The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Protest organizers: By street or by ballot, change must come
An organizer of several recent protests in Connecticut said she expects a resurgence in demonstrations following the shooting of another Black man by a white police officer.
“I think what happened to Jacob Blake is giving people a reason to not just march for solidarity but it will create an outcry and spur people to mobilize again,” said Nicole Rincon, an organizer for the regional protest group Justice for Brunch.
But the leader of a civil rights agency in the state said it’s time for a different approach to solving the problem of police brutality.
“We want policy, not prose,” said Glenda Armstrong, president of the
60-year-old NAACP Danbury chapter. “Unless you start doing something from a policy point of view ... we’re going to continue to be in this same situation,” she said. “Otherwise, you’re just playing Whack-A-Mole.”
Her chapter has been following up with city and police leaders to see how reforms recently passed in Hartford will be implemented, she said.
“We’re not just coming to the party,” Armstrong said. “We’ve kind of been laying the groundwork for this kind of change in policies and in practices for a long time.”
Protesters poured into the streets in many parts of the country Sunday after a white Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer named Rusten Sheskey shot Blake several times in the back, leaving him partially paralyzed.
Two nights later, Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide after two people protesting the Blake shooting were fatally shot and a third was wounded.
Joining the calls for justice have been several high-profile athletes and professional sports leagues, including the NBA, WNBA, Major League Baseball, which canceled games in an effort to bring attention to systemic racism in the country.
“I think that’s absolutely what we need,” Rincon said. “I’m happy they’re using these platforms for these families and to get them justice, and I hope that it can garner more people into the movement if they see that their favorite basketball player is hurting right now and that they can’t even play.”
Her organization — which has organized protests in several towns and cities, most aimed at times and places when people were enjoying brunch meals — is joining a Norwalk protest on Sunday scheduled to start, she said, at the Norwalk Police Station at noon and commence with a sit-in at Norwalk City Hall at 3 p.m.
Jere Eaton, a Stamford-based leader of the group Black Votes Matter, has organized recent events in her city. But she, like Danbury’s Armstrong, hopes to see change efforts move to new platforms.
The most recent officer-involved shootings of Black people come just before a major election, in which people of color can mobilize to create change through their ballots, she said. And she called on local city leaders to do a better job of including members of underserved communities in civic discussions, so they can offer perspectives on policies and appropriate changes.
“No one’s talking to them,” she said. “Instead, the organizations that are providing (them) services are the ones speaking for them, when we really need to hear from them.”
Eaton urged leaders to convene town hall meetings, amid a time when the coronavirus has made it easy for people to engage virtually.
But another local organizer said she, like Justice for Brunch’s Rincon, believes the latest shooting will result in more people taking to the streets.
Bailey Bitetto, an organizer with the Stamford group Justice for Steven Barrier, named for the man who died last year in police custody, said her group is considering “safer” ways to protest, such as by hosting sit-ins, after some members were arrested following an event this month.
But she said she expects them to be the exception following the Blake shooting.
“I think it’s going to be like another wave (like) the George Floyd protests,” she said. “And unfortunately, I don’t think this will be the last one ... because this just continues to happen.”