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216 Held in Protests of Police Acquittals
By Thomas J. Lueck
The New York Times
Thursday 08 May 2008
In the largest public protest against the acquittal of three detectives in
the shooting death of Sean Bell, 216 people were arrested on Wednesday in carefully
orchestrated demonstrations that halted traffic at busy intersections in Manhattan
and Brooklyn, the police said.
The demonstrations, described by the Rev. Al. Sharpton as "pray-ins,"
played out on a bright spring afternoon as boisterous displays of civil disobedience
in which people signed up to be arrested, assuring organizers and lawyers that
they were carrying proper identification to show to the police.
Once positioned at the intersections, demonstrators dropped to their knees
or sat and prayed briefly before hundreds of police officers escorted them to
buses and police vehicles.
"We believe deeply in what we are doing today," said Hazel Dukes,
the president of the New York State chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., who was one of
a dozen people arrested after they knelt and blocked traffic about 4:30 p.m.
on the Canal Street ramps to the Holland Tunnel.
"We have come to raise our voice for justice," she said before
being placed in white plastic handcuffs and taken to a police van.
In all, it appeared that more than 1,000 people participated in the protests,
although they attracted so many onlookers that it sometimes became difficult
to distinguish protesters from tourists or people out for a stroll after work
who had stopped to watch the commotion.
"It's good to see people stand up for their rights," said
Julia Mordaunt, 27, a graphic designer from Burlington, Vt., who was on her
way to buy jeans and stopped to watch about 100 demonstrators who had gathered
at the southwest corner of 60th Street and Third Avenue, near an entrance to
Bloomingdale's. About 3:50 p.m., that group marched east toward the Queensboro
Bridge, linked arms and sat along Second Avenue, blocking traffic on and off
the bridge. Thirty-six people there were arrested.
The protests were staged at six locations in the city. In the largest one,
about 400 people assembled about 4:30 on the Centre Street approach to the Brooklyn
Bridge and blocked Brooklyn-bound traffic for more than an hour. About 60 people
in that demonstration were arrested, including Mr. Sharpton and Nicole Paultre
Bell, who was to have married Mr. Bell on the day he was killed in a hail of
50 bullets fired by the officers outside a nightclub in Jamaica, Queens, in
2006.
Two friends of Mr. Bell's, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, who were
injured in the fusillade, were among those arrested at the Brooklyn Bridge site.
Demonstrators also stopped traffic at the Manhattan entrance to the Queens-Midtown
Tunnel, where about 20 were arrested. They sat in front of cars waiting to come
off the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, where 23 were arrested, and blocked ramps
at the Triborough Bridge at 125th Street and Second Avenue, where about 40 were
arrested.
The scope of the protests on Wednesday contrasted with the relatively muted
response to a state judge's acquittals of the detectives on April 25.
At the time, Mr. Sharpton and other activists, politicians and community leaders
praised the overall peaceful response that followed the verdict, but vowed to
fight the judge's decision in strategic rather than bellicose ways.
The demonstrations in New York were mirrored by a smaller one in Atlanta, where
75 people stood on the steps of the State Capitol on Wednesday to protest the
verdict in the Bell case, although no one was arrested. Mr. Sharpton has said
that more New York City demonstrations are planned "to shut down"
the city in the spring, though a date was not specified.
Also on Wednesday, Gov. David A. Paterson announced that he would meet privately
with Mr. Sharpton and Mr. Bell's relatives on Thursday in New York City.
The governor has said that he was surprised by the number of shots fired and
by the acquittals of the three detectives.
Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said almost all of those arrested on Wednesday
were charged with disorderly conduct, processed through central booking in Manhattan
and issued tickets to appear in court. He said that about six demonstrators
were issued summonses for less serious violations.
There were no injuries, and no arrests for violence, he said.
"As anticipated, it was not violent and there was some traffic disruption,"
Mr. Browne said. "But both the civil disobedience and the resulting arrests
were conducted in an orderly fashion."
But the crush of the demonstrators, sometimes worsened by the pushing and shoving
of photographers trying to get close to the demonstrations, led to tense moments.
In Brooklyn, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry and City Councilman Charles Barron led
protesters to the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, but were stopped by officers
holding orange netting. The protesters then turned and marched on Tillary Street
toward the Manhattan Bridge, but officers jogged in front of them with the netting.
In the end, Mr. Daughtry simply told the group to sit cross-legged in the street
and wait to be arrested.
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Reporting was contributed by David Giambusso, Brenda Goodman, Jason
Grant, C. J. Hughes, Colin Moynihan, Sharon Otterman and Karen Zraick.
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