#DCFerguson protesters take to Washington's streets
WASHINGTON — An advocacy group that has been holding protests in the nation's capital since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., held a march down Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday to press its case that black lives matter.
"We are out here on MLK's birthday to honor his legacy by continuing the struggle," said Eugene Puryear, 28, one of #DCFerguson's organizers. "We are still out here doing work, raising awareness that the movement continues."
About 45 protesters escorted by police chanted "No justice, no peace" and "Justice for Michael Brown, racist cops shut 'em down" as commuters on the sidewalks stopped to watch and take pictures.
After the group stood for several minutes at one intersection, drivers started honking and a few started shouting out their windows. But overall, traffic tie-ups were modest during the 90-minute effort, falling short of the social media push to "shutdown downtown."
Protests erupted across the nation after grand juries declined to indict the white officers who killed unarmed black men in two separate cases. Michael Brown was shot and killed Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner died as police in Staten Island, N.Y., tried to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes on July 17.
Organizers of Thursday's march were calling for an end to what they called D.C. police department "jump-out" squads. Puryear called jump-outs "the D.C. version of stop and frisk."
In a letter to D.C. Council members on a Change.org petition with 2,000 signatures, the DCFerguson movement explained that jump-outs "are a paramilitary tactic in which unmarked police vehicles carry 3 or more officers not wearing the standard police uniform ... to stop and intimidate ordinary citizens into submitting to interrogation or an unwarranted search."
"The police tried to claim that jump-outs don't exist which is absurd," Puryear said Thursday. "We know for sure these forms of racially biased policing are happening. And we also know they are ineffective."
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier addressed the "jump-outs" in a testimony to the Judiciary & Public Safety committee on Oct. 27.
Lanier said while there are no "jump-out" units in the police department, the term might be a reference to the District Vice Units.
In response to community complaints about drug dealing, vice units may set up hidden observation posts in an area, Lanier said, according to the documents from the testimony. If the officers see a drug transaction, or an undercover officer is able to purchase drugs, "an arrest team of four to six officers in unmarked cars wearing tactical police vests, will pull into the block, jump out of the car and arrest those observed in the drug transaction."
On Thursday, protester Randhal Tabb, 27, of Washington, was not impressed with official explanations.
"Police say it doesn't happen, but when we were out there, a lot of people said they knew exactly what we were talking about and some of them had experienced it themselves," she said.
Tabb, bundled up in a hat and mittens for the just-above freezing morning, held a yellow sign that said "Stop Racist Police Terror.
"I want to show that this is not just a fad movement," she said.
Ellen Taylor, 61, of Washington, held a pink sign in the shape of a heart that said "No Justice No Peace, Know Justice Know Peace."
Taylor said she marched "because black lives matter."