As many as 76 people were arrested during an event held at a London shopping center to protest the decision by a New York grand jury not to file charges in the death of Eric Garner, reports
Sky News.
Hundreds of protesters gathered inside the Westfield shopping center in west London to stage a "die-in," in which they sprawled out on the floor and chanted "I can't breathe," the final words spoken by Garner as New York police officers attempted to place him under arrest for selling loose cigarettes.
A majority of the arrests were made after a group that had been moved outside attempted to re-enter the stores, according to
The Evening Standard.
The London protests were organized by a group known as the London Black Revs (short for revolutionaries), acting in solidarity with protesters staging a wave of actions in several major US cities.
Protesters yelled "no justice, no police," in addition to screaming obscenities at officers from Scotland Yard, reports Britain's
Channel 4 news.
The group said on
its Facebook page that the protests were intended to "show solidarity towards a recent wave of protests in USA against the killing of Afro-American Eric Garner by a white New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo."
The group also posted an update last night stating that most of those arrested had been released or bailed out of jail.
Earlier this summer, the group, which has fewer than 100 members, said it had plans to launch a recruitment campaign on university campuses, reports
The Guardian.
The group described itself to the paper as a "closed black and Asian revolutionary socialist group," and says its members are "young, black, very political" and fed up with the "lack of militancy" displayed by most political organizations.
Since the Staten Island, New York, grand jury declined to press charges against Officer Pantaleo, who placed a fatal chokehold on Garner, protests have taken place across the nation. While most have been peaceful, protests in Berkley, California, did turn violent earlier this week, reports
CBS News.
Newsweek also reported that in solidarity with protesters in New York, the activist group Anonymous shut down the websites of the Oakland Police Department and city government offices on Wednesday.
On Saturday, the Rev. Al Sharpton will head to Washington, D.C., to lead a "march against police violence," and to call on Congress to take action.
"Congress must immediately start hearings to deal with laws that will change the jurisdiction threshold for federal cases and policing. The executive branch has addressed this most pressing issue, and now it's time the legislative branch do the same," wrote Sharpton in a recent op-ed in
The Huffington Post.
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