Newark protest says, ‘Stop cops killing our children’

Militant/Sara Lobman

NEWARK, N.J. — Shelia Reid, fourth from right, mother of Jerame Reid, killed by two cops in Bridgeton during a traffic stop in December 2014, organized a spirited march here Dec. 30 to coincide with her son’s birthday. Jerame Reid was videotaped by the cops’ dashcam as he got out of the car, unarmed with his hands in the air. Cops Braheme Days and Roger Worley fired eight shots, killing him.

A number of mothers of children killed by police joined Reid. “I need all the mothers to stand together,” she told marchers. “We have to stop the police killing our children.”

“My son, Jahqui Graham, was beaten to death in 2009 by the East Orange Police Department,” Tawanna Graham, right, said. “Then they told me he died of an asthma attack. Those officers didn’t go to jail.”

Juanita Young, left, Andree Penix-Smith, third from left, and Hawa Bah, center, joined the protest from New York. Young and Bah’s sons were killed by New York City cops and Penix-Smith’s by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

— CANDACE WAGNER