Shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew on June 3, journalist Armin Rosen was following a protest that was making its way through Downtown Brooklyn. The NYPD had rushed the crowd a few times and made some arrests, but the demonstrators had continued peacefully until they got to Borough Hall. That was when the rain came. “It went from nothing to a monsoon in like 30 seconds,” Rosen recalled. “It was just total confusion. There were people flipping and running into each other.” More →
Wednesday of last week, as thousands of New Yorkers gathered and chanted at Washington Square Park and other locations across the city, a quieter demonstration went on in Elm Park, Staten Island. More →
After police officers around the country were seen using bicycles as weapons, thousands of people are demanding that bike companies stop supplying police forces and diversify their business practices. Some bike companies are listening. More →
On Sunday, 17 young Chinese people divided into eight teams and walked through the Chinatowns of Manhattan and Flushing, Queens. They visited Chinese vendors, inquired about their businesses in the midst of the pandemic and protests, and encouraged them to display Chinese For Black Lives posters in their storefronts. More →
In light of the contentious debate around defunding the police, Andi Zeisler wrote on Twitter June 4: “I’m seeing people ask things like ‘But if there are no police who will go after RAPISTS???’ and well I have some very bad news for those folks.” She then linked to an article about a 2013 study showing U.S. cops charged with more than 400 forcible rapes over nine years. More →
If you join a protest these days and find yourself among hundreds or thousands marching through an otherwise empty Times Square, you may get the sense that something distinctly new is happening. When else in history have demonstrations taken over the streets of almost every major city in the country? More →
As the state legislature passed a long-stagnant series of bills dealing with police reform, mothers grieving for children whose lives were taken as a result of police brutality called on New York City leaders to defund the New York Police Department. More →
On the second day without curfew, as thousands gathered in Houston, Texas to mourn the death of George Floyd, protesters once again took to the streets of New York City yesterday to call for an end to police brutality. A movement that was initially marked by clashes with the NYPD has in its second week become more multifaceted, with increasingly strident demands and the support of politicians citywide. As of Tuesday morning, the NYPD reported that there had been no arrests Monday night. More →
At a St. Louis hospital in early April, a baby was admitted with 15 broken ribs. Physicians believed the injuries likely resulted from repetitive stomping, by a much larger adult. The case was deemed child abuse. The infant died. More →
A tenth day of protests against police brutality ended without the widespread arrests seen in previous nights and culminated in the lifting of a citywide curfew and a pledge to cut NYPD funding. “Yesterday and last night we saw the very best of our city,” tweeted Mayor Bill de Blasio, ending the highly contentious curfew a day early. “We will be moving funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services,” the mayor announced this morning. More →