The NYC protests have continued in spite a call from Mayor Bill de Blasio to put them on hold until the two dead police officers, who were murdered Saturday could be buried.
In a report from Fox News , more than 1,000 protesters defied the Mayor, who has been an outspoken critic of the New York City Police Department since taking office.
“Stop-and-frisk,” a tactic that the Mayor decried and ruled against, drew part of the protesters’ ire.
“The mayor says stop that, we say [expletive] that,” said several activists.
“We’re protesting tonight, because the mayor specifically said not to,” said 25-year-old Tarik Grand of Brooklyn. “They asked for a moment of silence for the cops, but not for [Eric] Garner.”
Garner was approached for selling “loose cigarettes.” The video, which stemmed these NYC protests, shows an officer quickly applying a chokehold to Garner after he lightly resists arrest.
The chokehold, a coroner found, “contributed” to his death, though it was also noted that he had a variety of health problems that did as well.
On Saturday, a man executed two NYC police officers as a “response” to the grand jury decision not to prosecute officers, who were implicated in the Garner death.
The two dead officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu , were not involved in the Garner altercation in any way, and their shooter later turned the gun on himself and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The NYC protests have faced the challenge of existing separate from that incident in spite of the fact that many have accused them of encouraging violent people, such as the shooter in the police officer executions.
Caught in the middle of all this is Mayor Bill de Blasio. De Blasio appears to have lost the respect of the police department as well as the constituency that he was trying to support with his outlawing of stop-and-frisk.
As the NYC protests continue, especially in light of his call to delay them out of respect for the dead officers, the word “resignation” will pick up more steam in city politics.
Bill O’Reilly is already saying it ( via Huffington Post ).
“This is an individual who should resign today. Today. He cannot run this city, he’s lost the control of the police department and their respect. They will never come back no matter what he says, because he sided with the protesters. That’s what he did. He associated with provocateurs and he has disgraced the office of mayor of New York City.”
Now it appears he may have lost the protesters as well.
Do you think the NYC protests are more reason for Mayor de Blasio to resign? Share your thoughts in our comments section.
[Image via a katz / Shutterstock.com ]
