US Mass Rallies Attract Thousands over Police Killings
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - At least 25,000 protesters paralyzed parts of New York and thousands more marched in Washington, stepping up demonstrations across the United States demanding justice for black men killed by white police.
The rallies in the capital, New York, Boston and in several Californian cities were among the largest in a growing protest movement sparked by the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9.
Grand jury decisions not to prosecute the white officers responsible for 18-year-old Brown's death and a fatal chokehold on New York father of six Eric Garner in July, have triggered weeks of protests.
A sea of demonstrators shut down parts of Manhattan and Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue that leads to the Capitol with cries of "No justice, no peace!" "Justice Now!" and "The whole damn system is guilty as hell!"
Police said approximately 25,000 took to the streets in New York. The organizers tweeted that 50,000 people turned out. Their Facebook page had said that 48,000 would take part before the rally began.
Thousands take part in the Justice for All March and Rally on Pennsylvania Avenue through downtown Washington, DC, December 13, 2014, to protest the killings of unarmed African-Americans by police officersThe mixed crowds of black and white, mobilized many young people but also families, children, parents and the elderly.
They held aloft banners proclaiming "Stop racist police" and "I can't breathe" -- the last words uttered repeatedly by Garner, as police wrestled him to the ground for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes in New York's Staten Island.
A string of deaths at the hands of officers, including that of 28-year-old Akai Gurley in Brooklyn, have inflamed resentment against police tactics in the United States and distrust many blacks feel toward law enforcement.
The Garner and Brown families were joined in Washington by relatives of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot dead last month by Cleveland police, and of Trayvon Martin, who was killed in Florida by a neighborhood watchman in 2012, AFP reported.
In New York, protesters shut down a four-mile (six-kilometer) route from Washington Square, down Fifth and Sixth Avenues and Broadway to converge outside police headquarters, filling the air with chants of "Justice now!"
After dark and as temperatures hovered above freezing, they shut down the Brooklyn Bridge as they marched across the river.
In Boston, Massachusetts State Police said several people were arrested and some roads blocked in Boston.
In Berkeley, California, an effigy of a black man hung by a noose was placed outside a university entrance with the words "I can't breathe" scrawled on its chest.