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Some of the Black Friday protests led to brief faceoffs with police, who told them to leave private property. No arrests were made, according to the St. Louis County Police Department. Some stores temporarily closed.

Crowds have been demonstrating since a Nov. 24 grand jury’s decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson over Brown’s Aug. 9 shooting in Ferguson. Last night’s activity was different because it took place in many areas previously untouched by the unrest -- suburban, upper-middle class towns near St. Louis. Protesters said it was part of a strategy to expand the movement to places that have been isolated from it.

“This needs to come to the suburbs,” said Lucy Randall, a 23-year-old student at Washington University in St. Louis. She marched through the West County Center in Des Peres, Missouri, holding a sign that read: “Silence = Death.”

Demonstrations are planned at Black Friday shopping locations in more than 40 cities, including New York and San Francisco, according to Leslie MacFadyen, who runs a website that aggregates Ferguson-related protests nationwide.

Nationwide Protests

Brown was killed Aug. 9 by Wilson, a 28-year-old white officer. An autopsy showed that he had been shot six times. His death has become a national symbol of racial inequality and heavy-handed police tactics.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Some retailers kicked off the event early by opening their stores last night.

“A lot of the actions in Ferguson have been able to be removed from the kind of daily life of the suburban people,” Randall said. “And this feels like, ‘OK, we’re coming to you.’”

At one branch of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Manchester, Missouri, about two dozen officers formed a line in front of the store, blocking protesters from entering. National Guard Humvees and police cruisers could be seen driving around parking lots in Wal-Marts, Target Corp. stores and malls.

Scared Shoppers

In Manchester, several dozen protesters marched through stores with their hands up, chanting “Arrest Darren Wilson” and “No Justice! No Peace!”

Michael Scott encountered protesters on two separate occasions while shopping early this morning in suburban St. Louis. Their presence at a Wal-Mart sent shoppers scurrying away, and their chanting disrupted a shopping experience at the West County Center, said Scott, 18.

“It’s ignorant,” he said. “They’re fighting racial prejudice by fitting their stereotype.”

Scott said the protesters should accept the grand jury’s findings, at one point clapping his hands at the group and saying “You don’t have all the evidence. You don’t have all the evidence.”

Kathy Toghiyany, a 57-year-old from Ladue, Missouri, said the demonstrators were scaring shoppers.

“They need to lock them up and keep them locked up,” she said. “Why do they have to harass us? I’m not afraid of them. The police are afraid of them -— they need to stop this.”

Toghiyany, who is white, said she used to live in the northern part of St. Louis County, where many of the protests have taken place. She was part of the exodus of whites from the inner suburbs to the towns further out from the city.

“I’m glad I left,” she said.