Washington Ralliers Slam US Police Brutality
WASHINGTON, DC (Tasnim) – A crowd of people held a protest rally at the Chinatown in Washington, DC, to condemn US police brutality and the acquittal of police officers who stood trial in the shooting deaths of black people.
Around 2,000 people attended the rally on Thursday night, just hours before the New Year.
Holding banners with slogans against police’s racist conduct, demonstrators demanded justice for the African-Americans who have been shot dead by the police forces.
“The US cops kill a black person every 28 hours,” a participant at the rally told the Tasnim reporter.
The Washington protest was part of regular gatherings in many US cities demanding justice for the victims of US police brutality, with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” as a common expression in the civil rights campaign.
Back on December 14, 2015, a Chicago police commander accused of sticking a gun in a suspect’s mouth, holding a Taser to his groin and threatening to kill him was acquitted of felony charges by a circuit court judge.
Later on December 16, the trial of the first Baltimore police officer in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray ended in a hung jury, an unexpected twist that complicated the cases against five other officers facing charges in a fatal police encounter that prompted violent unrest in Baltimore last spring.
Gray had died on April 19 after suffering a spinal injury while in police custody in Baltimore.
With his death, Gray joined a long list of black men who have died under questionable circumstances during police encounters in recent months.
