NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Despite the weather, protesters were out again on Friday decrying police brutality and demanding reforms in New York City.
The protests remained mostly peaceful, with far less arrests reported than on previous nights, when hundreds were arrested. About 20 people were arrested on the Upper East Side for curfew violations, according to CBS New York.
Some of the most prominent gatherings began at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the Hoboken waterfront and near Gracie Mansion in Manhattan.
WCBS 880’s Mack Rosenberg reports at least one group has been seen marching through Manhattan for the better part of the day. They began their trek at Washington Square Park and made their way to Penn Station in Midtown by 6 p.m.
“This is a very peaceful gathering to this point,” Rosenberg reported.
The activists stopped outside of Madison Square Garden, where they heard from a number of speakers and sang “Happy Birthday” to Breonna Taylor, a Louisville woman who was shot and killed inside her own home as police executed a search warrant at the wrong apartment.
According to CNN, no charges have been filed in her case and protesters are demanding justice for her, as well as George Floyd, on what would have been her 27th birthday.
Rosenberg reports another group of protesters met at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard for a moment of silence in Harlem.
In Brooklyn, while things remained peaceful, a number of demonstrators had blocked some roadways as they listened to speeches outside of Borough Hall and marched up Knickerbocker Avenue.
Thousands of demonstrators remained on the street after the 8 p.m. curfew again but no action has been taken by police so far.
NYPD officers, in recent days, have been cracking down on the gatherings after 8 p.m. and there have been several complaints by local lawmakers over the NYPD’s use of force against non-violent protesters.
As the curfew arrived, thousands took the the streets in Williamsburg and began marching down Flatbush Avenue.
Videos posted on Twitter showed over a dozen police vehicles trailing the group, though it did not appear as though any arrests had been made.
Hundreds have been arrested in the nine days of demonstrations sparked by the death of Floyd in Minnesota after a police officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes.
Most who have been arrested have been charged with unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct.
However, on Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced his office is no longer going to be prosecuting those offenses “in the interest of justice.”