Young demonstrators let officers apply handcuffs Thursday morning. (Twitter photo by Roop Raj of Fox 2)
Detroit Police handcuffed several dozen demonstrators who blocked traffic early Thursday at an east-side McDonald's as part of a day of protests throughout the nation to prod fast-food chains to pay at least $15 an hour, Tom Greenwood reports in The Detroit News.
Organizers at the outlet, at Mack Avenue and Canyon along the Detroit-Grosse Pointe border, said they were engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience.
“I didn’t see any resistance or reaction by the people who were arrested,” said Mya Hill, a protester who lives in Lincoln Park. “They were put into the back of police cars. I was proud of them for being so brave.”
Hill was one of about 100 protesters who marched through the parking lot of McDonald’s before dawn on Thursday, shouting slogans and bottling up the drive-through lane.
Some stood in the street, and police handcuffed about two dozen who wouldn’t get out of the way. They were ticketed for blocking traffic and released, Roop Raj of Fox 2 reports on Twitter. He counted "close to 40 arrests."
"No one was arrested for picketing on the sidewalk. The people arrested were handcuffed for blocking street," the Fox reporter adds in a separate tweet from the scene.
#BREAKING: "it's worth it for $15 an hour," protester tells me. #FastFoodStrike pic.twitter.com/g5O5Kk8wO4
— Roop Raj (@rooprajfox2) September 4, 2014
