In the midst of an epic battle for the soul of New York and the right to protest the city’s growing gun violence and social conditions, religious groups, occupiers, and cops, draped themselves in the righteousness of the American flag and God yesterday, with absolutely no one backing down.
The Jericho March featured clergy leaders joined by community leaders, elected officials and other multi-faith-based and law enforcement groups from in and around New York City. They marched across the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday, Wednesday, July 15, in the name of unity against gun violence, which unfortunately was marred by the constant and violent clashes between Occupy City Hall counter-protesters and the NYPD.
Bishop Gerald G. Seabrooks, of Rehoboth Cathedral in Bedford-Stuyvesant, said Jericho refers to the ancient city in the biblical story of Joshua. “And if they did not tear down the walls of Jericho, division and separation, then they would not have received. Therefore, the walls of Jericho in our city needs to come down. We see the walls of hatred, we see the walls of police brutality, we see the walls of redlining, we see the walls of miseducation. Our city needs God,” said Seabrooks about the march.
The morning started off with the gathering of the two or three main groups that intended to march across the Bridge from Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn to City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan. The Power of Prayer group, which was mostly affiliated with police and religion, was represented in blue T-shirts, and general Jericho Marchers were represented in white T-shirts.
“There used to be six or seven homicides every day in 1990,” said Charles Scheferston, a retired NYPD officer that lives in Long Island currently, “Crime was worse in 1990, but it’s heading back that way.”
Scheferston, who’s a Lutheran, said that he believes the broken-window theory of crime prevention helped cut down on high crime rates, and that the recent police reforms and chokehold bills are “handcuffing” the police.
He hopes something good will come out of the current chaos and violence.
“This is community. Community has to join together, no matter what. Whether it’s community-based or faith-based,” said Wendy McClinton, CEO of Black Veterans for Social Justice. The veterans’ group isn’t religiously affiliated, but were one of the only groups within the Jericho March coalition that donned Black Lives Matter face masks.
“Gun violence can happen anywhere at any time so everybody has to be made aware. We have to educate, we have to communicate, we have to work with our local officials, our law enforcement, our public officials–to make sure the nonviolence stops in our community,” she added.
McClinton said she attributes the recent uptick in shootings to ignorance.
The marchers initially separated on sides of Cadman Plaza Park, but slowly came together to start walking up the on-ramp from Cadman Plaza West towards the Bridge. Helicopters and swarms of police squad cars had gone ahead to clear a path when they encountered Occupy City Hall protesters gathering on the bridge’s walkway and road just above Prospect Street.
For the next estimated 30 minutes, the marchers were held on the ramp, some starting to pray out loud, while occupiers were forcefully surrounded and detained.
Approximately 35 protesters were zip tied and taken into custody after physical fights broke out between the officers on foot and bikes and occupiers on the walkway and road, according to police. A social media post shows one Black woman being bodily dragged by her braids then thrown onto the ground by an arresting officer.
However, another social media post shows a protester clubbing cops with a large stick. Four police officers were injured, said police, with what appeared to be from images captured, wounds to the head and face. Police had huge plastic bags of confiscated items or bicycles that were left behind.
Once the path was cleared using force, the marchers began again over the bridge with additional police escorts.
“First and foremost you’re protesting God,” said Tony Herbert, community leader and one of the Jericho March organizers, about the arrests of people on the bridge. “At the end of the day, this is about New Yorkers, all New Yorkers, and nobody should be in the position to block that. So we’re good, we’re not deterred.”
Off the Park Row Exit on the Broadway and Park Place side of City Hall Park, marchers convened in front of a constructed stage on top of a float for the promised concert and devotional service, yelling “No Peace Without The Prince of Peace.”
In front of the designated music area, the Blue Knights International Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club, a non-profit organization of active and retired law enforcement officers, waited with lavish motorcycles. Directly in front of them were more occupiers from City Hall congregating at the barricades on Park Place.
Shermaine Laster, an appointed Occupy City Hall spokesperson and member of the New York State Chaplain Task Force, called the march a “mockery” and “Klan’s rally.” Laster said that they were also peacefully protesting on the bridge when people were arrested, “grabbed up our women by they hair and dragged them on the floor,” said Laster of the police’s conduct.
To be clear, he stated, he’s not against God at all. “Listen, we love God alright. What that is right there. That’s hypocrisy. All they doing is just like the pharisees, running around here, saying ‘Jesus this and Jesus that’,” said Laster, referring to a biblical term used for a party of scholars that often clashed with Jesus in the Old Testament.
Throughout the street services for the Jericho March, the occupiers clashed with police physically, or in some cases other marchers and on-lookers on the sidewalk, to the point where a nearby building had its glass door shattered.
