Tag Archives: Black lives matter

‘Black Lives Matter’: a movement that defies definition

A demonstrator with Black Lives Matter holds up a sign during a protest in front of the White House in Washington, U.S.,

(This July 11 story corrects spelling of name Punch in penultimate and last paragraph)

By Peter Eisler and Alana Wise

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – “Black Lives Matter” has become a mantra for people protesting police violence against African Americans.

It’s a hash tag, a popular t-shirt slogan and a movement that is loosely organized – by design.

Black Lives Matter was founded by three women who popularized the slogan during protests over the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teen who was shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida.

It has a website (BlackLivesMatter.com) and a network of chapters. But the idea is bigger than the organization.

Although the march where five Dallas police officers were fatally shot Thursday was organized by another group, news reports described it as a Black Lives Matters event.

“The convenient narrative has been for people, for the media to say, ‘Well, this was organized by Black Lives Matter’,” said Tezlyn Figaro, a publicist for Next Generation Action Network, the group that organized the event. The rally “had no affiliation with Black Lives Matter.”

The confusion flows in part from the decentralized structure of the Black Lives Matter organization and its founders’ desire that it remain open and inclusive.

“Not everyone who shows up at a demonstration is a full-fledged member of BLM, (but) they’re welcomed and encouraged to participate,” Melina Abdullah, a representative of the group’s Los Angeles chapter, said in a conversation with Reuters in June.

During the standoff with police negotiators Thursday, the shooter invoked the slogan, saying he was “upset about black lives matter,” according to Dallas Police Chief David Brown.

The organization disavowed the violence in a post on its web page.

“This is a tragedy – both for those who have been impacted by yesterday’s attack and for our democracy,” it said.

“There are some who would use these events to stifle a movement for change and quicken the demise of a vibrant discourse on the human rights of Black Americans. We should reject all of this. Black activists have raised the call for an end to violence, not an escalation of it.”

That didn’t stop a wave of social media criticism attempting to tie the violence to the movement. But U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, speaking about the demonstrations inspired by Black Lives and other groups, drew a bright line between the gunman’s actions and “lawful protest and protected speech.”

“Do not be discouraged by those who use your lawful actions as cover for their heinous violence,” Lynch said Friday. “We will continue to safeguard your constitutional rights and to work with you in the difficult mission of building a better nation and a brighter future.”

Some said the best way to define the movement is by continuing to push a positive message. After a vigil Friday in Dallas for the slain officers, Richmond Punch played “Amazing Grace” on his violin.

“We need to frame out a way to come back to peace,” said Punch, 35, an African-American Dallas resident and Black Lives Matter contributor. “The guy who committed this act, he doesn’t stand for what America is.”

(Additional reporting by Ruthy Munoz in Washington, and Ernest Scheyder and Marice Richter in Dallas. Editing by Jason Szep and Lisa Girion)

Cleveland police keeping low profile for Republican convention

An anti-Trump protester holds his protest sign in front of mounted police outside a rally for Republican U.S. presidential candidate

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) – As dozens of Black Lives Matter protesters chanted: “No justice, no peace!” in central Cleveland on Monday, they faced down a wall of police – on bicycles, dressed in polo shirts and shorts.

It was the kind of police presence the organizers of next week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland have long had in mind – respectful of free speech, and orderly. No arrests were made.

Elsewhere in the United States, tensions are high since last week’s deadly attack on police in Dallas, creating scenes like the one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where police in riot gear confronted a woman standing calmly in a flowing dress, an image captured in a photograph that has attracted worldwide attention.

But in Cleveland, where the four-day Republican convention begins on Monday, police are committed to a low profile, avoiding the militarized presence that has become common in recent years since police across the country received free war surplus equipment from the Pentagon.

The Ohio city is sticking with its plan even after the events in Dallas, where a black U.S. veteran of the Afghan war, who had said he wanted to “kill white people,” fatally shot five police officers on Thursday.

The attack came during an otherwise peaceful protest to denounce last week’s police killings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Protests have continued in those states, resulting in hundreds of arrests. Cleveland police have said they will increase intelligence and surveillance as a result of the Dallas attacks.

