wfn.org | United Methodists among those arrested at NYC protest

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 30, 1999 News media contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-21-31-71B{173}

NEW YORK (UMNS) - A number of United Methodists, both clergy and lay, were
among the 166 people arrested March 29 during the last of what had become a
daily protest against police brutality outside police headquarters.

The Rev. John Collins, a retired pastor in New Rochelle and a district
program associate for the New York Annual (regional) Conference, said he
counted 51 United Methodists at the rally and noted that many of them were
arrested.

The protests began in mid-March as a sign of the growing outrage over the
Feb. 4 police shooting of Amadou Diallo and concerns about police brutality
in general. Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, died with 41 bullets in
his body. The four officers involved in the shooting are to be arraigned
March 31 on criminal charges.

Organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton, the protests have drawn support from a
wide variety of people, including former mayors, politicians, actors and
national figures, such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Among those arrested March
29 for civil disobedience were three members of Congress - Eliot Engel of
the Bronx, and Major Owens and Nydia Velazquez, both of Brooklyn.

United Methodist participants were organized through the conference's board
of church and society and had the blessing of Bishop Ernest Lyght. After the
Diallo shooting, the bishop had sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Janet
Reno, calling for a federal investigation into it. The Rev. Nat Grady,
Lyght's assistant, said members of the African Methodist Episcopal,
Christian Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches
also were in the protest.

Holy Week seemed appropriate for a public show of concern, said the Rev.
James K. Karpen, a protester and pastor of the Church of St. Paul and St.
Andrew, United Methodist. "We've been troubled for a long time about
(police) violence, especially directed against people of color."

Collins said the fact that the protests have drawn such diverse groups of
people "indicates there is a deep-seated demand for major changes in the way
policing is done in New York City."
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