Posters bearing the phrases “I am unarmed” and “Stop killing our black young men” dotted the Glenn Terrell Mall this weekend as more than 100 students, faculty and community members stood together to raise awareness about the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

WSU senior Drew Smith said after hearing of the shooting, she knew she wanted to do something in response – she just didn’t know what.

Smith came up with the idea for a rally and spread it through word of mouth and a Cougs4Ferguson hashtag.

“Ferguson … ignited something in me that was always there, but I just never had the push to do something,” Smith said.

The event, hosted by WSU student art group Revolutionary Minds, began at 5 p.m. on Friday with a poster rally and concluded with a number of speeches on the steps of Todd Hall. The rally included speakers, poetry and a song performed by two members of the gospel group God’s Harmony.

Among the speakers were ASWSU Vice President LaKecia Farmer; former WSU professor David Warner; Marc Robinson, the director of WSU’s Culture and Heritage Houses; and student members of Revolutionary Minds, God’s Harmony, the Black Student Union (BSU) and Diversity Education.

Warner, whose own assault in March 2013 raised concerns about racial tension on campus, recounted the story of his ongoing recovery.

Farmer said she attended the rally for two reasons: to listen to the community as a representative of ASWSU, and because she is personally invested in the matter.

She cited the overrepresentation of people of color in U.S. prisons. She also provided a personal account of a situation at a grocery store in which her father and uncle were detained after a woman called police because she had seen a wanted sign in the store depicting two older, black males.

“This is what happens every single day, and I see some of you nodding because you all know, or you’ve seen first-hand things, when it comes to everything from discrimination to police brutality,” she said.

Robinson emphasized in his speech the American right to criticize the institution.

“It’s not about hating the cops,” he said. “We can criticize America without being anti-American.”

BSU social events coordinator Che’vaniece Marshall recited her own, untitled poem.

“What do we do when the criminal answers the line, when our distress calls are answered by the opponent who can only dispatch the enemy?” Marshall asked.

After the rally, Marshall said the poem was first inspired by a positive interaction she had with a police officer at her workplace. She said the events in Ferguson prompted her to take the poem in a different direction.

“I don’t think police are the enemy,” she said. “I think the enemy comes when there’s too much power.”

Marshall said having citizens more involved in policing within their communities and holding themselves to a higher standard are good ways to prevent police from gaining too much power.

Four police officers attended the rally without uniforms, and Smith thanked them for their time and service at the conclusion of the event.

“Because of the topic matter … the group that’s putting the rally on got together with the police department and felt that it would be a good idea to have not necessarily a uniformed officer presence, but some eyes and ears out,” WSU Police Sgt. Monte Griffin said. “That way we could watch and make sure things are, you know, of a civil manner.”

Griffin also commented on the new witness accounts that have emerged since the shooting.

“In any police investigation, you start out with a set of facts, and you don’t always end with the same conclusion,” he said, adding that witness accounts can be expected to change, not due to any dishonesty, but because people might remember events more clearly later on.

“In any investigation, especially one as volatile and shocking as this is, things are going to change on both sides,” he said.

The second autopsy, commissioned by the Brown family, concluded that Michael was shot at least six times and all bullets were fired into the front of his body. This appears to contradict statements made by Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown at the time of the shooting and said a bullet struck his companion in the back.

Despite the emergence of new details and witness accounts since Aug. 9, Smith said her opinion has not changed.

“Whether he robbed a store or not, whether he was running or not, you don’t need to shoot him nine times when his hands are up,” she said. “He’s not fighting you – he’s surrendered to you.”

Many at the rally suggested that police officers be required to wear video cameras while on duty to prevent the confusion that surrounds events like the Ferguson shooting.

Cameras would give cops a “constant reminder of their personal actions and how the world can see what they do if they do something wrong,” said Mataeo Strothers, a senior business management major who attended the rally.

Both Pullman and WSU police officers wear cameras on their uniforms.

The Riverfront Times in St. Louis reported on Sept. 4 that the U.S. Department of Justice would investigate “the entire operations of the Ferguson Police Department.”

The city of Ferguson and the Ferguson Police Department have released a joint statement that “welcomes” the Justice Department and the investigation.

Brown’s family also released a statement, via their lawyer, saying they “are advocating for the use of body cameras for law enforcement around the country.”

But real change will take time, Griffin said.

“There’s a lot of water under the bridge, and our country is only a couple centuries into existence, and it’s going to take us probably even two or three more centuries to deal with racism and the problems that we have,” he said. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”