Nationwide Protests Held To Decry Police Brutality
DALLAS (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Police departments across the country continue to mourn the five officers killed in a deadly shooting in Dallas Thursday, as protesters across the country marched against police brutality Friday night.
Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have condemned the Dallas attacks -- and despite some criticism, they say they aren't backing down from protesting.
Hundreds of people marched through New York City to protest police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, CBS2's Jessica Layton reported.
The protesters chanted "Black lives matter'' and "No justice, no peace'' as they marched up Broadway from near City Hall on Saturday.
The protesters kept to the sidewalk at first but took to the streets after the march reached Union Square.
A police spokeswoman said there were more than 20 arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct.
Protester Cynthia Howell said she is not against the police but she wants to see accountability.
Howell is a niece of Alberta Spruill, who died of a heart attack in 2003 after police threw a concussion grenade into her Harlem apartment.
Howell said officers who do "reckless, dangerous things'' must be held accountable.
Several dozen protestors, clad in all black, also moved peacefully through downtown Newark on Saturday. The group chanted a held signs with messages that read "Black Lives Matter," and "Pardon My Skin," WCBS 880 reported.
"At the end of the day if you're standing against violence you should stand against violence in all forms," protesteor Ashley Cummings, of East Orange, said. It doesn't make it justified for you to respond when it's something you wouldn't want done to you."
Demonstrators also gathered for a third straight day outside the Minnesota governor's mansion in St. Paul on Saturday.
On the fence in front of the mansion, protesters posted signs, some of which read "Justice for Philando" and "Stop Police Brutality."
Two marches were held in New York City Friday night -- with rallies in Union Square and Harlem to protest the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philado Castile.
Rochester police also arrested 74 people for disorderly conduct during a protest by hundreds of people.
Protesters in Atlanta engaged in a standoff with Georgia state troopers for hours Friday night, as troopers worked to keep the protesters from marching onto the highway. A similar standoff occurred in Phoenix, Arizona, where authorities reportedly used pepper spray on marchers who were on a nearby freeway.
Rappers Snoop Dogg and The Gamer are some of the big names in entertainment calling for the community and police to come together. They led a march outside Los Angeles police headquarters Friday, just as a police graduation ceremony was getting underway.
In San Francisco, about 2,000 protesters marched across downtown to a rally outside City Hall under a huge banner that read, "Stop the Racist Police Terror in the U.S." An organizer urged the crowd to remain peaceful.
"Our anger must be controlled and strategic," Lawrence Shine said. "Love will overcome hate."
In Sacramento, guards closed the Capitol early in expectation of a protest Friday evening. Several dozen demonstrators marched around the Capitol carrying posters demanding justice for black men killed by police across the country.
In Arkansas, about 300 people gathered in front of the state Capitol to seek solutions to racial strife, which Little Rock knows so well.The pastor of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in North Little Rock said Friday everyone should be working to end the nation's unsettled time.
"The question remains, 'When will enough be enough?"' Earl Graham Jr. asked.
The crowd chanted the question back to him.
Little Rock was the scene of one of the nation's first desegregation battles in 1957, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent troops into the city to escort nine black children into Central High School.
Black Lives Matter supporters said they plan to continue a sit-in in Denver in response to the police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana through Tuesday for a total of 135 hours. That's an hour for each of the black people they say have been killed by police across the country this year.
The gathering, across from the City and County Building, began Thursday afternoon, several hours before police officers were killed in Dallas.
People have been dropping off food and water for those camped out on chairs and blankets in Civic Center Park.
Members of Chicago's Black Lives Matter movement and other groups played dead outside President Barack Obama's home in an effort to push the president to act on the violence occurring between police officers and black people.
Hundreds of demonstrators in New Orleans gathered under a towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to demand an end to police brutality Friday night.
The crowd blocked traffic as participants chanted slogans, held signs and listened to speeches. One group of protesters sang "We Shall Overcome."
Earlier on Friday, more than two dozen protesters briefly lay down in front of the New Orleans Police Department headquarters in a symbolic "die-in."
A peaceful protest against police brutality drew more than 1,000 people to Campus Martius Park in Detroit.
Nickell Young, 25, a black student at Central Michigan University, said she wasn't surprised by the fatal attacks on police officers in Dallas.
"They put on the uniform, and that represents brutality," she said. "The police who say they are good and they are not speaking up" against the officers who violate the rights of blacks.
Other protests took place in Pennsylvania, Utah, Minnesota and London. Other events are scheduled in New York City through the weekend.
Their anger and frustration stemmed from the deaths of 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was shot during a random police stop in Minnesota earlier this week. Diamond Reynolds started recording moments after police officers shot Castile, her boyfriend, during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights on Wednesday.
Two officers were also placed on administrative leave in Baton Rouge, Louisiana after cell phone video captured the moment 37-year-old Sterling was shot outside of a convenience store.
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