ST. LOUIS — St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch vigorously defended his handling of the Ferguson police shooting during a law school lecture Friday at his alma mater, ignoring protesters who repeatedly disrupted his speech.
Minutes into the lecture at a Saint Louis University academic symposium on policing, an audience member wearing a judicial robe interrupted to accuse the elected prosecutor of misconduct for his office’s role in the grand jury process that failed to indict Darren Wilson for the August death of Michael Brown. Six other protesters then stood in the packed mock courtroom, chanting and holding signs with the names of other St. Louis-area police-shooting victims.
Campus police escorted several protesters from the room at the request of school President Fred Pestello. Meanwhile, McCulloch continued giving his speech as people in the crowd kept making comments, their voices often competing with his.
“I’m always amazed at those who profess that they’re exercising their rights to free speech but never allow anyone else to exercise that right,” McCulloch said in one of his first public appearances since a county grand jury declined in November to indict Wilson, a white officer who has since resigned from the Ferguson police force, in the death of Brown, 18, who was black and unarmed.
