‘Shut it down’ …Protesters shut down traffic with ‘die ins’

DyingToBeHeard
DYING TO BE HEARD—Marchers stage the last of four “die ins” outside the City-County Building on Grant Street to protest police killing Black men like Mike Brown and Eric Garner with impunity. (Photo by J.L. Martello)

Oscar Grant, Lavar Jones, Amadou Diallo, Tamar Rice, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner; all unarmed Black men who died as the result of encounters with White police officers. Marie Norman made signs for each of them and more, which she carried during a Dec. 4 march through Downtown Pittsburgh.
There would have been more names, but she ran out of paper.
“There are so many more. And there’s a lot of anger about a country that would do this to its citizens,” she said. “I hope this (march) will lead to some change. We need to disrupt business as usual.”
Norman was one of several White participants, young and old, who joined African-Americans protesting “racist police” in the wake of the Staten Island, N.Y., grand jury’s failure to indict police officer in the choking death of Garner. It was the second such march in as many days.
Another pariticpant, Chad Nolan, joined the march during his lunch break from a downtown bank because he’s seen Black friends abused by White officers.
“I’ve seen police brutality. I’ve had Black friend beaten based on nothing but race,” he said. “I believe in the constitution and individual rights. But people getting killed for summary offenses—this has to stop.”

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