The last couple days have been very sad, and I was heartbroken, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. I couldn’t just sit and watch. I wanted to be part of the change and fight for all the black people who have lost their lives to police brutality.
As a 23-year-old black kid living in New York City, since middle school I’ve always feared for my life. I’ve had a lot of uncomfortable experiences. It’s time for a change.
Honestly, I was not expecting May 29 to go the way it did. I just decided around 4 p.m. that I wanted to be part of the protest and brought my camera to document it.
I got to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn at around 6:45 p.m. At first, everything was calm and peaceful, then all I saw was people running away, some of them crying because of pepper spray, some were getting tackled and dragged on the ground by police.
After spending a couple hours taking photos, I met up with some friends and walked over to Fort Greene Park. When I got there, there was only one police officer on the scene running after protesters with pepper spray. At one point, he left and that’s when people started lighting a police van on fire.
More police eventually arrived. They started running after the protesters to arrest anyone they could get their hands on, it seemed. I decided to go home when I ran out of space on my memory card.
Throughout the whole protest, everyone was looking out for each other. I saw people risk their lives to help a stranger. Although there was a lot of violence going on, I felt safe around all the protesters.
It’s 4 a.m. as I write this and I am still very tired from all the walking and running around. Everyone who was there wanted their voice to be heard.
They stood united and looked after one another. It was very inspiring seeing people come together to fight for change.
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