SOMERVILLE—Hundreds of protesters marched through Somerville and Cambridge on Friday in a second night of demonstrations against grand jury decisions not to indict two white police officers involved in the deaths of unarmed black men in Ferguson, MO, and Staten Island, NY. Protesters assembled at Tufts University shortly after 4:30 p.m. and quickly made their way to Davis Square in Somerville, where some of the demonstrators lay down on the ground in a “die-in.” The crowd then walked to Massachusetts Avenue, where the group effectively blocked all traffic. Throughout the evening, the protesters chanted “We want justice” and “Shut it down” as they expressed their anger about the grand juries’ decisions and called for shutting down “the system.” Last week, a St. Louis County grand jury did not indict white police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, and a grand jury in New York this week also decided not to indict white police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, whom the officer choked to death. When the marchers got to Massachusetts Avenue and Hancock Street on Friday, they chanted, “Turn up. Don’t turn down. Justice for Mike Brown.” Demonstrators also stopped at each of the main squares along the way, including Porter, Harvard, and Central. At each square, the protesters laid on the ground for 4½ minutes to symbolize the number of hours that Brown was left in the street after he was shot and killed. Although the protest was initially organized by undergraduate students at Tufts, the diverse crowd featured people of all ages.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 16:57:34 +0000
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