Thousands March in Continuing Protests Over Garner Case

New York: More than 25,000 people marched through Manhattan on Saturday, police officials said, in the largest protest in the city since a grand jury declined this month to indict an officer in the death of an unarmed black man on Staten Island.

For over an hour and a half, they spilled out of Washington Square Park, and still the park did not empty. Walking north toward 34th Street, the protesters filled the cold air with the last words of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man, who died after an officer dragged him to the ground on a hot day in July: "I can't breathe."

The group, which at times stretched for more than 20 blocks, highlighted growing anger nationwide over recent police involved deaths, including that of Garner, whom officers had accused of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.

They were led by the families of a number of unarmed black men who died at the hands of police officers, including Ramarley Graham and Sean Bell, who were both killed in New York City. But they insisted that the movement was as much about those deaths as it was about the daily indignity of walking the streets while black.

Denise Mayer, 64, of Montclair, New Jersey, said she had marched in protests over the Vietnam War but that this movement was different.

"This is more of an everyday frustration that the violence seems to be escalating," she said, holding a poster of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "It's beyond frustration. As an individual, what do I do?"

The protesters moved through the streets in the cold, pushing children in strollers, waving black liberation flags and carrying signs. A line of people carried posters that arranged together

depicted photos of Garner's eyes. They chanted "I can't breathe," some of Garner's final words, and "Hands Up, Don't Shoot," the rallying cry in Ferguson, Missouri, over the police shooting death of Michael Brown, 18.

"A young black man in America shouldn't be scared to interact with the police or talk with the police," another protester, Jelanie Deshong, 22, said.

The march ended at New York Police Headquarters in Lower Manhattan, and several of the family members spoke to the crowd, including Constance Malcolm, the mother of Graham, an 18 year old who was fatally shot in 2012.

"We must get justice for our loved ones," Malcolm said.

Images from the march cascaded on social media, where people shared their experiences using hastags like #MillionMarchNYC and #blacklivesmatter.

Photos posted on Twitter showed people carrying signs bearing the names of women, Hispanics and Native Americans killed by law enforcement officers.

Some protesters, anticipating arrests, wore the phone number to a legal aid organization written on their arms.

At certain points, holiday revelers participating in Santa Con, an annual pub crawl in which people dress as Santa Claus, crossed paths with the march. Many only glanced at the procession and hurried away. But near Herald Square, several people dressed in Santa costumes joined the crowd of marching protesters, with one holding his hands in the air and shouting "Hands up, don't shoot!"

The march was mostly peaceful, but as dusk descended and the crowd moved south, a group of about 100 protesters slipped away from the crowd near Madison Square Park and began hurling trash cans into the streets and beating their fists on the windows of police cars.

As the police moved to pen them in, the group rejoined the march. As of Saturday evening, the police said, there were no arrests.