Nadia Bennett represented the Black Lives Matter of the Hudson Valley.
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The crowd was heard to shout “Hands up, don’t shoot” as they carried banners through the capital.
“We are standing together united with the rest of rest of the country and the Black Lives Matter movement around the world and just basically coming together to bring awareness to this issue and show support to the families of the victims”, Bennett said.
Further protests are planned in Windrush Square, in Brixton, on Saturday and Oxford Circus on Sunday.
In an interview Friday on Fox News, Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick blamed previous Black Lives Matter protests for Thursday’s shooting that left five police officers dead in Dallas.
A gunman was subsequently killed using an explosive device and was named as 25-year-old Micah Johnson. One suspect died in a standoff with police, and three other suspects are in police custody. By the end of the video, he’s seen squatting behind a police vehicle.
“This is a tragedy – both for those who have been impacted by yesterday’s attack and for our democracy”, the Black Lives Matter statement said. Black Lives Matter is a nationwide organization that aims to affirm “black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression”.
Opal Tometi, one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, later wrote a blog for HuffPost in response to the same tragic shooting, setting the record straight and pushing back against the unsafe narrative being shaped around the movement’s motivations.
“There is no local chapter of the Black Lives movement”, he said.
The protest that preceded the shooting was peaceful, and police officers even posed with participants before the attack. “We still have the moral high ground, and we can not allow for it to be undermined”.
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– Charlene White (@CharleneWhite) July 8, 2016.@nypost cover calls demonstrations anti-police protests. Lives were lost and chaos and pain were experienced yet again during an already tragic week. The police have to be present in the black community.
