Community organizers held a rally Tuesday in support of the people of Ferguson, Missouri and against police brutality and racially-motivated violence following a grand jury’s decision on Monday not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the death of black teenager Michael Brown.

“We are protesting an epidemic of racist police brutality across the United States that has claimed the lives of thousands of young black and brown children and people,” said local activist Bryan Ellis, who organized the rally with the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), a national organization assisting civil rights and anti-war protests around the country.

Though sparked by recent events, Ellis held the protest was about the bigger story in which Ferguson is only the latest tragic chapter.

“There’s less of a focus on the minutiae of the trial and the verdict than there is anger and a lack of faith in the entire criminal justice system to uphold the rights of people of color," said Ellis.

Despite the rain, around 30 people attended, mostly students, grabbing signs from a weathered stack. Congregating under the pavilion in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park near Ringling College of Art and Design, Ellis opened the rally with impassioned exhortations, calling upon the community to see itself as “brothers and sisters” across the country and stand against a police force and justice system he deemed brutal, authoritarian and deeply racist, citing systemic abuse and a disturbing pattern of violence against people of color.

To some, Sarasota and Bradenton have their own place in this pattern, as protesters carrying signs with the names Rodney Mitchell and Elias Guadarrama sought to remind.

“We are one. I know we are one,” said Natasha Clemons, Mitchell’s mother, to the gathered crowd. “Their blood is your blood.”

Mitchell, a 23-year old black man, was shot and killed by the police during a traffic stop in June 2012. The State Attorney's Office ultimately determined the shooting ws justified. And this last January Guadarrama, a 22-year old Hispanic man, fled from Manatee County police before officials say he committed suicide in a Bradenton neighborhood–something Omega Velez, Guadarrama’s mother, does not believe and Ellis calls “an execution.”

“The system is broken and they need to fix it,” said Velez who, along with her husband, brought handmade signs reading “Homicide Not Suicide.” “I want them to know that there’s people dying. I want change. I want justice for my son.”

The rally was largely a group discussion regarding the events in Ferguson and the need for change. None seemed shocked at the verdict, but there was no shortage of anger, contained as it was. Related issues, such as the growing militarization of community police forces, both in tactics and personnel, met with similar reactions.

At a call for solutions from Ellis, the crowd remained mostly silent, whether at a loss or lost in thought. A suggestion that officers wear video cameras on their person, to record any and all interactions with the public, was met with approval, as was mandatory racial sensitivity training.

But to expect an answer to such a complex question to emerge from one rally is not, according to Ellis, the exact point of the rally.

“We’re hoping to raise awareness in the wider community and shift the public dialogue to let people know that racism isn’t going to be tolerated anymore,” said Ellis. “But also to build our organization and possibly initiate a campaign of concrete reforms in Sarasota and Bradenton.”

Additional rallies are planned for the future.