J’Ouvert vics rally morphs
A BROOKLYN rally intended to bring awareness to black-on-black violence following two murders at the J’Ouvert celebration nearly three weeks ago morphed into a larger protest about the recent police killings of African-American men across the country.
The march began at the corner of Empire Blvd. and Franklin Ave., in ProspectLefferts Gardens, where 22-year-old St. John’s University grad student Tiarah Poyau was fatally shot Sept. 5.
“We’re all here for peace,” said Vertina Brown, Poyau’s 41-year-old mother. “We’re all here for justice for Tiarah. This is basically all I really want is justice for my daughter. She died senselessly and it could’ve been avoided.”
About 60 black-clad activists and relatives of those killed by gun violence chanted “I’m black and I’m proud” and held their fists in the air as they marched.
They stopped at the corner where Tyreke Borel, 17, lost his life the same night as Poyau. Tyreke, who was studying to be a car mechanic at Boys & Girls High School, was shot in the chest as he sat on a bench. Both were victims of random shootings, cops said.
As demonstrators honored the memories of the young people slain during the Labor Day event, the recent deaths of Keith Scott in Charlotte, N.C., and Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Okla., at the hands of the police were never far from anyone’s minds.
“We’ve got to get the police off our backs, but we’ve got to get off each other’s first,” said Black Lives Matter activist Hawk Newsome
“There’s a systematic problem around this country that you kill unarmed black men with their hands up, and black women, but black men in particular,” added minister Abdul Hafeez Muhammad. Black people have to stop killing each other, he said.
“Since 1978, we’ve killed over 250,000 of our own people by our own hands, mainly with gun violence . . . That’s a travesty,” Muhammad said.