Mayor Krewson's thoughts on the upcoming Stockley verdict.

Transcript:  

Good Morning…. I’d like to visit with you for a minute about the
pending Stockley case.

The newscasts, newspapers, blogs, and social media are filled with
speculation about when and what the verdict will be in the Stockley
case.

I don’t know that. I don’t know the verdict and I don’t know when it will
come. But I do know that there’s a lot of anxiety and worry in our
community as we wait for that decision.

We stand, again, on edge — awaiting a legal decision that will have a
major impact on the lives of many. People who are our neighbors, our
sons, our dads and our friends. We’re are on edge because we have
watched, in this country and in our region, that legal decisions can
and do result in families and sometimes entire communities being left
without a sense of justice. That can and has resulted in protests and
demonstrations.

Regardless of the outcome in this case, we have piles of data, stacks
of reports, and stories from our friends and neighbors that tell us that
St. Louis is in need of healing. The worry and anxiety we are feeling
today is not without cause, and it did not start with Ferguson. It has its
roots in the story of our country. I hope we will all learn more about
the laws and policies that closed the doors for some, while leaving
them open for others.

We now live in a time where the tensions caused by those laws and
those policies affect us all in our daily lives. It affects us in different
ways, but we must all recognize and address the history that is
present at our feet.

It is our choice now to continue to yell past each other and keep our
minds closed or to consider how we might acknowledge what we've
inherited and what we perpetuate and how we might learn about it,
and how to choose a different way forward.

These are our neighbors, our fellow citizens, our co-workers. Without
all of us working to acknowledge and understand this history -- how

we hurt, how we heal and how we help each other -- we won’t grow
as individuals, as a community, as a city, or as a region.

So as we await this legal decision, please don’t let the anxiety, the
worry, and the pain determine how we treat each other. Try to
understand the reactions of others. Be open to what we don't
understand in others' reactions. Ask ourselves how we might feel if it
were our son, daughter, mother, father, or friend at the center of this
legal decision. Ask ourselves if we can turn this anxiety and distrust
into something constructive.

I am asking what can I do? What can I learn? I hope you will join me.
Thank you for listening. My thoughts are with each and every St.
Louisan today.