BY ZACH WILLIAMS | A meandering march from Columbus Circle in memorial of Eric Garner brought hundreds of #BlackLivesMatter protesters to the West Side on July 17. One year after the Staten Island man’s death helped inspire a national movement against police brutality and institutionalized racism, activists acknowledged progress while pressing for more.
Speakers at the evening rally spoke to similar themes heard throughout the year of protests, which reached their highest volume last fall. Thousands of people swarmed local streets back then following the grand jury announcement that the New York Police Department officer who placed the fatal chokehold on Garner would not face criminal charges. Last Friday, there was evidence that the year of protests and activism have had some effect.
The Civilian Complaint Review Board argued in State Supreme Court on Fri., June 12, that they should be allowed to get the grand jury records of the Garner case from the Staten Island District Attorney’s Office.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, issued an executive order on July 8 mandating that the state attorney general investigate all deaths of unarmed civilians by police. If a grand jury declines to press charges against an accused police officer, a report must be made public indicating why.
Similarly to the Garner case, last November a grand jury declined to indict a police officer in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August.
Speakers at the July 17 march demanded that Cuomo’s executive order become law. Legislation before the City Council and the state Legislature, though, did not receive much mention at the rally. Rather, speakers focused on what they called examples of police violence that followed the deaths of Garner and Brown, as well as ways that violence predominately against black and Latino men ultimately threatens society as a whole.
The disproportionate percentage of black men in state and federal prisons received fresh scrutiny in the past year, culminating in the first visit to a federal prison last week by a sitting U.S. president. But it took the experience of Kalief Browder to end solitary confinement this year for inmates 21 years old and younger at Rikers Island. Browder was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack and imprisoned at the notoriously violent jail for about three years before charges were dropped. He committed suicide earlier this year, haunted to the end, according to his brother Akeem Browder, who spoke at the rally.
He added that police and court resources would have been better spent pursuing more serious offenses than that allegedly committed by his brother, who maintained his innocence despite multiple offers of release in exchange for a plea bargain.
Akeem Browder’s remarks reflect the ongoing debate within city politics surrounding the N.Y.P.D. emphasis on the “Broken Windows” school of policing championed by Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. And as Akeem Browder spoke, a large recorded message began to vie for the crowd’s attention. This was a message from the Police Department informing them that people who obstructed vehicular traffic would be subject to arrest for disorderly conduct.
“We should not be arrested for nonviolent crimes. They are here to protect and serve us against the violent offenders,” Akeem Browder said of the police.
Examples of police involvement in the deaths of unarmed people of color continued to mount following Garner’s death. In April, a South Carolina policeman fatally shot a fleeing man in the back after a traffic stop. Eight days later, the death of Freddie Gray in police custody sparked riots in a longtime restive neighborhood of Baltimore. #BlackLivesMatters and police reform once again loomed large in national discourse despite a cooling-down period over the winter when supporters of police, in turn, rallied.
Then last week Sandra Bland died in police custody three days after being arrested in Waller County, Texas, for a minor traffic faux pas. She was reportedly on her way to interview for a job as a college outreach worker.
Such examples suggest that black people cannot take safety for granted in public places. Two prominent examples concern a boy fatally shot for toting a toy gun and a man checking out a BB gun in an Ohio Walmart.
“Tamir Rice…you can’t play in the park. John Crawford…you can’t go shopping, so where are you safe to be black in this country?” Brooklyn resident Elsa Waithe asked rhetorically.
After about an hour of talk, the crowd of activists mobilized for action — or at least chants, including the longtime favorite of American radicals: “Whose streets? Our streets!”
They moved through Central Park to avoid the dozens of police officers determined to maintain public order in the face of potential civil disobedience. The march reached the park’s southeast corner before heading south on Fifth Ave. One person was arrested soon thereafter as the march cascaded across the avenues before reaching the southern end of Times Square.
Along the way, people watched from restaurant windows. Chinese tourists took snapshots with their cameras, asking in their native language: “What is this?” An elderly couple waited patiently to cross through the crowd after stepping out from an upscale restaurant. The costumed characters of Sesame Street, Disney and Marvel Comics shooed protesters away from “photobombing” their tip opportunities with tourists.
The protesters continued on to Macy’s flagship store on W. 34th St. and held a one-minute moment of silence there in memory of Garner, who, as they noted, uttered “I can’t breathe” 11 times before he died one year ago to the day.
A short scuffle erupted when protesters challenged police for control of the street in front of the department store. The result was the same as it had been for just about every demonstration except the largest.
In short, it appeared to all outward appearances that the streets were very much in the possession of N.Y.P.D. that night despite protesters’ chants to the contrary. A siren came closer and closer and booing swept the crowd.
Yet, the mass willingly divided and the protesters now cheered as, from the back of the vehicle, acknowledging them was a lone figure — an emergency medical technician cheering them on.
