Aliyya Swaby Photo
Latoya Agnew fought tears as she told the crowd about being arrested after questioning a Newhallville cop who hit her friend with a car. Police brutality is rampant in New Haven, she said, but usually “there’s no protest.”
She joined a couple of hundred demonstrators at the corner of Church and Chapel Friday at 4 p.m., to demand the overhaul of a justice system they said had failed people of color throughout the country. Two days after a grand jury failed to indict a police officer for murdering Eric Garner — and just 10 days after a similar protest for Mike Brown’s murder — neighbors dispersed into the streets and blocked traffic, in some cases forcing cars and buses to turn around and head another way.
New Haven police held back traffic for the demonstrators, forming barricades with their cars.
An earlier “die-in” protest organized by Yale Law School students Friday afternoon drew more than 500 participants, most Yale undergraduate and graduate students.
Agnew at the rally Friday.
Agnew and other black community members who spoke up Friday urged fellow protestors to extend solidarity to their friends and family members killed in majority black New Haven neighborhoods like Newhallville and the Hill.
“What about the things that happen every day here in New Haven? What happens when my cousin gets shot? What happens when my friend gets shot?” she said. “There was nothing.”
ANSWER Coalition’s Norman Clement directed the evening’s activities, which drew community organizers and local high school and university students. Between around 5 and 7 p.m., the march snaked through the streets without a collective plan, occasionally halting in the middle of an intersection to stop traffic in all directions.
“I can’t breathe,” they chanted, repeating Garner’s last words as Officer Daniel Pantaleo held him in a chokehold.
Clement urged everyone to attend a discussion on future tactical steps December 14 at 1 p.m. at the Afro American Cultural Center at Yale.