AP

NYPD Arrests Protesters at Rally Against Zimmerman

At least a dozen people have been arrested on disorderly charges during a New York City rally protesting the acquittal of George Zimmerman.

Over a thousand people gathered in Manhattan’s Times Square Sunday to protest the Florida verdict that found Zimmerman not guilty in the death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin.

The NYPD says between 12 and 20 people were issued summonses. An exact figure was expected later Monday.

The protesters first gathered in Union Square for a rally dubbed “Hoodies Up for Trayvon.” They hoisted placards bearing Martin’s picture and chanted “Justice for! Trayvon Martin!”

The marchers made their way to Times Square where they blocked traffic for more than an hour before moving on.

The case has unleashed a national debate over racial profiling and self-defense.

Al Sharpton Plans Protests in 100 Cities – The Blaze

During MSNBC’s 11 am hour, above a chyron that read, “More Marches, Protests Planned in Coming Days, Weeks,” MSNBC anchor Al Sharpton said that he and his National Action Network are “mobilizing” protests in 100 cities. Sharpton made clear that the protests were meant to pressure the Justice Department into taking legal action against George Zimmerman:

“Well, I certainly think it is going to be on those that now feel that this verdict makes a lot of people vulnerable. The reason that people in the civil rights community, including [Sharpton’s] National Action Network, is talking about these hundred cities that we’re mobilizing this weekend, is not just questioning a verdict but, saying a precedent is now set where the Justice Department must come in[.]”

NBC’s Sharpton was one of the first people to turn the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin into a national news story back in March of last year. In the run up to the trial this year, Sharpton has used his primetime MSNBC program, “Politics Nation,” to demand Zimmerman be convicted.

Sharpton achieved national fame in 1987 as the face of the fraudulent Tawana Brawley case and during the Crown Heights Riots, where his role as an agitator is believed by many to have resulted in the mob violence behind the stabbing death of a Jewish scholar visiting from Australia.

10 Comments

  • Not Accurate

    It’s not accurate to say that Sharpton’s involvement had anything to do with Yankel Rosenbaum’s stabbing death. The stabbing preceded Sharpton’s involvement.

  • Citizen Berel

    By all accounts, this Martin fellow was a wicked man, and the world is better place without him.

    Good riddance.

    • Milhouse

      Then you haven’t been paying attention. He was caught with a burglary tool and a stash of women’s jewelry, some of which was positively identified as the proceeds from a burglary near his school. He was involved in fighting, and boasted of his ability to bring a man down with one punch to the nose — exactly as he did to Zimmerman.

  • like the sign

    I like the sign “You can’t have capitalism without racism”. Halavay the one carrying the sign and those like her would get one way tickets to a communist country like North Korea, I’m sure they’ll be much better off there, and so will we…

  • scary

    The black guy (woman?) in the hoody in the center of the picture looks like a zombie.