Black Lives Matter protesters marched from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park to the Public Safety Building where they stayed for several hours on Sunday.

What You Need To Know

  • Black Lives Matter protesters marched from MLK Jr. Memorial Park to the Public Safety Building on Sunday

  • They asked police to take a knee with them but officers declined

  • The protest leader encouraged others to vote Mayor Warren out of office over the police handling of the protests

The demonstrators asked officers to take a knee in solidarity with their movement against police brutality.

After receiving no response, they chanted "I don't see a riot here, why are you in riot gear?"

Jaeylon Johnson of Rochester led the protest.

"We want them on our side at the end of the day. They supposedly serve the people, but we are a part of the public, that's the public safety building, so who are they protecting inside right now," said Johnson.

Johnson also encouraged other protesters to vote Mayor Lovely Warren out of office.

He blamed the mayor for how the officers have responded to their protest.

"They were outside and they have batons and they resembled the cops of how they beat black people to the generations before us, walking to Selma and walking back and that's what they resemble and she allowed that to happen," Johnson explained.

For Johnson, this protest is about spreading the message that Black Lives Matter.

"We doing this because we're tired. We're done of dealing with the same things, that we've been dealing for more than just decades. We've been dealing with this for so long. We're tired and we're showing that," said Johnson.