Anger over the grand jury decision to not indict Officer Darren Wilson continues, with New Yorkers joining a national walk out protest. Gathering in Union Square and Times Square, workers and students left their classes and jobs at 12:01 PM Monday in a national demonstration organized around the hashtag #HandsUpWalkOut. The time was significant, as it was the time of day when Mike Brown is said to have been gunned by Officer Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. It’s still unclear how many arrests occurred but ABC News says as many as five.
Demonstrators from several groups — including the controversial Revolutionary Communist Party — held their hands up to mirror what witnesses have said was Brown’s final gesture before he was shot seven times. Opal Tometi, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, told Al Jazeera:
A black man is killed every 28 hours. This is not an isolated incident. The first thing that has to happen in order to rebuild trust is that we have to acknowledge that there is a problem. Our community is being hyperpoliced, black people are being profiled racially, and our community members are being shot down at the hands of law enforcement, security guards and vigilantes.
As citizens were flooding into the streets around the country, President Obama was holding a meeting at the White House to address concerns about the nations police force. The President announced an executive order to allocate $263 million to improve police training and purchase body cameras to be worn by officers on duty.
(Photo: Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork)
