It looks like a few people are angling for a lump of coal in their stockings this year.
About 10 “Black Lives Matter” protesters disrupted the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Milwaukee Thursday night, where there were about 500 people in attendance at Red Arrow Park.
Police say they shouted while a middle school choir was singing. Protesters also blocked the stage.
Xmas tree lighting at same park where #DontreHamilton was killed just minutes before brother was taken by police pic.twitter.com/WH2xEiULTC
— Coalition 4 Justice (@Justice4Dontre) November 20, 2015
Protests at city county tree lighting pic.twitter.com/Hc9z6ZNfvZ
— 620wtmj (@620wtmj) November 19, 2015
Pastor Steve Jerbi of All People’s Church spoke for the activists, and said the demonstration was “intended to show the children that not everyone is celebrating at this time of year and children should know what goes on in the city they live in,” CBS 58 reports.
The children had practiced for about a month and a half to ready for the performance. After the event, the choir director said she was “unnerved” by what happened and was proud the kids for “continuing to sing.”
“This is a time of celebration for the kids, so it’s unfortunate that people want to disrupt something for kids,” Mayor Tom Barrett said.
On the contrary, according to Pastor Jerbi.
“This is not a time of celebration,” Jerbi said, “this is a time of grief and mourning and business as usual cannot continue in Milwaukee.”
Milwaukee police ordered the protesters to stop disrupting the event and when they refused, arrests were made.
“We have tolerated an awful lot disruption in this city due to these individuals,” Chief Ed Flynn said after the event.
“We’ve come in for as much criticism facilitating these events as we have policing them, so I think we’ve struck an appropriate balance,” he said, according to WISN. “Once they step over the line and decide to disrupt other people’s events, then they have to be arrested if they refuse to comply and they refused to comply.”
“We’ve tolerated it and tolerated it and tolerated it in the name of free speech. This is the first time they decided to make their rights more important than the rights of the 500 people who are peaceably assembling with a permit. That’s why we took action,” he said, Fox 6 reported.
Police said about 5 people were arrested for “disorderly conduct.” Among them was Nate Hamilton, the brother of Dontre Hamilton, who was killed by the police during a scuffle in the same park about 18 months ago.
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