Sharpton Blasts Effort To Mute Black Lives Matter Movement
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP)-- The Rev. Al Sharpton is criticizing efforts to mute the Black Lives Matter movement, saying a sustained protest is the only way to force change.
Sharpton spoke Saturday, a day before the two-year anniversary of the death of Eric Garner. Garner died in a police chokehold in the New York City borough of Staten Island on July 17, 2004.
Protesters were heard chanting "no justice, no peace" near Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, 1010 WINS' Roger Stern reported.
Two years after the chokehold death of Garner made "I can't breathe'' a rallying cry for protests over police killings of black men, federal authorities are still grappling with whether to prosecute the white officer seen on a widely watched video wrapping his arm around Garner's neck.
The legal limbo is playing out on the watch of Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who has come under persistent pressure in the city and elsewhere to bring Officer Daniel Pantaleo to justice. The New York City case turned out to be a forerunner to a series of videotaped police killings across the country that have fueled outrage and protests.
Sharpton said during his weekly address at the National Action Network's "House of Justice'' in Harlem that numerous unjustified killings across the country demand an outcry.
He said keeping them in the public eye will be necessary until injustice stops.
Sharpton said numerous protests create a climate for change and provide participants a sense of sanity amid rising gun-related violence.
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