Black Rights Activists Plan to Occupy City Hall Until NYPD Commissioner Resigns

An activist group is planning to occupy City Hall Park in Manhattan starting on Monday, and they're claiming they are going to stay there and "shut down" City Hall until the NYPD fires Commissioner Bill Bratton and meets several other financial demands.

The group, called Millions March NYC, is calling the protest #shutdowncityhallnyc. Its purpose is fueled by the deaths of several black people at the hands of police officers, like Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, and most recently the fatal shooting of East New York resident Delrawn Small by NYPD Officer Wayne Isaacs on July 4.

The activists say they will stay in City Hall Park until the NYPD fires Bratton and ends Broken Windows policing, the NYPD uses its budget to give reparations to survivors and victims of police brutality, and the government defunds NYPD's budget to "re-invest into Black & Brown communities."

"Policing is a violent institution rooted in anti-Blackness that has expanded into a heavily militarized, occupying force in Black, Brown, and working class communities," the group says on the Facebook event. "We fight for the abolition of policing and prisons and will not be fooled or derailed by fake reforms like body cameras and so-called community policing, which further increase the budget and power of the racist and brutal NYPD."

The group Millions March NYC describes itself on its Facebook page as "a multiracial grassroots collective of organizers committed to building and strengthening the movement for Black lives."

Image by Sarah Kaufman/Patch