WASHINGTON (AP) — Protesters with signs bearing names of black Americans killed by police marched outside the U.S. Capitol and the Justice Department on Monday in peaceful demonstrations demanding a human rights investigation.
At the Capitol, about two dozen protesters were met by a line of police who stopped them from advancing toward the building. The protesters stood side by side to mourn black Americans killed by police. They said they were seeking an international investigation of U.S. police violence.
Later they staged a “die-in” outside the Justice Department several blocks away, lying on the sidewalk in frigid temperatures, many of them with tape covering their mouths.
A number of protests have been staged around the country following recent grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers in New York and Ferguson, Missouri, over the deaths of unarmed blacks.
Zoe Spencer, a Virginia State University associate professor and protest organizer, said the names and characters of victims have been dragged through the mud “to justify their own murders.”
Shouts of “Hands up, don’t shoot” began as protesters marched away from the Capitol but quickly changed to chants of “Fists up, fight back.”
PHOTOS: Marchers at US Capitol protest police killings
Demonstrations at both sites in the District of Columbia were peaceful.
Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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