Boston protesters call for an end to police brutality, defunding departments

Hope Coleman’s voice still quavers when she talks about the day her son was shot to death by police.

She recounted the heartbreaking loss with purpose Sunday to thousands of protesters who gathered on City Hall Plaza to denounce police brutality and call for defunding the force just hours after the the mayor said he’d reallocate “some” of the police budget.

“It’s time for a change,” she cried.

Terrence J. Coleman, a 31-year-old black man, was shot and killed in October 2016 when authorities say he attacked medics and police with a knife while they were responding to her call for an ambulance. The district attorney at the time said the use of force was justified.

But protesters want his case reopened — along with those of other black people killed at the hands of police officers, calling for “justice, now” as protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of Minneapolis Police in late May continued Sunday.

Mayor Martin Walsh said Sunday on WCVB’s “On the Record” that the city is working on change. “We are going to look at the police budget, certainly, and reallocate some of it,” Walsh said.

Protesters at the “Unite against racist police terror!” event called for shifting police funds toward other services to help black people dealing with systemic racism — from housing, to health care, to education. They also called for the National Guard, which again blocked streets leading to Downtown Crossing, to leave the city.

Brock Satter, an organizer with Mass. Action Against Police Brutality, slammed cops for taking a knee and said politicians who “all of a sudden they’ve found a voice” are “hypocrites” — directing criticism at Gov. Charlie Baker, Mayor Walsh, Boston Police Commissioner William Gross, state Attorney General Maura Healey, Suffolk DA Rachael Rollins, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

At the protest, John Griffith, who is white, stood next to his black wife and daughter while clad in his military fatigues with a mask that read “I can’t breathe.”

“It’s time for white people to look at how we have been complicit in this and how we’ve kept the system of racism in place,” he said.

As protesters marched through downtown Boston, Simone-Marie, a black woman who declined to give her last name, elbow-bumped two National Guard members. She said she’s been targeted by police before, but “if we can break the barrier” progress can be made. “Not everyone is against the police.”

Demonstrators took a knee outside the Ruggles MBTA station before organizers recounted gains that have been made over the nearly two weeks of national protests, including the charging of the officers involved in Floyd’s death and Minneapolis Police banning choke holds.

 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3cJ4ynU