Photos: Stop Mass Incarceration Network protests NYPD, police brutality in US

BY DERON DALTON

Student from Sanford Brown Institute said she could get in trouble with school for speaking out at protest, but she doesn’t give a — — . She hugs her friends during an emotional moment after speaking out against police brutality.

Carl Dix, co-founder of Stop Mass Incarceration Network with Dr. Cornel West, said prior to Tuesday, April 14, demonstrators were going to revive the spirit of Ferguson, that spirit of refusing to suffer the brutality of the system in silence, according to the organization’s Facebook page.

Demonstrators nationwide listened to a series of speakers — including Eve Ensler, author of “Vagina Monologues” — pay tribute to the black and brown lives lost at the hands of police. In New York City’s Union Square Park, Stop Mass Incarnation Network and demonstrators packed the area with colorful signs and colorful personalities, expressing unity in stopping police violence.

Elsa Waithe (left) is smiling during the rally, but later on during the march on Brooklyn Bridge is shoved into a metal tree guard by a police officer. The standup comedian was taken to the hospital and treated for possible hairline fractures to her ribs. She’s filing a complaint against the NYPD after the incident was videotaped.

West said he’s a Christian and his colleague Dix is a communist. So why are they working together, he referred to the question he’s often asked? They came together for the fight against police brutality and to stop the killings of the people who look like them. Regardless of their beliefs, they both believe in that.

“I Can’t Breathe! I Can’t Breathe!” the crowd chanted 11 times. The aunt Lisa Mercado (red hair) and mother Emily Mercado (center right) of Ramsey Orta called him a hero for filming the chokehold death of Eric Garner in Staten Island in July. His aunt created a GoFundMe page to get him out of jail after being arrested on charges that he sold drugs to undercover cops in February. The fund raised more than $54,000. He was released on Friday, April 10.

Demonstrators marched from Union Square to Brooklyn Bridge to protest the NYPD and police violence against black and brown people. A demonstrator yelled at a black police officer, blasted him as a sell out.

With fists and middle fingers held up high at the march, demonstrators of Stop Mass Incarceration Network work to end police brutality, and Stop and Frisk, a NYPD practice of stopping and questioning black or Latino pedestrians, and frisking them for weapons and other contraband.

Dix added, “We have to get back out into the streets to declare that we’re not backing down, we’re not going away,” according to the organization’s Facebook page.

The protest remained peaceful from Union Square, down Broadway and in Lower Manhattan, but everything went left during the barricade at Brooklyn Bridge.

A police officer pulled out his firearm after allegedly being assaulted, pointing it at a crowd of protesters. NYPD arrested 42 people after the peaceful protest turned violent.