NEW YORK – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed her solidarity with the recent anti-police demonstrations that have been breaking out across Brooklyn.
“Ending mass incarceration means challenging a system that jails the poor to free the rich,” the freshman Democrat wrote on Twitter Saturday. “Arresting people who can’t afford a $2.75 fare makes no one safer and destabilizes our community. New Yorkers know that, they’re not having it, and they’re standing up for each other.”
AOC has used the terms “decarceration” as “prison abolition” as part of her mantra.
Hundreds of protesters turned out Friday and Saturday in the borough to rally against what they call police brutality by the NYPD and a crackdown on subway fare evaders, New York Post reported.
The demonstrations were sparked by a viral video showing police officers trying to break up a fight between teens on the Jay Street-Metro Tech subway station.
A police officer is seen in the cellphone video using force on one of the teens in the Oct. 25 incident. The unrest began Halloween night in Brownsville and continued into Friday and Saturday.
Mobs of protesters marched through Downtown Brooklyn shouting “no justice, no peace” on Friday and leaped over turnstiles at the Hoyt-Schemerhorn station on Saturday.
One protester was arrested and another was given a summons.
(Feature image of AOC caricature courtesy DonkeyHotey via Flickr)
