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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