Post by onthejob on Aug 23, 2014 8:45:17 GMT -5
Thousands to attend Sharpton's Staten Island march to protest police killing of unarmed black men
August 23, 2014 by MATTHEW CHAYES / matthew.chayes@newsday.com
The Rev. Al Sharpton says more than 5,000 picketers are en route to Staten Island for his "We Won't Go Back" march -- a protest motivated by the police killing of unarmed black men in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri.
Picketers riding "Justice Caravans" are traveling from across the country to the borough -- by bridge and ferry -- and plan to march to the Staten Island district attorney's office from the street where accused cigarette peddler Eric Garner, 43, died July 17 when an NYPD officer put him in a banned chokehold.
March organizers and the NYPD are vowing that the demonstration and its policing will be peaceful -- eschewing the sort of violence that broke out in the aftermath of the Aug. 9 Ferguson police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old.
Still, some neighborhood store owners, fearful of the type of unrest that unfurled in Ferguson, say they do not want to take chances and plan to close shop for the day.
The march is set to start about noon at Bay Street and Victory Boulevard, in the Tompkinsville neighborhood, wend its way through the streets for about half a mile and end with a rally at the prosecutor's office on Stuyvesant Place, Sharpton said.
Officials for Sharpton's National Action Network group said the intention is to pressure the prosecutor, Dan Donovan, to charge with a crime the police officer who put Garner in a chokehold.
The Garner and Brown families are expected at the march, which was originally planned to be a foot rally across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Plans were changed after the borough's elected officials and Mayor Bill de Blasio objected that such an event would be disruptive and dangerous.
Garner's death, caught on a bystander's cellphone camera, has flared racial tensions and frayed relationships between some rank-and-file NYPD officers and City Hall.
The labor union that represents officers, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, disputes the medical examiner's finding that a chokehold killed Garner and says that the officer wrapped his arm around Garner's neck only to place him under arrest.
De Blasio said he does not plan to attend Saturday's march, but at least four New York City Council members -- Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito of East Harlem; I. Daneek Miller of Queens; Vanessa Gibson of the Bronx; and Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn, all Democrats -- say they plan to be there. Former Gov. David Paterson also is expected to attend.
Gibson, chairwoman of the council's Public Safety Committee, which oversees the NYPD, described the march as "a pivotal moment in the history of our nation."
August 23, 2014 by MATTHEW CHAYES / matthew.chayes@newsday.com
The Rev. Al Sharpton says more than 5,000 picketers are en route to Staten Island for his "We Won't Go Back" march -- a protest motivated by the police killing of unarmed black men in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri.
Picketers riding "Justice Caravans" are traveling from across the country to the borough -- by bridge and ferry -- and plan to march to the Staten Island district attorney's office from the street where accused cigarette peddler Eric Garner, 43, died July 17 when an NYPD officer put him in a banned chokehold.
March organizers and the NYPD are vowing that the demonstration and its policing will be peaceful -- eschewing the sort of violence that broke out in the aftermath of the Aug. 9 Ferguson police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old.
Still, some neighborhood store owners, fearful of the type of unrest that unfurled in Ferguson, say they do not want to take chances and plan to close shop for the day.
The march is set to start about noon at Bay Street and Victory Boulevard, in the Tompkinsville neighborhood, wend its way through the streets for about half a mile and end with a rally at the prosecutor's office on Stuyvesant Place, Sharpton said.
Officials for Sharpton's National Action Network group said the intention is to pressure the prosecutor, Dan Donovan, to charge with a crime the police officer who put Garner in a chokehold.
The Garner and Brown families are expected at the march, which was originally planned to be a foot rally across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Plans were changed after the borough's elected officials and Mayor Bill de Blasio objected that such an event would be disruptive and dangerous.
Garner's death, caught on a bystander's cellphone camera, has flared racial tensions and frayed relationships between some rank-and-file NYPD officers and City Hall.
The labor union that represents officers, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, disputes the medical examiner's finding that a chokehold killed Garner and says that the officer wrapped his arm around Garner's neck only to place him under arrest.
De Blasio said he does not plan to attend Saturday's march, but at least four New York City Council members -- Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito of East Harlem; I. Daneek Miller of Queens; Vanessa Gibson of the Bronx; and Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn, all Democrats -- say they plan to be there. Former Gov. David Paterson also is expected to attend.
Gibson, chairwoman of the council's Public Safety Committee, which oversees the NYPD, described the march as "a pivotal moment in the history of our nation."
