The Rev. Al Sharpton said Wednesday that he’s bringing members of Missouri cop-slaying victim Michael Brown’s family to the Staten Island protest against police brutality, as Mayor Bill de Blasio convened a clergy summit Wednesday to “send a message of peace and reconciliation.”
Sharpton was part of the clergy meeting at Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s residence and emerged much more conciliatory than when he clashed with Police Commissioner Bill Bratton at a similar session three weeks ago in City Hall.
“All police are not bad, most are not bad,” said Sharpton. “And they should not be colored by the activities of individuals, any more than a black that does wrong should color me.”
Bratton, Dolan, de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, joined about a dozen clergy at the two-hour meeting and offered similar sentiments.
“I’m very confident in the ability of everyone involved to make a peaceful demonstration of people’s rights,” said de Blasio, speaking of Saturday’s rally to protest the death of Eric Garner, who died after cops put him in a chokehold while arresting him.
Bratton said he expects police to behave “professionally” at the protest rally and suggested officers might not have much to do.
“In many respects, it will be a self-policed march,” the commissioner said. “Those are the best kinds.”
Thousands are expected to participate in the rally that starts at Bay Street and Victory Boulevard, where Garner was arrested, and ends a few blocks away at the NYPD 120th Precinct station house.
Organizers say there are similarities between what happened on Staten Island and in Ferguson, Mo.
“That’s a story that is very similar in Staten Island. You had a black male who was unarmed who was killed by a white policeman,” said NAACP Staten Island branch president Edward Josey.
“This killing of black people by white officers is by no means a new situation; it’s something that should be looked at very carefully.”
Sharpton, who has been shuttling between New York and Ferguson, was the one who invited members of Brown’s family to New York — although Brown’s parents aren’t scheduled to come.
“It’s a defining moment because America must show the world — a world that we lecture to about how they handle police states and how they handle the lack of democracy,” said Sharpton.
Later, Sharpton accused the media of distorting what happened at the July 31 roundtable at City Hall on police-community relations, where he charged that Dante de Blasio would be a “candidate for a chokehold” if he weren’t the mayor’s son.
Asked if he still felt that way, Sharpton ducked.
“You’re playing for a cheap headline and I’m not going to do that,” he said.