Marchers in NY protest police brutality Oct. 24

Militant/Sarah Katz

NEW YORK — Hundreds of people rallied and marched against police brutality here Oct. 24, organized by the Stop Mass Incarceration coalition and supported by Justice League NYC, the People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, New Jersey, and other groups.

The action was marked by the participation of a good number of family members of people killed by police. Among them were Kadiatou Diallo, whose son Amadou Diallo was killed by New York police in 1999; Juanita Young, mother of Malcolm Ferguson, who was killed by cops here in 2000; Iris Baez, mother of Anthony Baez, killed in a police chokehold in 1994; Andree Penix-Smith, whose son Justin Smith Jr. was beaten to death by five Tulsa, Oklahoma, cops in 1998; and Sharon and “Papa” Irwin, grandparents of Tony Robinson, killed by Madison, Wisconsin, police March 6.

“This is not about Black and white,” Sharon Irwin told the Militant. “It’s about right and wrong.”

“I’m a human being with a conscience,” film director Quentin Tarantino, who flew from California to join the rally, told participants. “I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.” New York Police Commmissioner William Bratton denounced Tarantino and Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch called for a boycott of his movies.

There was a heavy police presence during the protest, which took place in the wake of the Oct. 20 killing of police officer Randolph Holder in East Harlem. Nonetheless, provocations and arrests were at a minimum.

— MAGGIE TROWE