PEOPLES' MONDAY HONORS FALLEN VICTIMS IN NYC

“What’s her name? Janisha Fonville! Say her name: Janisha Fonville!”

Stephanie Basile, Suburban Blight Zine

Chants filled the streets and key public spaces of midtown Manhattan this past Monday, October 5th, as part of Shut It Down NYC’s weekly Peoples Monday protests.

For the better part of a year, activists have been gathering every Monday night, usually in Grand Central Terminal, to highlight a different police brutality case. Complete with signs laying out the facts of the case, spray-painted likenesses of the person’s face, and flyers with statistics about police killings, protesters aim to draw attention to both the personal stories of individual victims and the larger issue of race-based violence carried out by law enforcement.

This past Monday, protesters honored Janisha Fonville, a 20-year-old North Carolina college student who was shot dead by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Anthony Holhauzer on February 18, 2015. In his five years on the force, Officer Holhauzer has shot three people, two of which he killed, including Fonville.

A group of about 20-25 protesters started out in the main terminal of Grand Central. They held signs and mic checked the facts of Fonville’s murder followed by national statistics on race and police killings. The group then marched to the lower level of Grand Central and mic checked in the food court outside Shake Shack. From Grand Central, protesters hit the streets, making stops in Bryant Park, Penn Station, and finishing up in Times Square. At each stop, members of the group handed out leaflets and engaged passersby, who were mostly positive and thanked them for their actions.

For more info: https://www.facebook.com/Black-Lives-Matter-NYC-Shut-It-Down-The-Grand-Central-Crew-754265931337168