Cite decisions by N.Y. and Mo. grand juries
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton University students, numbering in the hundreds, walked out of classes Thursday morning and staged a "die-in" to protest the failure of grand juries to indict police officers in the deaths of black men in Missouri and New York.
The ground in front of the Frist Campus Center was covered with students for 45 minutes to symbolize the 4½ hours that Michael Brown’s body lay on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri, after he was shot and killed by a white police officer.
A grand jury in that state last week declined to indict the police officer, leading to protests and riots in Ferguson and demonstrations in cities across the country, including Princeton.
Wednesday night, New York City residents took to the streets in various parts of the city after a the grand jury did not bring an indictment in the death of Eric Garner, 43, who was being arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes when he was placed in a choke hold by a police officer.
In a news release, student organizers of the protest in Princeton said the demonstration was about the two police cases and what they called an "institutionalized racism" responsible for "unequal justice systems based on skin color."
The students, belonging to what is dubbed a "post-Ferguson at Princeton movement," said faculty and administrators also would participate with them Thursday.
"The Princeton call to action stands in solidarity with the people of Ferguson and others demanding an end to radicalized state violence," organizers said in a statement. "By remaining silent we are all complicit in this violence. We challenge our campus to stand in the nation’s service and fight for justice by rejecting the culture of apathy and reviving Princeton’s tradition of protest."
Graduate student Jesse McCarthy said there is new generation of Americans who do "not want to live like this anymore."
Freshman Nabai Habtemarian said he and others had walked out of the middle of class to join the demonstration. There were no arrests or any visible presence of campus police.
Some students lay flat on their backs, while some lay on their sides amid the hushed quiet where no one spoke. A few students went around drawing chalk outlines of their bodies the way police do of victims at murder scenes. They got up shortly before 1 p.m., later joining in a "no justice, no peace" chant and then dispersing.
Similar campus protests happened at Temple and Penn State University on Thursday, according to news reports.