Lawmakers make 'hands up' gesture on House floor

Several lawmakers took to the House floor Monday evening to make the “Hands up, don’t shoot,” gesture to protest the police shooting of the unarmed Ferguson teen, Michael Brown.

“Hands up, don’t shoot. It’s a rallying cry of people all across America who are fed up with police violence,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said as he took the floor. “In community, after community, after community, fed up with police violence in Ferguson, in Brooklyn, in Cleveland, in Oakland, in cities and counties and rural communities all across America.”


Jeffries added that people are fed up with injustice, a broken criminal justice system and “continuing to see young, unarmed African-American men killed as a result of a gunshot fired by a law enforcement officer.”

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“Now this is a problem that Congress can’t run away from and the [Congressional Black Caucus] stands here today to make sure that Congress runs toward the problem,” Jeffries said. “That we come up with constructive solutions to breaking this cycle, this epidemic, this scourge of police violence all across America.”

Joining Jeffries were Reps. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Al Green (D-Texas), who praised the handful of St. Louis Rams’ players for also making the “hands up” gesture as they entered the field for their game on Sunday.

“This has become the new symbol, a new statement, a statement wherein people around the country now, are calling to the attention of those who don’t quite understand that this is a movement that will not dissipate, it will not evaporate. It is a movement that is going to continue,” Green said on the floor.

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