Thousands march against US police killings

Thousands of demonstrators have marched in Washington and New York to protest the killings of unarmed black men by police officers and to urge politcians to do more to protect African-Americans.

Organisers said that Saturday’s marches in Washington DC and New York City would rank among the largest in the recent wave of protests against killings that have brought the treatment of minorities by police onto the national agenda.

Decisions by grand juries to not indict the police officers involved in the deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York have sparked weeks of protests in major cities across the country.

Al Sharpton, a leading civil rights activist, called for “legislative action that will shift things both on the books and in the streets.”

Sharpton, whose National Action Network organised the Washington rally, urged the US Congress to pass legislation that would allow federal prosecutors to take over cases involving police.

He said local district attorneys often work with police regularly, raising the potential of conflicts of interest when prosecutors investigate incidents, he said.

Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said there had been impassioned speeches and that the crowd seemed overwhelmingly positive.

Families of Eric Garner and Akai Gurley, who were killed by New York police; Trayvon Martin, slain by a Florida neighbourhood watchman in 2012; and Michael Brown, killed by an officer in Ferguson attended the protest.