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NAACP Leader Urges Violence Not The Answer After Ferguson Decision

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Connie Parker, President of the Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP said violence was not the answer to fixing "a broken down criminal justice system."

Parker told a news conference at the Hill House, "what we have to do now is take the emotions and make them effective for us, we will not go to the streets, and tear down our community."

Boycotts, Parker said, might be a way to help solve some of the problems, and ways must be found to make police more accountable for their actions.

At the Pittsburgh CAPA school, several dozen students held a sit-in in a second-floor hallway to protest the Ferguson Grand Jury decision not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the Michael Brown shooting.

Students wanted to attend a rally downtown outside the Federal Building on Liberty Avenue, but CAPA Principal Melissa Pearlman told KDKA-TV News, "students did not have parental permission to leave school at mid-afternoon, and both school and city police advised against allowing students to show up at the protest rally downtown."

Pearlman said no students were disciplined or suspended because of the sit-in protest, where students talked about the events in Ferguson, and their frustrations with the decision not to have Officer Wilson face criminal charges.

At that Federal Building protest, police reported no problems, and there was no attempt to disrupt to stop traffic.

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