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NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton

Officers of the New York Police Department have taken to the internet to rip Commissioner Bill Bratton for his decision to go to the hospital for dehydration just before a Staten Island grand jury announced that Daniel Pantaleo would not be indicted for killing Eric Garner.

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Stacy Lanyon

Police douse protesters in pepper spray at 14th Street and Eighth Avenue. See all the photos from last night's protests.

No sooner had the NYPD received praise for respecting peaceful protests than the force doubled back and reminded everyone that while officers might have let people on a couple bridges this week, they're still very adept with a bottle of pepper spray.

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Akai Gurley

A memorial for Akai Gurley, the unarmed 28-year-old black man shot by a rookie cop in the dark stairwell of a New York City Housing Authority building, is set to take place this evening in Brooklyn.

The NYPD, for one, appears to be expecting a large turnout. By Thursday night, the department had already dropped off a large stack of metal barricades at the corner of Washington and Gates.

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Photos by C.S. Muncy for the Village Voice See More

Large-scale demonstrations began within hours of the grand jury's announcement.

The grand jury investigating the death of Eric Garner heard from 50 witnesses, 22 of them civilians, as it considered whether to charge NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo with a range of crimes including manslaughter.

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After a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the white police officer who placed 43-year-old African American Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold in July, protests erupted throughout New York City against what many consider a culture of unaccountability, brutality, and racism in the New York Police Department.

After the announcement on December 3 that the grand jury would not indict Pantaleo, New Yorkers took to the streets for a long night of angry -- but largely peaceful -- protests and marches. They were the latest in a string of demonstrations against police impunity that have been held almost daily since November 24, after a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, announced that former police officer Darren Wilson, who is white, would not face charges for fatally shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old African American.

But despite 25 local arrests in the wake of the Ferguson announcement and more than 80 during the protests that followed the Staten Island grand-jury decision, some observers say they're noticing one striking fact about law enforcement at these events: The NYPD has become more tolerant and less physical with demonstrators under Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton than it had been under previous mayoral administrations.

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Photo by Jesse Myerson via Twitter @JAMyerson, used with permission

A mass walkout on December 1: Just one facet of what CUNY historian Angus Johnston calls an "extraordinary autumn for student activists"

A historian at the City University of New York who specializes in student activism has created a nifty Google map that charts 50 student protests, walkouts, and demonstrations that have transpired nationwide over the past four months -- and the landscape is illuminating.

"We are in a moment of an uptick of student organizing," Angus Johnston tells the Voice. Johnston created the map in order to provide a visual sense of the magnitude of the movement. "A lot of these protests fly beneath everybody's radar, never make it into the national news, and never get to people [who are] plugged into stuff on the national level."

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C.S. Muncy

Protesters blocked traffic on the West Side Highway, in midtown, and on the Brooklyn and Queensboro bridges as part of a massive protest of a grand jury's decision not to indict New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner.

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Photo credit: joeypedras via Compfight cc

The Rockefeller Center Tree

A host of protest plans throughout Manhattan have cropped up as word spreads that a grand jury did not indict New York Police Department Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was captured on video in July using an apparent chokehold that killed 43-year-old Eric Garner on Staten Island.

One of the protests involves marching to midtown to interrupt the iconic annual lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center:

#justiceforericgarner #nomorekillercops #nojustice #nopeace #shutitdown #shutthetreedown... http://t.co/gBedKfX99D pic.twitter.com/KCjp2YelRr

— Caleb-Michael Files (@_calebfiles) December 3, 2014

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Update, 2:34 a.m. Thursday: Protesters Sweep Manhattan After Eric Garner Decision

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A grand jury convened to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who killed Staten Island man Eric Garner, has returned no indictment, multiple outlets are reporting.

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Courtesy of RAPP Campaign

Speaker at a RAPP Campaign event this spring at Columbia University

Fewer inmates than ever are landing back in prison for new crimes, according to the most recent data from state correctional authorities.

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Wake up, Force!

If we're honest with ourselves, the teaser-trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens looks better than the original Star Wars movies. That's how this week's Voice Film Club podcast opens, with your hosts Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek of the Village Voice and Amy Nicholson of LA Weekly. Talk then turns to Reese Witherspoon's excellent performance in Wild, and then to director Jennifer Kent's spectacular, terrifying new film The Babadook. The group wraps by recommending a few underrated or under-seen films: Zero Motivation, Concerning Violence, and Life Partners. Amy closes the show with a recap of her interview with Garfield creator Jim Davis, who finally settles it: Does Jon ever actually hear Garfield, or is Jon just talking to himself?

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C.S. Muncy

Ibanez was cuffed for allegedly splattering Bill Bratton with fake blood, ruining the police commissioner's suit.

The Queens activist charged with assault for throwing fake blood on Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and his security detail last week has posted bail.

