He gives up after facing off with cops
Dozens of Black women, joined Saturday by an NYPD commander, marched through Brooklyn to call for an end to the gun violence destroying their families.
The marchers, many dressed in white and chanting, “Take these guns off our street!” walked past the Black Lives Matter murals along Fulton St. on their way to a rally where speaker Felicia Davis addressed the devastating impact that a series of street shootings had on her.
“I lost three sons, back to back to back,” said the activist. “I lost two nephews. Five family members. … I cannot tell you how many days I cried. I lose sleep. I can’t hardly think sometimes. Once you are impacted by violence your whole mindset changes, and you think about it all the time.”
Aishah Ali, 68, a member of Sisters United Against Violence, said the Black
Lives Matter movement needs to focus on more than police brutality.
“Black Lives Matter is absolutely true, but we have to stop killing ourselves,” she said. “We have to stop it in our own communities. The responsibility doesn’t just belong to the police officers. These are our kids. We’re the mothers. We nurture, we raise them.”
Judith Harrison, NYPD commander of Brooklyn North, also addressed the crowd in her uniform.
“You may think I march because I wear this uniform, but I march because I’m a woman, I’m Black and I’m a mother,” she said. “You deserve better.”
She referred to the fatal shooting of 1-year-old Davell Gardner, who was killed by a stray bullet last month at a Brooklyn cookout: “If that doesn’t tug on your heartstrings, I don’t know what will.”
State Attorney General Letitia James read from a list of 16 people lost to gun violence, urging the women in the crowd to say the names of those killed in shootings.
“We’ve got to take the guns off the street, because they don’t manufacture and distribute guns on the streets of Bed-Stuy,” said James, who filed a lawsuit only days earlier to dissolve the progun National Rifle Association. “I am so proud of all the sisters who united against gun violence.”
The event ended with the release of white balloons into the Brooklyn sky in memory of those killed by gunshots.
“These are your sons and daughters and nieces and nephews,” said City Councilman Robert Cornegy. “They’‘re not finding [the shooters] because we’re not cooperating with the police.”
A social justice activist who live-streamed on Instagram his standoff with NYPD cops outside his Hell’s Kitchen apartment — drawing a crowd of about 100 people — surrendered to police Saturday morning for assaulting an officer at a recent protest.
Derrick Ingram, 28, turned himself in with his attorney by his side at the Midtown North Precinct on W. 54th St.
He was charged with thirddegree assault for a June 14 incident during a Manhattan protest where he “shouted loudly” into an officer’s ear with a megaphone and refused to move the mic, injuring her ear and impairing her hearing, prosecutors said.
Ingram was released without bail at his Saturday arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court and is due back on Nov. 6.
But a spokesman for the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. made it clear the office wasn’t impressed with the arrest; the office moved to reduce the charges against Ingram to misdemeanor assault.
The Friday morning standoff began when police showed up at Ingram’s W. 45th St. home around 7:30 a.m. to arrest him for the alleged assault, but he refused to come out, claiming they didn’t have a warrant.
Ingram, a member of Warriors in the Garden, a social justice advocacy group, livestreamed the arrest attempt from inside his apartment as cops pounded on the door.
As the livestream went on, about 100 members of Warriors in the Garden, other activists and a few elected officials showed up, sparking a six-hour stalemate with police.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea ultimately called off the arrest, telling his officers to stand down, sources said.
Mayor de Blasio’s office told Gothamist he supported Shea’s decision to pull back. “Commissioner Shea made the right decision to call off the operation,” he said. “Assaulting an officer is unacceptable and will always lead to consequences, but arrests must be made properly.”
The retreat drew outrage from police unions, who claimed that Shea bowed to political pressure.