Rage Against the Cops: One Protester’s Take on Wednesday Night’s Anti-Police Uprising in Flatbush

At the invitation of a comrade from Flatbush, I went down for the second straight night tonight to the protests surrounding Kimani Gray's murder at 55th & Church. For the maybe first time in over a year, I was at a protest but was just along for the ride — very much in the back seat. But it was perhaps the most mind-blowing protest I have ever been to. Felt humbled and at times scared — in the presence of a very deep and intense force surging up, demanding to be heard. 

A few moments that stick in my head:

* A crowd of protesters being pushed aggressively out of the street in front of the 67th precinct by riot cops, turning on a dime, sprinting in the opposite direction, finding and surrounding a cop car, shoving it and hitting its windows, dispersed only by a barrage of pepper spray to their faces from the terrified cop inside the car

* A teenage girl staring down a line of riot cops and yelling "MURDERERS!" fearlessly at the top of her lungs into their stone cold faces

* The look of panic on the driver of a police van's face after the rear window of his van was smashed, seemingly from nowhere

* A crowd being pushed down a side street by scooter cops, followed minutes later by a shower of glass bottles flying from apartment buildings onto the heads of the scooter cops

* A car by Kimani's memorial blasting Bob Marley's "War" and a mass of quiet, somber people pulsing and bobbing their heads in slowly growing rage

Bob Marley's "War" on YouTube.

Austin Guest has been active in the Occupy movement since the Fall of 2011. This report originally appeared on Facebook.