Protesters gathered on December 19, in front of the Peter Rodino Federal Building here to demand that the five Orange, New Jersey police officers convicted in December 2000 in the death of Earl Faison, 27, be sent to jail.

December 19 marks the third anniversary of the guilty verdicts in the Faison case. “It has been three years and the five officers found guilty in federal court of violating Mr. Faison’s civil rights have not been to jail or even sentenced for their crimes,” Larry Hamm, head of the Newark-based group Peoples Organization for Progress, told The Final Call. “We are out here today to call attention to the injustices facing Black people.”

Mr. Faison, an innocent Black man who was wrongly apprehended as a suspect in the murder of Orange police officer Joyce Anne Carnegie, died after being in police custody for 45 minutes on April 11, 1999.