Third night of New York protests against police abuses

Several hundred demonstrators marched peacefully in New York City late Saturday for the third consecutive night to protest police abuses against black people.

The protests follow the death of two African-American men shot dead by white police officers this week — their dying moments captured in shocking video footage that went viral online.

However after a black extremist shot dead five police officers at a peaceful protest Thursday in Dallas, many activists wanted to emphasize that they were against all types of violence.

At least one demonstrator thanked police officers escorting the New York march.

Some in the crowd held up banners bearing the names of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the two men whose deaths, in Louisiana and Minnesota, triggered the latest protests.

“Who’s next?” read one sign. “Beware racism,” read another.

Protesters also remembered fellow New Yorker Delrawn Small, 37, killed on July 4 by an off-duty police officer in a road-rage confrontation. Both the victim and the shooter were black men.

Video obtained by the New York Post on Saturday showed the moment the off-duty officer, identified as Wayne Isaacs, fired two shots through his car window at Small, who staggers out, collapses and dies in the street.

The police department and the attorney general are investigating the shooting.

The victim’s 22 year-old nephew, Zayanahla Vines, was at the Saturday demo and urged the crowd to march in silence.

Some demonstrators, however, could not refrain from the familiar chant, “No justice, no peace!”

Vines said he was shocked by the video. “I broke down, I couldn’t stop crying,” he told the crowd.

But he said “this not about me, it is about us as people, it is about black people in America… it needs to stop, something needs to change. We are all here dying from the police.” AFP