New York Daily News

D.C. parade of tears in cop killings

- BYRICH SCHAPIRO

RELATIVES OF some of the country’s highest-profile black men killed by police are poised to join the Rev. Al Sharpton in a march on Washington Saturday.

The “Justice For All” rally will be led by family members of nearly a dozen men — including relatives of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Amadou Diallo. Also on hand will be the parents of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old Florida boy gunned down by neighborho­od watchman George Zimmerman.

“To my memory, this has never happened where we have so many families of victims coming together and leading a march,” Sharpton (below) told the Daily Newson Friday.

“It puts a face on what we’re talking about. These are the wounded.”

More than 100 buses are expected to leave the city for the nation’s capital early Saturday.

Participan­ts are slated to march down Pennsylvan­ia Ave. starting at noon, massing in front of the Capitol.

The event was organized in the days after it was announced that a Staten Island grand jury voted not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the July chokehold death of 43-year-old Garner.

Sharpton, joined by members of dozens of religious and advocacy groups, is calling for congressio­nal hearings into the recent spate of police-involved killings. The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigat­ion into Garner’s death — but more systemic changes are needed, Sharpton said.

“There must be some relief from the Justice Department but there must be some longstandi­ng change in terms of law, which requires Congress,” Sharpton said.

Meanwhile, NYPD supporters are planning a procop rally at City Hall next Friday.

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States