Angry demonstrators blocked Harlem traffic yesterday to protest the Sean Bell verdict in the first step of what community activists billed as a wave of civic disruptions aimed at shutting down New York.
PHOTO GALLERY: Sean Bell Verdict
PHOTO GALLERY: Sean Bell Trial
Gathering in large circles at intersections to create human roadblocks, the crowd of more than 100 demonstrators gave a preview of the civil disobedience organizers vowed would bring the city to a standstill.
Police kept a close watch on the protesters, who marched through streets amid talk of protests aimed at Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and Broadway theaters.
“We’re doing it because it’s a national problem,” said Salaam Ismial, head of the National United Youth Council, which organized yesterday’s protest. “Our young people don’t have any confidence in the judicial system.”
The protest was in response to a judge’s decision to acquit NYPD Detectives Gescard Isnora, Marc Cooper and Michael Oliver in the shooting death of Bell, who was gunned down with his friends as they left his Queens bachelor party, just hours before his wedding. The Rev. Al Sharpton was not at the rally, but a spokeswoman said he gave it his blessing. Also missing from the protest was Bell’s fianci½e, Nicole Paultre-Bell, who has vowed to lead the fight for justice.
Ismial said he had no ties to Sharpton or Paultre-Bell.
Motorists in Harlem appeared to take the delays in stride.
“As long as there’s no violence, it gives them an opportunity to express their view,” said Brian Kapchan, 48, a real-estate broker. “Even though I was delayed, 15 minutes is not the end of the world.”
Earlier, some of the same demonstrators filled a Harlem storefront, where community and civil-rights leaders attacked Friday’s verdict.
While they were vocal about their calls for a US Department of Justice inquiry and changes in police procedure, they were secretive about their plans for mass civil disobedience.
“It will not be the normal stuff,” said Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, who is advising Bell’s family and friends.
“Since this has gone to a new level, we will respond at a new level.”
Among the items on the agenda is a meeting with House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan), who will call for a federal probe, and a Midtown meeting tomorrow of national civil-rights leaders in what was billed as a strategy session.
“It’s time for the world to know we’re not going to tolerate this type of behavior,” said Charles Steele, executive director of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil-rights group founded by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Even though we’re here in New York, we’re up South. Nothing has changed,” he said.
Meanwhile in Brooklyn, officials pulled police officers off of foot patrols after a confidential informant warned them of a plot to shoot a cop, officials said.
Walking-beat cops from the 81st, 83rd and 75th precincts were transferred to radio cars, and department heads circled the wagons to protect the stations from any attack, according to a source.
The transfer was lifted last night, sources said.
Officials said they had not established a direct link between the verdict and the alleged threat but were not taking any chances.
Additional reporting by Samuel Goldsmith, Carolyn Salazar and C.J. Sullivan