The Black Youth Project 100, Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, and Black Lives Matter occupied police union offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City Wednesday morning, as part of a new #FreedomNow campaign against police violence. The groups’ foremost demands are police accountability and a greater push to defund law enforcement.Activists in the nation’s capital blocked off an entrance to the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). According to the BYP 100 website, members of its DC chapter and BLM DC are there to demand that cops stop paying dues to the union.“The FOP acts like a college fraternity and is responsible for maintaining the harmful, lethal, unethical, and unaccountable culture of policing while the families and communities impacted when officers brutalize civilians are left to mourn with little, if any, semblance of justice,” BYP 100 spokeswoman Clarise McCants said. “Just like college frats that further rape culture by closing ranks to protect members who are sexual assailants, the FOP has proven that their primary commitment is to protect the worst of their members behind the ‘Blue Wall of Silence’ — even in the most heinous of circumstances.

The FOP is the most dangerous fraternity in America and they need to be stopped.”Meanwhile, the New York City chapters of BYP 100 and Million Hoodies are staging a sit-in at the Patrolmen Benevolent Association’s (PBA) headquarters.“We are here today, to demand three things: disband the PBA, fire Officer (Wayne) Isaacs, defund the police, and fund black futures,” a demonstrator chanted. According to protesters, money would be better spent on affordable housing, improved education, and mental health resources in black communities. “These things have been proven to increase the safety of our communities,” a second protester said. “It has never been proven that the cops keep communities safe.”Isaacs was recently stripped of his gun and badge, for fatally shooting an unarmed black driver on July 4. Video shows Delrawn Small walking up to Isaac’s car, after the off-duty, plainclothes officer reportedly cut him off. Isaacs fires his gun as Small approaches. But the officer claimed he fired his weapon because Small punched him several times and opened Isaacs’ door.

The officer is now on desk duty.“The police are trying to manipulate the conversation. They are trying to manipulate all of us into believing that they are at risk. They are not at risk. Police officers are the threat,” BYP 100’s New York City chairperson Rahel Mekdim Teka, wrote on the organization’s website. “Police do not keep us safe. bill cipher hoodiePolice do not protect us. wrc hoodiesThey are the danger that keeps Black people unsafe. buffalo bills reversible hoodieWe [must] divest from institutions that do not value us and instead invest in Black communities.”lacoste hoodie aliexpressActivists are targeting unions because the organizations wield extreme influence in law enforcement agencies and courts. hoodies 20$

Groups like the PBA and FOP negotiate powerful protections for cops accused of misconduct or brutality. In D.C., for example, members placed on leave for killing someone must receive monetary compensation, and they’re allowed a break before they’re interrogated by investigators. Officers are also given access to information about the cases against them, a privilege that civilians aren’t afforded and one that makes it easier for cops to defend themselves.diamond supply co simplicity hoodieIn the rare cases when officers are fired for excessive force or misconduct, police unions also fight to get them reinstated via backdoor appeals. bring me the horizon drown merchUnion representatives work with arbitrators, who are supposed to be independent mediators but have a history of siding with police, to get terminated officers reinstated with back pay.

Unions also wage campaigns against civilians who accuse cops of wrongdoing. When Eric Garner was killed using an illegal chokehold in 2014, PBA leader Patrick Lynch smeared the man who filmed the police encounter while declaring Garner’s killer, Daniel Pantaleo, an “Eagle Scout.”“What’s also been lost is the character of police officer Daniel Pantaleo,” Lynch said. “What’s not being told is what kind of man and what kind of person and what kind of professional he is. He is a resident of this great city. He lives on Staten Island. He lives in those neighborhoods. He’s college educated, here in this city. He’s a mature, mature police officer who’s motivated by serving the community.”For the second night, thousands of demonstrators in New York gathered to protest a grand jury decision to not indict a white police officer in the death of an unarmed black man on Staten Island.More than 5,000 people gathered in New York's Foley Square and several other locations Thursday night, and more than 200 were ultimately arrested, mostly on carges of disorderly conduct.

Protests also unfolded in several major cities across the nation, including Washington and Chicago. Mickey Thomas, a 21-year-old student at Hunter College in New York, said, "As a black person, I've been stopped wearing a hoodie in front of my university ... but I didn't think everyone cared about police brutality."Protesters marched through the city chanting the name of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old father of six who died July 17 during an altercation with police. The incident began when several officers tried to arrest him on suspicion of selling illegal cigarettes on a Staten Island sidewalk.An onlooker's video showed one officer, Daniel Pantaleo, locking his arm around Garner's neck in what appeared to be a chokehold. "I can't breathe," Garner gasped several times as other officers piled on him. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide due to compression of the neck and chest.The 23-member grand jury announced its decision Wednesday not to indict Pantaleo. Grand jury proceedings by law are secret, so it is impossible to know what swayed the panel's decision.

The district attorney in Staten Island, Daniel Donovan, said he had asked for a court order to make public "specific information" in connection with the jurors' investigation.Donovan said more than 38 interviews were conducted with 22 witnesses, including first-responders and forensic experts, during the investigation.The grand jury decision came nine days after a Missouri grand jury declined to charge a white officer in the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man, in Ferguson.Protesters marched through New York streets Thursday, shouting: "Eric Garner! Shut this racist system down."They carried signs reading: "Black Lives Matter," "I can't breathe" and "He would be alive if he were white."Ida Dupont, a sociology professor at Pace University who specializes in criminology, said she thought Garner's case was an "open and shut case" with the video.New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said police had struck the right tone in handling protesters Wednesday night, and the mayor again called for better police training.“

A whole generation of officers will be trained in a new way,” he said as he and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton outlined previously announced plans to teach officers how to communicate better.Speaking after a tour of the new Police Academy in College Point, Queens, de Blasio, accompanied by Bratton, watched as instructors discussed how police were allowed to take down suspects, a key issue in the Garner case, where critics said police used an improper chokehold that led to the man’s death.“Fundamental questions are being asked, and rightfully so,” de Blasio said, adding, “This tragedy is raising a lot of tough questions.”“People need to know that black lives and brown lives matter as much as white lives,” said the mayor, who has spoken eloquently on race relations and how fear of police has touched his family. De Blasio is married to a black woman.Robert Gangi, director of the Police Reform Organizing Project, said his organization thought de Blasio's announcement to retrain police was mainly "cosmetic and superficial.""