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Thousands protest racial discrimination by police in US

Police are not hindering the demonstrations, which are mostly peaceful

NEW YORK, December 6. /TASS/. Thousands of people took to the streets of New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, Cleveland, Miami and other cities across the United States on Friday night in protest against racial discrimination by police.

In New York, a group of demonstrators gathered at Times Square, Union Square and Columbus Circle, carrying posters reading “Racism Kills,” “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police” and the photos of African-Americans recently killed by the white policemen.

Protesters stormed the flagship Apple store on Fifth Avenue and staged a "die in" there as they chanted “I Can’t Breathe,” the last words of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, who was strangled by a police officer in mid-July.

Police are not hindering the demonstrations, which are mostly peaceful. The protest actions have no leaders but they are held in a rather organized way. Demonstrators coordinate their actions through social networking websites.

The mass protests against racial discrimination by police hit the United States on November 24, when the jury announced a decision not to indict a white police officer, Darren Wilson, who fatally shot an unarmed African-American Michael Brown in early August in Ferguson, Missouri.

The incident exposed racial tensions that have been building up for years and sparked several weeks of riots in the city, during which police used tear gas and arrested dozens of activists.

A wave of demonstrations erupted in a total of 37 US states and hundreds of people have been held. Earlier this week, protests reinvigorated as a New York grand jury refused to indict the police officer who choked Garner to death.

In Cleveland, thousands of people took to the streets in protest against the actions of a white police officer who shot to death a 12-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun near a playground last month.