Black Lives Matter Protesters Clash With Cops in Midtown Manhattan

UPDATE: 42 total protesters were arrested at the Black Lives Matter demo last night. Full story here.

Manhattan, NY — More than 1,000 people congregated in Union Square Thursday evening for a Black Lives Matter protest that started around 6 p.m. and still hadn't ended by the wee hours Friday morning.

Multiple protesters were detained by police during the pained and charged demonstration — at least a couple dozen, according to witness accounts.

Coming together in Union Square early in the evening, protesters chanted: "Hands up! Don't shoot!"

They held signs that called for justice for black victims of police killings — three of which were reported during the past week alone.

The group gathered in a hot and humid Union Square to prepare for a march, chanting, "What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!" and "This is what democracy looks like!"

Some protesters asked the jazz band playing in the square to stop playing so they could better hear the leaders of the march speak through a muffled microphone. The jazz players complied.

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The protest was largely organized by two groups: Stop Mass Incarceration Network and the NYC Revolution Club.

The Facebook event called on New Yorkers "to get in the streets right away in response to the outrageous and criminal murder of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and of Philando Castile in Minneapolis MN."

Protesters' posters voiced their frustration at the growing number of black victims of police violence in America.

The group of at least 1,000 started marching and chanting on Fifth Avenue around 6 p.m., stopping traffic. Protesters then made their way to Sixth Avenue, passed by the Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey and circled back to Times Square.

By 8 p.m. in Times Square, where a group of confused tourists had gathered, cops surrounded the demonstration and detained multiple protesters for "disorderly conduct," according to an NYPD spokesman.