A protest rally is planned outside Riverhead Town Hall today in response to events in Washington, D.C. this week and the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin last summer.
Jacob Blake, 29, was shot in the back seven times by a white police officer outside an apartment complex in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Aug. 23. He was left partly paralyzed from his injuries. The shooting, which happened in front of three of Blake’s children, was captured on video by a neighbor. The Kenosha County district attorney announced Tuesday that the officers involved in the shooting would not be charged.
After Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, some people, including the organizers of today’s protest rally, expressed outrage at how police responded to the nearly all-white mob in the Capitol. It’s an example of white privilege, they say.
“If this was Black or minority we would be witnessing a blood bath,” Eric Williams of Riverhead posted on Facebook. He called what happened in Washington “ridiculous.”
Organizer Robert Ray agreed. “What happened at the Capitol —
There’s different rules for us Black folk,” Ray said. “We got arrested for walking in the street.”
Ray said during the various Black Lives Matter protests in Long Island in 2020, “there was not one riot, not any broken glass. There is different treatment for the Trump supporters.”
Both Ray and Williams were involved in organizing other protest events last year.
Ray said today’s protest is being held “so we are not silent.”
“We want justice for everyone that lost their life due to police activity,” Ray said. “We want equality for all.”
The rally is scheduled to take place outside Riverhead Town Hall at 11 a.m.
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