Despite Mayor de Blasio’s Monday request that people “put aside political debates” until after the funerals of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, hundreds people once again took to New York’s streets to protest police brutality on Tuesday night.
The New York Daily News reports that after gathering at 59th and Fifth Avenue, the demonstrators marched uptown, blocking traffic around the high-end shops at 77th Street and Madison before heading to 125th Street, where they were met by another group of protesters who had come down from the Bronx. DNAinfo reports that “At one point, a protester shouted ‘fuck the police’ but the crowd groaned and the chant died.”
“Mayor de Blasio didn’t start the protest, and he doesn’t tell us when to finish,” Argenys Tavaras told the Daily News. “Why should our freedoms of assembly and speech be curtailed because a deranged man killed two officers?” Marvin Knight asked the Huffington Post. Meanwhile, another demonstrator, Sumumba Sobukwe, explained, “We don’t condone violence. We’re here because we want peace.”