“(Dallas) affects our planning, but we have planned, we have what-iffed and we have table-topped this for a long time,” the police chief, Calvin Williams, told a news conference on Tuesday. “We don’t want anybody to trample on anybody else’s rights.”

Steve Loomis, the head of the Cleveland police officers’ union, said Cleveland may be too lightly equipped. He also complained about a 28-page General Police Order sent to officers a month before the convention, with instructions on de-escalating conflicts and preserving protesters’ rights, calling it condescending and designed to make officers look weak.

“We have no shields because they think it is too offensive,” Loomis said. “But a brick to the head is offensive to me.”

TRUMP FACTOR

Political conventions are a magnet for protests even under normal circumstances, and Cleveland will have the Trump factor.

Donald Trump, the New York businessman set to receive the Republican presidential nomination for the Nov. 8 election, has stirred passions among supporters and opponents during the campaign with his comments on illegal immigrants and Muslims, and the two sides have clashed at several of his campaign events.

Cleveland’s gun laws will allow people to carry guns openly within the so-called event zone where demonstrations will take place. The New Black Panther Party, a “black power” movement, will carry firearms for self-defense during demonstrations in Cleveland, the group’s chairman said.

The city comes into the convention with less hardware than other places. Cleveland never received any war surplus but has bought one armored vehicle and personal protective equipment for officers, a police spokeswoman said. Otherwise, Cleveland has avoided “controlled equipment” such as bayonets and grenade launchers, which the Defense Department has since recalled from many police departments.

But the city is also keeping secret millions of dollars worth of police purchases until after the convention, citing security concerns.

‘DE-ESCALATION’

Among the publicly disclosed purchases for the convention to date have been 2,000 new sets of personal protection equipment, colloquially known as riot gear.

The U.S. Secret Service and FBI will run security inside the convention hall, while Cleveland police will handle crowd control outside, aided by 3,000 reinforcements, mostly from elsewhere in Ohio.

Jacqueline Greene, co-coordinator for the National Lawyers Guild, a human rights organization, expressed concern the visiting officers may not share Cleveland’s priorities on protecting free speech.

Cleveland and visiting police will be bound by the General Police Order on managing crowds while protecting free speech and assembly rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

The order directs police to “rely on de-escalation and voluntary compliance, and without using force, as the primary means of maintaining order.”

Only the police chief or one of his designated subordinates may approve mass arrests.

“One order is to create space,” Loomis said. “That is retreating. When they (protesters) see we are on our heels, it is a victory for them.”

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Protests on Saturday shut down main highways, numerous arrests

People gather on Interstate 94 to protest the fatal shooting of Philando Castile by Minneapolis area police during a traffic stop, in St. Paul, Minnesota,

By Bryn Stole and David Bailey

BATON ROUGE, La./MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – Protests against the shootings of two black men by police officers shut down main arteries in a number of U.S. cities on Saturday, leading to numerous arrests, scuffles and injuries in confrontations between police and demonstrators.

Undeterred by heightened concerns about safety at protests after a lone gunman killed five police officers in Dallas Thursday night, organizers went ahead with marches in the biggest metropolis, New York City, and Washington D.C., the nation’s capital, among other cities.

It was the third straight day of widespread protests after the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, by police in Baton Rouge on Tuesday and the death of Philando Castile, 32, on Wednesday night in a St. Paul, Minnesota suburb, cities which both saw heated protests on Saturday.

The most recent shooting deaths by police come after several years of contentious killings by law enforcement officers, including that of Michael Brown, a teenager whose death in the summer of 2014 caused riots and weeks of protests in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.

On Saturday evening, hundreds of protesters shut down I-94, a major thoroughfare linking the Twin Cities, snarling traffic.

Protesters, told to disperse, threw rocks, bottles and construction rebar at officers, injuring at least three, St. Paul police said. Police made arrests and used smoke bombs and marking rounds to disperse the crowd.

Protesters at the scene said police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Police said early on Sunday they had begun clearing the highway of debris in preparation for re-opening it.

A march in Baton Rouge saw scuffles between riot police and Black Panther activists, several of whom carried shotguns. Louisiana law allows for weapons to be carried openly.

After a short standoff later in the evening, riot police arrested as many as 30 demonstrators and recovered weapons. Prominent black activist and former Baltimore mayoral candidate Deray McKesson was among those arrested.

