GRAY

Words by Carrie Stetler | Images by Stacy Lanyon

I’m not asking people to challenge the police or go up against them. We just need to start protecting our own....No matter what age you are, you’re prone to be stopped, harassed or killed by the police.... At Kimani’s funeral his mother tried to pull him out of the casket, telling him, “Get up Kiki, get up. “ It's hard to see that kind of pain and not do anything.

--Fatima Shakur, New Black Panther Party member and rally co-organizer

On March 24th, photographer Stacy Lanyon attended an East Flatbush rally to protest the death of Kimani Gray, 16, who was fatally shot by two NYPD officers, both of whom had been charged in the past with civil rights violations.

More than 100 people came to the rally, demanding an independent investigation into Kimani’s death and an end to the NYPD’s stop and frisk tactics. According to the Associated Press, in the past decade the NYPD stopped 5 million city residents, most of them minority men, but only ten percent of the stops resulted in arrests. In Manhattan, there's a federal trial underway to determine whether stop and frisk policies are unconstitutional.

Lanyon, who belongs to the Occupy Wall Street movement, got a first hand glimpse of brutal police tactics during Occupy demonstrations in 2011, when protestors were beaten and jailed.

But she knows that in neighborhoods like Kimani Gray’s, police violence is a a constant threat.

“For Occupy Wall Street protesters, it might have meant some bruises and a night in The Tombs, even a 30 day stay at Rikers, but for those in minority communities, it has far too often meant their lives,’’ says Lanyon.

At the East Flatbush demonstration, organized by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and other activist groups, scores of officers patrolled on motorcycle and horseback, while others monitored the scene from building tops. Metal barricades lined the streets and surveillance cameras were rolling.

But the demonstration was peaceful. “When I go into a situation to document it. I want people to feel like they were there,’’ says Lanyon. “I want them to see the humanity on all sides in hopes that we will eventually get to a place where we realize that we have many more similarities than differences, that when we fight others, we ultimately are fighting ourselves.’’

Stacy Lanyon is an environmental, animal rights and social justice activist at Occupy Wall Street. She has documented the movement through interviews and photographs since October 2011. You can view her blog at attheheartofanoccupation.blogspot.com.