Four individuals, including local activist Rose Sanders, were arrested Wednesday for protesting on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Led by Sanders, a group of about a dozen convened on the bridge to protest the December 2013 shooting of 74-year-old Ananias Shaw and other police shootings around the country.

The group stopped traffic on the Edmund Pettus Bridge multiple times between noon and 1 p.m.

“You can’t get in the street like this,” Selma Chief of Police William Riley told protestors. “Somebody can get killed.”

Police were aware of the event, which was publicized on a Facebook page, would take place.

Sanders, Khari Varner, Alecha Irvy and Queen Ester Davis Tate were all charged Wednesday with disorderly conduct. They posted bail a short time later.

“We have to let people in the United States know that black lives matter,” Irvy said before being arrested.

Riley said the department has no issue with protesting, but participants crossed the line when they placed themselves and those around them in danger by standing in traffic.

“I would not have had an education and the opportunity to be the police chief here without people protesting in an appropriate and legal manner, but what they did today was wrong,” Riley said.

The protestors, which included Ananias’ brother Edward, first started their weekly campaign Dec. 3 to demand Selma Police Department release footage showing a Selma officer shooting hatchet-wielding Shaw.

The department made the tape public last Wednesday, but the Shaw family and Sanders believe there is additional footage that hasn’t been shared with everyone. Riley has said repeatedly there is only one tape, and no other officers were wearing cameras during the incident.

Sanders said they would continue to protest until they have seen all the footage and another Dallas County Grand Jury hears the case.

The Shaw shooting followed a call in reference to a disturbance at Church’s Chicken. Police found Shaw inside an abandoned building at the intersection of Washington Street and Griffin Avenue and followed him on foot for a short time.

Because the Church’s Chicken disturbance was a misdemeanor, Sanders feels Shaw should not have been pursued once he left the restaurant.

Riley contents it would have been inappropriate to not purse the suspect, especially when he was in possession of a hatchet and not obeying orders to drop the weapon.

District Attorney Michael Jackson said he doesn’t have an issue with gathering another grand jury, but the outcome is likely to be the same as when a Dallas County Grand Jury found last summer that the officers acted correctly.

“What Rose needs to be concerned about is these kids out here shooting each other,” Jackson said. “She needs to go around asking them to put their put their guns down and stop creating safety issues. If somebody is coming at somebody with a hatchet, I don’t think there’s anybody that wouldn’t do anything about it if they had a gun. What was the officer supposed to do, become the headless horseman?”