Protesters calling for an end to police brutality and a beginning to better race relations swarmed New York’s streets by the thousands and blocked traffic on major arteries there and in cities nationwide.
A day after a New York grand jury declined to indict a white police officer for killing a black man with a chokehold, protesters in near-freezing temperatures took over automobile lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge and West Side Highway and on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive. Hundreds gathered near the Staten Island ferry terminal as police corraled them with metal barricades and stood at the ready with riot gear in hand.
“New York City is bearing witness that the people united can do anything,” Daniel “Majesty” Sanchez, a 33-year-old organizer told protesters outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Nearby they had erected 11 black cardboard coffins with the names of people they said had perished at the hands of police, then staged a seven-minute silent “die-in.” A police scanner was the only sound.
The demonstrations marked the second round of nationwide rallies after a Missouri grand jury refused last week to indict an officer in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson. Yesterday, the New York panel declined to charge Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, 43, whose fatal altercation with police on Staten Island was recorded on video by a bystander.
The cases have public officials balancing attempts to preserve demonstrators’ right to take to the streets with protecting public safety.
The reaction in Ferguson last week devolved into mayhem, with looting, shooting, arson and vandalism.
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio has sought to show residents that he’s focused on improving police-civilian relations.
Last night’s relatively peaceful coexistence between demonstrators and police carried over. Police closed lanes to vehicles on the Brooklyn Bridge to allow protesters through. At one point, a string of officers standing nearly shoulder to shoulder initially resisted protesters in downtown Brooklyn before letting them break through without incident.
Demonstrations erupted around Harlem and in Lower Manhattan about 5:30 p.m., with people carrying signs and chanting Garner’s final words: “I can’t breathe.”
Among thousands who had gathered in Manhattan’s Foley Square before heading to Brooklyn was Constance Malcolm, mother of Ramarley Graham. The black 18-year-old was shot dead by police in the Bronx in February 2012. A grand jury didn’t charge the white officer who killed him.
“We need police accountability,” Malcolm told the crowd. “We can’t bury our kids all the time while these officers go home to their families.”
Thousands swarmed to police headquarters with high-powered beams of light trained on their heads by police helicopters circling overhead.
In Washington, people took to the streets at dusk, banging a drum and shouting, “No racist police, no justice, no peace.” Some took aim at President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president.
“Obama has the power to shape the narrative, to shape the agenda, but he doesn’t do that,” said Devon O’Neal, a 21-year-old Washingtonian who works for a law firm. “I’m just fed up with the justice system in America. I’m fed up with the institutionalized racism I deal with every day as a black man.”
O’Neal was among several dozen people who marched downtown toward the White House, stopping briefly to raise fists in a black power salute.
The crowd chanted “You’ve got to fight back” as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” blasted from the White House lawn, where a Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony was under way.
It ended hours later at City Hall, where the body of former mayor and civil rights activist Marion Barry lay for a wake.
By Esme E. Deprez, Michelle Kaske and Patricia Hurtado: Bloomberg
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