Via Campus Reform:
A Black Lives Matter rally Monday at Indiana University resulted in property damage as student protesters turned their ire on motorists while blocking traffic.
According to The Herald-Times, the demonstration by the Black Student Union (BSU) and Students Against State Violence (SASV) student groups was held in response to the Bloomington Police Department’s investigation into the death of Joseph Smedley, a 20 year-old former IU student who went missing in October 2015, and whose body was later found nearby at Griffy Lake.
Though the Bloomington Police Department and the Indiana University campus police suspected no foul play and the coroner ruled Smedley’s death a suicide by drowning, many students complain that they are not satisfied with the extent of the investigation.
At the rally, members of multiple student groups, including SASV and the BSU, spoke on institutionalized racism and police brutality in the black community.
SASV describes itself as “an anti-capitalist student group…building a movement against poverty and the systems that cause it: white supremacy, gender violence, deportation, militarism, policing, and the prison system,” while the BSU states that its mission is “to improve quality of life for Black students” by “raising awareness of these interests through educational and social programs.”