Parents Mary Otis, Darren Seals | ||
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Died 6 September 2016, Riverview, St. Ferdinand Township, Missouri, United States Similar DeRay Mckesson, Johnetta Elzie, Tariq Nasheed | ||
Darren Seals (May 15, 1987 – September 6, 2016) was an American racial justice, anti-police brutality, and anti-gun violence activist from St.Louis Missouri,often worked his activism in the city of Ferguson. who worked on the assembly line at General Motors. In September 2016, he was found shot dead in a burning car. St. Louis County Police are investigating his death as a homicide; they have not publicly identified suspects or motives.
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Ferguson activist darren seals found d3ad in burning vehicle
Early life
Seals grew up in Ferguson, Missouri, a few blocks from the apartment complex where police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. Seals had known the Brown family since childhood.
Activism
Seals was active in Ferguson, Missouri, protests in the wake of the police shootings of Brown and Cary Ball Jr., with his commentary appearing in media outlets, per CNN, "as he continued to be outspoken about racial issues after the Brown protests subsided." He co-founded Hands Up United, and The Washington Post described him as "among St. Louis’s most prominent anti-police brutality activists."
Seals had survived a shooting in 2013, and attributed his commitment to anti-gun violence activism to that experience.
In 2014, he joined the Fannie Lou Hamer Coalition and helped rally a movement to vote against the Democratic candidate for St. Louis county executive, by backing white Republican candidate Rick Stream. The move in the highly Democratic African American community was an attempt, as The Washington Post described it, to "demonstrate that their votes should not be taken for granted." He was an integral part of this effort. His leadership connected the community and politicians to move 22,000 Democratic votes to the Republican candidate.
After voting for Barack Obama, Seals became a critic of what he saw as the President's insufficient action on many issues including police violence and racial profiling.
Seals was a rapper in St. Louis group D.O.A.; in their song "Born Targets", Seals criticized police response to the Ferguson demonstrations.
Seals was known as "King D Seals" on social media, and referred to himself as a “Businessman, Revolutionary, Activist, Unapologetically BLACK, Afrikan in AmeriKKKa, Fighter, Leader".
Death
Seals was killed on September 6, 2016, in Riverview, a northern suburb of St. Louis. A homicide investigation revealed he was shot before he was placed in a car, which was later set on fire.
Media outlets noted "the resemblance of Seals' death to the unsolved killing of Deandre Joshua," another Ferguson resident who was also found shot in a burning car two years earlier, on the night of the announcement a grand jury had not indicted Wilson in Brown's death. Police report that while Joshua's case is still open and active, Seals' death has not been linked to it, but nor has a link been ruled out. The Daily Beast found four more cases of similar deaths in St. Louis County in the last two years.