singing somber songs—with a trombone carrying the melody—paying tribute to the many unarmed black men killed by police in recent years.

Following the chants and songs, black protesters moved their way through the crowd to lie down and feign death for 3.6 minutes in the aisle where Crawford was shot—representative of the .36 seconds it took for the police officers to shoot Crawford dead once he was located in the store. White allies stood by in solidarity.

The crowd moved to the front of the store after the die-in. Chants such as “Hands up, don’t shoot!” “No justice, no peace!” and “Shut it down!” filled the air. Police officers from nearly every surrounding county and ordinance arrived on the scene and began corralling the crowd.

Four people were arrested in the following hour, one of whom was a 56-year old woman. Two of those arrested sat in front of the Walmart and refused to move when police attempted to assert control over the crowd. The charges filed on the arrested protesters are unknown at this time.

Some shoppers who were asked to evacuate the store at the beginning of the protest remained in the parking lot and looked on as the protest continued in front of the locked doors. A few heckled and shouted condemnations at the protesters, complaining about the inconvenience about not being able to continue their holiday shopping.

“People were yelling at us because they couldn’t buy their Power Rangers, Barbies or flat screens for just a short while,” said David Ross, one of the more outspoken protesters. “When you care more about buying someone a gift instead of someone’s life, then you know there’s a problem.”

Despite the shopper complaints, Ross said he believed the protest to be widely successful.

“We were able to close down Walmart for about two hours, which is very much in line with our goal,” he said. “Justice has still not been served for John Crawford or his family, so today, we hit them where it hurts: their pockets.”

As more and more police officers continued to arrive in front of Walmart, organizers of the protest advised the demonstrators to disperse—the event was over shortly thereafter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

John Crawford III was killed on August 5 for carrying a BB/pellet rifle he had picked up on the shelves of Walmart. The Beavercreek Police Department responded to call from a concerned shopper who alleged that Crawford was “waving the gun around” and “pointing it at children.” The subsequently released video surveillance tapes show otherwise—Crawford was idly strolling through the aisles with the pellet gun resting on his arm, and not a single customer in his proximity seemed to be bothered.

The shopper has since recanted the words he used in the initial 911 call, saying that at no point did Crawford “shoulder the rifle and point it at somebody.”

In the aftermath of the shooting, a grand jury did not indict any officer involved in Crawford’s death. Presently, Crawford’s family is in the midst of a wrongful death lawsuit against the Beavercreek Walmart and Beavercreek Police.

Those upset by Crawford’s death have condemned the shooting as being racially motivated, and a part of a larger institutional disparity in how the United States’ justice system deals with citizens of color.