The Night Before the Shooting of 2 NYPD Officers, Pro-NYPD Protesters Rallied Outside City Hall
On Friday, December 19, 2014, just one day before the shocking execution-style murder of two NYPD officers, about 100 pro-NYPD demonstrators gathered outside City Hall, where they were met by about 200 counter-demonstrators in what turned into a tense night filled with loud, heated rhetoric. Reason TV was on hand to cover the rally, which you can watch in the above video.
Some in the pro-NYPD crowd wore shirts reading "I Can Breathe" and chanted things like "Don't resist" and "Thank you, NYPD." On the other side of the barricades came chants such as "How do you spell racist? NYPD!" and "Black Lives Matter!"
Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for a suspension of the protests, which erupted three weeks ago after a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict the officer who put Eric Garner in a banned chokehold, until after Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos are laid to rest. Judging by the flaring tempers at last Friday's rally, it seems unlikely that the anger on either side of the issue will ebb any time soon.