Dr. Cornel West and Other #BlackLivesMatter Activists Arrested in Missouri

Mass arrests in Ferguson and St. Louis this afternoon.

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To mark the first anniversary of Michael Brown's death at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo., hundreds of protesters in Ferguson and St. Louis, Missouri, have taken to the streets, chanting renewed calls for police reform and civil rights enforcement. This afternoon, police handcuffed Dr. Cornel West in Ferguson, Deray McKesson and Johnetta Elzie in St. Louis, and other prominent #BlackLivesMatter activists at today's demonstrations.

Observers have shared footage of these arrests via Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and Periscope. In the first clip below, protestors at the scene of McKesson's arrest can be heard chanting the chorus of rapper Kendrick Lamar's song "Alright."

We will update this story with developments as more information is available. For now, we note that McKesson and Elzie both stopped tweeting from the protests half an hour ago, when reports of their arrest initially surfaced.

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