Protests also took place Saturday in Nashville, where protesters briefly blocked a road, and in Indianapolis. A rally in San Francisco also briefly blocked a freeway ramp, according to local media.

Hundreds of protesters marched from City Hall to Union Square in New York. The crowd swelled to around a thousand people, closing down Fifth Avenue.

Some chanted “No racist police, no justice, no peace” as rain fell in New York.

“I’m feeling very haunted, very sad,” said Lorena Ambrosio, 27, a Peruvian American and freelance artist, “and just angry that black bodies just keep piling and piling up.”

New York police said they arrested about a dozen protesters for shutting down a major city highway.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney, Elizabeth Barber and Chris Michaud in New York; Writing by Nick Carey; Editing by Mary Milliken and Ryan Woo)

Wave of anti-police protests strains U.S. law enforcement

People hold their hands in the air as they yell "hands up, don't shoot!" during a protest for the killing of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in the Manhattan borough of New York

By Curtis Skinner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A wave of anti-police protests since the 2014 killing of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, is creating strains at law enforcement agencies across the United States, forcing out some police chiefs and top prosecutors.

A driving force behind the change has been Black Lives Matter, a national organization whose name is a potent symbol for demonstrators railing against police violence, according to law enforcement officials and academics.

“What Black Lives Matter has been able to do is to maintain a focus on this issue and a persistence that has lasted for over two years now,” said Jody Armour, a professor at University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law.

Armour, who has expertise in police and racial profiling, called the movement “the power of democracy unleashed.”

“Black Lives Matter” has again been used as a rallying cry in the cases of two unarmed black men shot dead by police this week in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, and organizers have begun mobilizing.

Formed in 2012 after the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida, Black Lives Matter’s national profile exploded in mid-2014 after white police officer Darren Wilson shot dead unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson.

Angry protests have roiled the country since, and police chiefs and top prosecutors in big and small cities have been ousted.

In San Francisco, the police killing of 26-year-old Mario Woods in December sparked months of protests and demands for the ouster of police chief Greg Suhr. In May, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee asked him to step down, saying tensions between police and people of color had “come into full view.”

In Chicago, two-term Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez lost her Democratic primary bid by a landslide in March, after activists dogged her campaign over her handling of the 2014 police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Her loss came just months after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ousted then-police superintendent Garry McCarthy, saying it was an “undeniable fact” that public trust in police had eroded. As evidence, he cited Black Lives Matter protests organized after a video of the killing was released.

BATON ROUGE AND MINNEAPOLIS

The group has used demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience to pressure police chiefs and elected officials. At times their lead has been followed by more established groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and local clergy, as was the case in Chicago.

Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said local politicians were much more responsible for the string of departures and firings than protesters.

“I know from being involved in this work for around 50 years, that (since Ferguson) we’ve seen more of these political terminations than we’ve seen in years past,” he said.

Hundreds of demonstrators converged on a convenience store in Baton Rouge on Wednesday where two police officers fatally shot 37-year-old Alton Sterling, an unarmed black man who was selling CDs, early on Tuesday morning.

Protesters on Thursday also gathered at the mansion of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton in St. Paul, about 10 miles (15 km) southeast of where 32-year-old Philando Castile was shot by a police officer after a traffic stop on Wednesday.

Both of the killings were captured on video.

Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said heightened media attention and the ubiquity of cell phones have fueled recent firings and resignations.

“There’s a far greater public awareness that’s going on and it’s increased (protesters’) ability to affect the process,” Pasco said.

He said the attention has made police chiefs an easy scapegoat for politicians aiming to quell unrest.

“Whenever there is a problem, is Rahm Emanuel going to resign or is he going to fire the police chief?” Pasco said, referring to the Chicago mayor. “Is the mayor of San Francisco going to resign, or is he going to fire the police chief? That’s the question.”

Melina Abdullah, professor and chair of pan-African studies at California State University Los Angeles, said keeping the heat on elected officials has been critical to the movement’s success.

“With sustained pressure there, we can make sure there is a response,” said Abdullah, an organizer of the local Black Lives Matter chapter. “We know another murder is going to happen.”

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Jason Szep and Richard Chang)