While hundreds of SUNY-ESF graduates sat inside Hendricks Chapel Friday afternoon listening to speeches about the future of environmental leaders, about 40 Syracuse University community members gathered outside to protest the lack of indictments for the police officers that killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

The students joined protesters across the nation in rallying against the lack of an indictment in the case of Garner’s death. The rally started at 2 p.m. outside of Hendricks Chapel with nine students, but eventually grew to 44 protesters holding signs that read “Black lives matter,” and signs with Garner’s last words “I can’t breathe.” Garner died in Staten Island on July 17 after being put in a chokehold by a police officer.

Marissa Mele, a sophomore environmental engineering major, said she believed that justice was not served in the Garner case.

“I think that police officers abuse their power,” she said. “The chokehold is actually illegal, and the police officer got away with killing someone by the chokehold so there’s just no justice.”

Sophomore bioengineering major Alyse Williams helped organize the rally and said she wanted students to band together to protest the lack of indictments.

“I’m African American and this is affecting my community, my people. This is affecting my family,” Williams said. “That could’ve easily been my father who was killed on the street, illegally, by a police officer. This is just happening way too often and police are getting away with this too often.”

Williams added that she believes change will only come with continued protests. “Things don’t change with just one example of demonstrating, you need to continue to demonstrate until the change has been made. That’s another reason that we decided to continue to plan this,” she said.

As the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry graduation ceremony let out around 2:30 p.m., some graduates and parents said they took issue with the protest.

One protester, sophomore mechanical engineering major Sierra Messina-Yauchzy, led many of the chants and said the protesters did not know that the ceremony was happening inside Hendricks Chapel.

At one point, Messina-Yauchzy got into a verbal altercation with a parent. She said the parent yelled at the students and said it was the victim’s fault.

“These men were in their own communities and I asked him ‘do you not think there’s an issue with police brutality?’ and he responded along the lines that it was the victim’s fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.

A bystander student, freshman television, radio and film major Matt Gehring, felt that regardless of the ceremony that the student protesters were cordial and justified in their action.

“They’re congratulating the graduates and they stopped for a little bit when the graduates came out, but it’s a good time to get their voices heard,” he said.

He said he felt that their motivations were justified. “I think [the lack of indictments] is a big problem. The first time it happens, I don’t think much of it, but since it’s obviously not an isolated incident there’s a whole systematic problem that needs to be solved.”

Another rally is planned for Monday at 4 p.m. in front of Hendricks Chapel to continue protesting police brutality and the absence of an indictment for the police officers that killed Brown and Garner.

Published on December 5, 2014 at 5:53 pm

Contact Jake: acappucc@syr.edu