Sharpton urges Ferguson protesters not to aid 'smear campaign' by rioting

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/16/sharpton-ferguson-protesters-smear-campaign-rioting

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Following a night of continued unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, Reverend Al Sharpton on Saturday implored protesters to stop the violence and looting, saying such actions strengthened a “smear campaign” against Michael Brown, the teenager who was shot dead by a police officer last weekend.

“You mad and you angry and you have every right to be,” Sharpton said during a rally held by his National Action Network in New York. “But because you can’t control your anger, they’ll use your lack of control to control the process to rob [Brown’s family] of justice.

“They want us to lose our minds so we can lose the cases.”

The National Action Network is holding back-to-back rallies in New York and Missouri over the weekend, to demand justice for two African-American men killed by police: Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Staten Island man who died last month after being put in an illegal chokehold by an NYPD officer, and Brown, 18, who was fatally shot last Saturday.

Sharpton was joined at the rally by Garner’s family and the US representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York.

Sharpton questioned the decision by police in Ferguson to release surveillance footage that allegedly showed Brown stealing cigars from a convenience store shortly before he was shot. Police on Friday gave conflicting accounts of whether the two events were connected.

“You put [the video] out because you wanted to smear the name of the victim and there’s nothing more contemptible and offensive to the people of this country than for law enforcement to try to smear a dead man or dead child that can’t speak for themselves,” Sharpton said. “… Like that in any way mitigates what was done to him.”

Sharpton said police tried to taint Garner’s image after his death by quickly releasing his arrest record.

Garner was being taken into custody for selling untaxed cigarettes, known as “loosies”, when an officer put him in a chokehold and refused to let up, even as he gasped: “I can’t breathe.” He had been arrested more than 30 times.

Sharpton said: “Both of them were victims of this aggressive policing of alleged low-level crimes and you cannot have a nation where people lose their lives because [of this].”

Sharpton called the “broken windows” crime-fighting strategy, which calls for tough enforcement of punishments for low-level crimes to stop offenders from committing more serious ones in the future, “racist”, and said it unfairly and disproportionately targets minority communities like the ones in which Garner and Brown lived.

Jeffries, who represents the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, repeated his request that the US Department of Justice take over the investigation into Garner’s death. He said state courts too often fail to convict police officers.

Jeffries said: “Eric Garner is dead. The person who videotaped the incident was arrested. But the officer who killed Eric Garner is free and still on the NYPD payroll. There’s something wrong with that picture.”

Jeffries is part of a six-member congressional delegation which sent a letter to the attorney general, Eric Holder, asking him to open investigations into Garner’s death as well as the “broken windows” strategy.

Garner’s widow and mother spoke briefly at the end of the rally, encouraging New Yorkers to join the march being held in his name next Saturday.

Sharpton said protesters will march from the site on Staten Island where Garner was killed to the district attorney’s office, where they will ask that the case be handed over to federal investigators.

“We need everybody to come out and support this march because it’s not only for my son,” said Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr.

“It’s for Michael Brown from Ferguson, Missouri. It could be for your son next, your husband next. We don’t want this to happen again.”