Activists plan national shutdown to oppose police violence

Family members of people who have been killed by police are expected to gather with protesters in Union Square on Tuesday to rally against police brutality in a national day of action.

Stop Mass Incarceration Network organized the rally following the shooting of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, in South Carolina by a white police officer earlier this month. The incident was captured on cellphone and dashcam video, and Officer Michael Slager has since been fired and arrested on murder charges.

“We’re going to revive the spirit of Ferguson, that spirit of refusing to suffer the brutality of the system in silence. And we’re going to take it higher. We have to get back out into the streets to declare that we’re not backing down, we’re not going away,” said Carl Dix, co-founder of Stop Mass Incarceration Network, in a statement.

Organizers of the national day of action said in a press release:“The normal routine of this society includes wanton police murder of black and brown people. Everyone must disrupt that normal routine.” Participants are urged to walk out of school or work for the day, upsetting “business as usual.”

New Yorkers are expected to gather on the north side of Union Square at 2 p.m. on Tuesday.

Last fall, the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York City, and subsequent grand jury decisions not to indict the officers involved with their deaths, started waves of protests across the country. Organizers say this is the first national protest since the Black Lives Matter movement last year.