NAACP President Cornell William Brooks was among a group of six protesters who were arrested Tuesday night during a sit-in at Sen. Jeff Sessions’ Alabama office. The group staged the sit-in to demand that Sessions withdraw his nomination as Attorney General.
Via USA Today:
A sit-in Tuesday night at the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions by the president of the NAACP and other demonstrators resulted in several people being handcuffed and escorted into a police van, according to the NAACP and a live social media broadcast.
The NAACP said via Twitter Tuesday night that president Cornell William Brooks and youth and college director Stephen Green were arrested. They did not specify charges.
The Mobile Police Department said it planned to release a statement via its website.
Brooks was among 10 to 20 other members of the civil rights organization who began staging the sit-in earlier Tuesday at the Mobile, Ala. office of Sessions, Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Earlier, Brooks said the group was prepared to be arrested as it requested Sessions, a Republican, withdraw from the selection process for the nation’s top prosecutor.
The incident in which Brooks and the others appeared to be taken into custody was broadcast on Facebook Live shortly after 7:30 p.m. ET from an NAACP social media account. The incident appeared peaceful as demonstrators quietly walked to the open doors of a police van. It appeared that Brooks was among those taken away. Mobile police could not immediately be reached. Staffers at Sessions’ Mobile office could not immediately be reached. Brooks also could not be reached Tuesday night.
Sessions has made statements that hint he might rollback advances the Obama administration has made against alleged police misconduct, that he believes the Ku Klux Klan is “OK,” and that he supports broad immigration reform, according to civil rights advocates.
He also opposes the Voting Rights Act, which he once referred to as “intrusive legislation.”
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