The organizers for the New York City Day of Action rally -- Stop Mass Incarceration Network -- were at City Hall on Monday to demand a permit to march into Times Square.

The New York Police Department granted organizers a permit to rally in Union Square and march to Times Square on Wednesday, Oct. 22, but not to cross the threshold of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue.

That is where the contention lies. Organizers know the value of Times Square as a center point for public attention, and it also contains and NYPD sub-station. They are annoyed that the police department, whom they are protesting against, gets to tell them where they can and cannot protest. The NYPD told organizers allowing the marchers to go beyond 42nd Street would be detrimental to traffic and safety.

Carl Dix is the co-founder of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, and co-issued the call with Cornel West for a National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality on Oct. 22.  

"The New York Police Department really has no right to tell people who want to protest police brutality and treating young people like criminals that they cannot take their message, that this must stop into Times Square," Dix told Latin Post. "Times Square is where the eyes of the world are, and this message must be heard and it must go around the world. That is why we went down to City Hall today to deliver a message to the Mayor saying that he must not allow the NYPD to prevent this march to go into Times Square."

Organizers planned to deliver a Bill of Particulars about the NYPD arresting and brutalizing people to Mayor Bill de Blasio, but while they were there, Mayor Bill de Blasio arrived at at City Hall, and they handed it to him in person. 

Mayor de Blasio took the letter and told Carl Dix, "This looks important. I'll get on it right away."

Dix told Latin Post they are not going to wait for the mayor to act and have asked for people to call the city 311 and demand that the NYPD not stop the march from proceeding into Times Square, and it is a decision for the mayor and not shunted to the NYPD.

New York's march and rally will be one of 30 others happening in cities across the United States from California to Hawaii to Kansas to Virginia throughout the day with meet-ups at state capitols, in shopping malls and outside police stations. The message, however, will be the same: to encourage people to think about what is just and unjust and legitimate and illegitimate in the face of police abuse and death.

On Tuesday afternoon, the mothers of those killed and harassed by police will rally outside Gracie Mansion.

Latin Post contacted the NYPD for comment for this story, but have not received comment to date.

The Bill of Particulars read as follows:

TO MAYOR Bill de Blasio:

The NYPD must not be allowed to prevent the march on October 22, the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, from proceeding into Times Square to deliver its message that police brutality, in New York and around the country, must STOP!

Given that:

    The NYPD has killed Eric Garner, Ramarley Graham, Mohammad Bah, Sean Bell, Anthony Rosario, Anthony Baez and many more; and no matter how outrageous the circumstances have almost never been punished for these crimes;

    The NYPD has administered choke holds on many, many people;

    The NYPD has arrested people who have done nothing other than video tape police as they harassed and brutalized people;

    They NYPD has beaten people in Sunset Park, including throwing a pregnant woman to the ground and endangering her pregnancy;

    Guards at Rikers Island have brutally beaten people and have caused the deaths of inmates there thru their actions and inaction, and even when their criminal activity has been caught on tape, they haven't been punished for their crimes;

    The application of Bratton's "Broken Windows" approach to policing has meant that people accused of minor crimes and even actions that are not criminal at all have ended up imprisoned, brutalized and even sometimes dead;

    Operation Crew Cuts has become the new Stop and Frisk, criminalizing Black and Latino youth and subjecting many to being warehoused at Rikers Island for being youth of color. This policy has resulted in raids in housing projects and mass arrests of young people for making posts on Face book and doing rap songs.

For all these reasons and more, it is NECESSARY that we march on October 22 and raise our voices in protest of police brutality, repression and the criminalization of a generation. We must take this message into Times Square where it will reach the eyes of the world. The NYPD has no right and should not have the authority to prevent this.