National
Attendees of First Black Lives Matter Conference in Cleveland Hosed with Pepper Spray After Protesting Nearby Arrest of 14-Year-Old
Demonstrators block Public Square Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014, in Cleveland, during a protest over the weekend police shooting of Tamir Rice. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
CLEVELAND (The New York Daily News) — About a dozen people leaving the first-ever Black Lives Matter conference in Cleveland, Ohio, were blasted with pepper spray after protesting the arrest of a 14-year-old boy accused of being drunk.
The crowd taunted Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority officers for apparently not calling the child’s mother during the arrest and then blocked a cruiser from leaving with the teenager. Police began pushing the activists back.
“After a gorgeous Movement for Black Lives conference, we started feeling powerful and strong and then we see one of our own being locked up unjustly,” Page May, of Chicago, told the Daily News.
The National Convening of the Movement for Black Lives started Friday. Cleveland was chosen as its first city in response to the deaths of 12-year-old Tamir Rice and 37-year-old Tanisha Anderson at the hands of police.
###
