NYC action demands ‘Stop police brutality!’

A fired-up action took place in New York City on Oct. 22 as part of the “National day of protest to stop police brutality, repression and the criminalization of a generation.” It was led by oppressed and militant youth.

For the 14th year the October 22nd Coalition gave voice and strength to families of those gunned down by police, such as Juanita Young, whose entire family was brutalized and arrested in a racist police raid on their Bronx home in 2000. The New York Police Department then murdered her innocent son, Malcolm Ferguson. During the opening rally Young said: “You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you—try to break your spirit. If you don’t resist and keep on fighting, they will be able to get away with what they’re trying to do to us.”

Speakers included one of the Bushwick 32, a group of Black and Latino/a high school students who were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly and other “crimes” as they walked in a funeral procession for another student in Brooklyn in 2007. Other speakers also gave support to immigrant families who are profiled, detained, abused and separated from loved ones by arrests and deportations.

Following the Washington Square rally, a militant march took over part of a prominent avenue in Manhattan and sent loud chants of defiance and inspiration to New Yorkers.