Luke Skywalker
Super Moderator
{vb:raw ozzmodz_postquote}:
Protesters and demonstrators from across the country took to the streets Tuesday night in support of Michael Brown, the unarmed teen who was killed by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. VPC
Thousands march in protest on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014, on the streets of Washington, DC, one day after a grand jury decision not to prosecute a white police officer for the killing of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Mo.(Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)
Fire, blocked highways, calls for boycotts and staged "die ins" in which people pretended to be dead on city sidewalks marked a second night of incendiary protests since the announcement that a grand jury would not indict a Missouri police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teen this past summer.
As the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter trended on Twitter, anger, frustration and sadness colored demonstrations in Seattle, Nashville and Knoxville, Tenn., Asheville and Greenville, N.C., Cincinnati, Detroit, New York and other places after the panel decided Ferguson, Mo., police Officer Darren Wilson would not face criminal charges in the August death of Michael Brown, 18.
Many of the demonstrators appeared to communicate with each other and share what they were doing on social media, using the hashtag #ShutItDown, which was trending on Twitter early Wednesday morning. Protesters took to the streets from the smallest state, Rhode Island, to mammoth Texas to the streets of Manhattan.
In Ferguson, Mo., itself, where the fatal shooting took place during an altercation, tensions erupted as the night wore on. A man threw a Molotov cocktail that landed inside the passenger side of a car and also set his glove on fire, prompting him to scream and drop the glove. Dozens of police officers arrived soon after and surrounded the car. Armored vehicles and police dogs also soon arrived. Other protesters threw rocks, shattering City Hall windows.
As police told protesters to get out of the street. a single protester got on her knees in the road in front of two armored trucks. Police soon picked her up.
St. Louis County Police said over a loudspeaker that everyone must leave. "This is an unlawful assembly," they said.
Elsewhere, people continued to express outrage, anger and sadness at a grand jury's decision not to indict Wilson on criminal charges in the incident involving the 18-year-old.
FERGUSON AFTERMATH: Son of Woolworth sit-in activist decries violence
In Boston, thousands of protesters held up signs in the streets during a protest rally, according to tweets from WBZ TV reporter Christina Hager. One sign visible in a photo that she tweeted read, "Cops kill kids."
In New York, as in Ferguson, protests heated up as the night wore on. Protesters blocked the Lincoln Tunnel and the FDR Drive, a major highway on Manhattan's East Side. Local news media reported crowds were making their way up Broadway in Manhattan and that a crowd was blocking the West Side Highway.. Earlier in the day, two people were arrested after a man threw a jar of fake blood on Police Commissioner William Bratton. Local television during the evening rush hour showed a quiet crowd walking along a street in Midtown.
Protests took vigorously to the streets in the Midwest.
In Cleveland, where some residents also were questioning the shooting death by police of a 12-year-old boy over the weekend, police took a hands-off approach as protesters spilled onto the Shoreway as the evening commute began to pick up. More than 250 people who'd marched from downtown's Public Square carried signs and blocked the highway for about 30-45 minutes.
Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams told WKYC that the agency "would let the protest play out."
Cuyahoga County Sheriff Frank Bova echoed the police chief, saying, "We're allowing them their constitutional right to protest."
In Cincinnati, about 10 people were arrested as a group of 85 to 100 protesters blocked I-75. The gathering started peacefully, as Mayor John Cranley and Bishop Bobby Hilton addressed a crowd from the steps of the federal courthouse downtown. But afterward, the crowd marched through downtown and headed into oncoming traffic, eventually scaling barriers and emerging on the highway, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Tensions smoldered in other parts of the country too.
In Seattle, high school students and community members took part in a march organized by the NAACP and a group called United Black Clergy in the city's Central District and continued to a federal courthouse downtown. The high school students joined the march as it made its way toward downtown and Seattle Schools reported that about 1,000 students walked out of classes. Protesters chanted, "Hands up, don't shoot," as they marched through the streets. The group's message: Racial profiling must end regardless of the grand jury decision.
One day after the grand jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri, protesters in Philadelphia raised their voices and took to the streets. Eileen Blass, USA TODAY
Protests erupted across the South too.
Police arrested 21 people in Atlanta after demonstrators blocked the Downtown Connector. The group later walked through town and onto Atlanta's Peachtree Street. A protestor threw a road flare, injuring a Georgia State Patrol trooper, authorities told WXIA said. Police arrested the protester.
In Nashville, protesters marched from police headquarters into the heart of the entertainment district, shutting down a major intersection. Tourists looked befuddled as marchers passed and shoppers came out of stores to watch.
"Hands up, don't shoot," the protesters shouted.
In Houston, protesters blocked streets and held up signs, based on images sent out by Twitter users. In one photo, a young black man held up a sign that reads, "This is not about the alleged stealing of cigars," an apparent reference to allegations that Michael Brown stole cigars before the altercation with Darren Wilson. "This is about the loss of life in a system that habitually criminalizes and kills black people."
But the protests were not limited to large cities.
In Burlington, Vt., a crowd chanted for justice and decried racism in the darkness on a downtown street Tuesday night, the Burlington Free Press reported.
Protesters try unsuccessfully to burn an upside down American flag during a protest outside the White House, Tuesday.(Photo: Mladen Antonov, AFP/Getty Images)
"When do our lives become valuable in the eyes of the law?" said Rajnii Eddins of Burlington, speaking a poem into the protest's megaphone. "When does hate cease to be exonerated behind a badge and lighter skin?"
In Poughkeepsie, N.Y., about 75 miles north of New York City, protesters planned to stage a "die in" in front of the Dutchess County Jail Tuesday night.
According to a statement by Community Voice Heard, the names of 300 "African Americans killed by police and vigilante violence will be read" and a sign held up reading, "Hands Up Don't Shoot," the Poughkeepsie Journal reported.
On social media, people called on black Americans not to shop on Black Friday this Friday in order to express their anger at the grand jury decision. Using the hashtag #BlackOutFriday, social media users pointed out black Americans' spending power and asked black Americans to stay out of stores.
"The Black Community has nearly 1.1 Trillion Dollars in Buying Power," tweeted New York-based social media consultant Mike Street, who began spreading the word on Monday along with media strategist Denitria Lewis and youth advocate L. Michael Gibson.
A group called Blackout for Human Rights also used social media to ask people not to shop on Black Friday as a form of protest. Tweeting under the handle @UnitedBlackout, the group said, "The time for change is now!"
Contributing: Yamiche Alcindor and Aamer Madhani in Ferguson, Mo., The Associated Press
Powered By WizardRSS.com | Rfid Credit Card Sleeves | Full Text RSS Feed