In an aggressive response designed to tamp down early signs of unrest, the police arrested more than a hundred people in Manhattan on Wednesday night as protesters marched in a show of solidarity with demonstrators in Baltimoreangered by the death of Freddie Gray, an unarmed 25-year-old black man who died after being injured while in police custody this month.
One officer was injured during the demonstrations in New York City when a bottle struck him on the chin, the police said.
(NY Times) – Some protesters stopped traffic on Houston Street in Lower Manhattan while others blocked the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Another group marched uptown to Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen, where, later in the night, a police van filled with marchers who had been arrested sat idling in traffic.
On Thursday, some of the protest organizers criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton for what they called a heavy-handed response.
Justice League NYC, a group of criminal justice reform advocates that rallied on Wednesday night, said in a statement: “Mayor de Blasio & Commissioner Bratton, we want you to know that ‘community relations & building trust’ does NOT include: brandishing your billy clubs at nonviolent marchers on side walks; arbitrary arrests; and aggressively terrorizing families who were simply teaching their children how to exercise their constitutional right of free speech.”
The police’s approach, the group said, reflected deployment changes made by Mr. Bratton earlier this year, under which a unit of patrol officers was assigned to deal with temporary issues, like a rise in a neighborhood’s crime or a large protest.
“Is this the New York City you promised you’d build?” the group asked Mr. de Blasio in its statement.
The rally began in Union Square at sunset Wednesday to denounce the death of Mr. Gray and to criticize the tactics of the police in both Baltimore and New York City, where the use of force has been a charged issue since the death of Eric Garner, a black man, after a confrontation with officers in July on Staten Island.
“It’s all about solidarity,” Carmen Perez, a director of Justice League NYC, said during the rally in Union Square. “We’re here to spread the message of peace from Baltimore’s initial protests.”
Police officers passed out fliers warning the protesters in Union Square that they would be arrested if they blocked traffic. But as night fell, throngs of people spilled into the streets and broke off into smaller groups that snaked through a half-dozen Manhattan neighborhoods as police helicopters hovered overhead.
“Freddie Gray, Michael Brown. Shut it down, shut it down,” some of the demonstrators chanted, adding the name of the young, unarmed black man killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., last year to that of Mr. Gray. “Baltimore is everywhere.”
Some of the people who were arrested were seen being thrown roughly to the ground and handcuffed by the police.
“At one point, they blocked off both sides of our march, and we thought they were going to arrest all of us,” said Marie Lewis, 28, who was marching in Midtown.
In Baltimore, Mr. Gray sustained a severe spinal cord injury while in police custody after being arrested on April 12 for possession of a switchblade. His death, the latest involving an encounter between an unarmed black man and police officers, set off protests, riots and looting in the city.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/nyregion/hundreds-march-in-manhattan-to-protest-the-death-of-freddie-gray.html
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