A group of protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement briefly shut down lunch at a building on Capitol Hill used by members of Congress and their staff, an action on Wednesday that followed President Obama’s State of the Union address, which included only muted references to nationwide protests against perceived police brutality.
About 50 protesters entered the Longworth House Office building in Washington and staged a so-called die-in by lying motionless on the floor for four minutes. They were then moved on by security.
The protesters came from diverse groups including Muslims, Christians and members of the Jewish faith who had travelled from states including North Carolina, New York and Massachusetts.
Protest organiser Stosh Cotler, chief executive of Bend the Arc, a national Jewish social justice group, told the Guardian the protest had been planned before Obama’s address but was designed to “keep pressure up” on Congress to introduce legislation to reform racial profiling by law enforcement agencies and limit the transfer of military equipment to police.
“As people of faith, we are calling on Congress to take action on racial justice and heed the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement,” Cotler said in a further statement. “This is a moral and ethical choice. This is not just politics. The demands of this movement are concrete and realistic. Congress can and should make them a priority. America is watching what you do and we will not back down.”
Obama’s State of the Union address contained little reference to the wave of protest that occurred after grand jury decisions not to indict officers responsible for the deaths of two unarmed black men, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, in Missouri and New York last year.
Instead, Obama contrasted the experiences of a black parent and a police spouse to call for unity.
“Surely we can understand a father who fears his son can’t walk home without being harassed? Surely we can understand the wife who won’t rest until the police officer she married walks through the front door at the end of his shift?” the president said.
Last week, attorney general Eric Holder called for a better system of reporting police shootings on civilians. At present, local forces voluntarily report these statistics to the FBI. Only 750 of roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies pass statistics on.
Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which was commissioned in the wake of the grand jury decisions and briefed with finding ways to overcome racial bias in policing, is due to submit an initial report in March.