Diego Ibanez was released on November 26 after spending two nights in jail, according to his lawyer, Eliza Orlins. She added that she was unsure who put up the money; shortly after Ibanez's arraignment, fellow activists took to Twitter to raise money for the $20,000 in cash or $30,000 bond he would need in order to get out. According to one tweet from OWS Bail Fund, which raises money for legal expenses for activists in New York, the group managed to raise "about half" of Ibanez's bail money.

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Jesse Dittmar for the Voice

New details are leaking out about the rumored bill to ban carriage horses in Central Park. According to an advocate who has communicated with the mayor's administration throughout the drafting process, the bill will be introduced as soon as Monday by City Councilmember Daniel Dromm. It will propose sunsetting horse-drawn carriages by May 31, 2016, when the last of the carriage operator licenses are set to expire. (A spokeswoman for the councilman confirmed the report to the Voice.)

See Also: Bill de Blasio's Pledge to Abolish Horse-Drawn Carriages is Running Away From Him

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Pinky Guest

The price on Hillary Clinton's head is a cool 10 bucks.

So you powered through another Thanksgiving with nothing to show for it but a low-level hangover, snug AF pants, and some "educational" brochures from your creationist cousin. Now you probably have 30 tabs open looking for a better deal on a personal drone that your dad will use once and then throw in the junk room (a/k/a your childhood bedroom). But you needn't waste your time perusing Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart's online sales to find the best bang for your holiday buck. It turns out New Yorkers have a ton of shit they want to get rid of. And it's a helluva lot more interesting than anything considered among the hottest holiday gift trends for 2014. So here's the first official Village Voice Cyber Monday Shopping Guide for People Looking for Other People's Unwanted Treasures:

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All photos by Zachary D. Roberts for the Village Voice.

Reverend Billy on Thursday at Monsanto headquarters

New York-based activist Reverend Billy and several members of his Stop Shopping Choir held a Thanksgiving meal outside Monsanto's world headquarters in the suburban St. Louis community of Creve Coeur on Thursday, joined by around 25 people from San Antonio, Detroit, New York, and nearby Ferguson. Everyone brought homemade organic food that was laid out on a folding table on the front lawn of the biotech giant's corporate campus.

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Photo credit: martha_chapa95 via Compfight cc

2014 marks 90 years since the beginning of what is arguably the most anticipated entertainment of Turkey Day (second only to the wishbone battle): the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And while some aspects of the national spectacle have remained since its 1924 debut -- from its sky-high floats to its Herald Square finishing point -- others have appeared throughout the years to serve as direct reflections of their respective time periods. Here are just a few of the beloved event's most notable -- and era-defining -- moments:

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Photo credit: Ben+Sam via Compfight cc

We're dimming the lights for a few days on Runnin' Scared for the Thanksgiving holiday. We'll see you on Monday morning, post-parade, post-Black Friday (sorry, you'll have to get your violent door-buster videos someplace else), and post-holiday traveling.

If you're staying in the city, here are a few ways to spend what might be a quiet weekend.

Grab some dinner: Here are the 10 best restaurants for Thanksgiving dinner 2014. (And here are a few vegetarian options.)

See a movie: Here is the Voice's film homepage.

Go to a concert: And here's the Voice's daily concert calendar.

Plan your holidays: Here are 19 ways to spend the holidays in New York.

Settle in with a story. Here's the Voice's index of recent longform pieces.

The Cool Quest via Flickr

Our condolences if you were planning on traveling between Queens and Manhattan this morning. The typically efficient 7 train (rated the best subway line in the whole city by the Straphangers Campaign earlier this year) was suspended for more than three hours.

It's either particularly unfortunate timing, what with Grand Central Station being the 7's first stop in Manhattan and this being one of the busiest travel days of the year...or an excellent excuse (on top of the National Weather Service's ominous travel advisories) to avoid spending time with your family (or someone else's).

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By Ralph Hockens from New York, United States (Uploaded by Ekabhishek) via Wikimedia Commons

Central Park could see up to four inches of snow for Thanksgiving.

You probably didn't expect to spend Thanksgiving eve in snarled traffic or trudging through ankle-deep snow on your evening commute, but meteorologists say that's just your luck this year.

According to forecasters, a coastal storm will bring a blend of snow and rain to the city today (have you been outside? It's already here). The sloppy conditions are expected to complicate travel plans for New Yorkers who plan on escaping for the holiday. This will be just the second time since 1938 that New Yorkers have celebrated a white Thanksgiving. The first one, on November 23, 1989, broke Thanksgiving snowfall records, dumping 4.7 inches of snow on Central Park, according to a New York Times report from that year.

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Credit: Skylar Reid for the Village Voice See more.

Demonstrators react to the Ferguson grand jury announcement.

When St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced on Monday that there would be no indictment in the shooting death of Michael Brown, the news was not greeted warmly.

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