TEMPE – Tempe police on Monday arrested the Rev. Jarrett Maupin and at least three other people after they blocked the Mill Avenue Bridge for impeding a public thoroughfare.
Police took protester Jarvis Johnson into custody, but he was later released.
Cronkite News reporters at the protest estimated about 50 to 60 people attended the rally, several carrying Black Lives Matter signs, to protest two police shootings of African-Americans in Tempe and Phoenix in the past two years.
A Tempe police officer shot Dalvin Hollins in July, and Phoenix police shot Michelle Cusseaux, a mentally ill woman, in 2014.
Maupin organized the protest, which temporarily blocked traffic across the Mill Avenue Bridge, and he also led a protest in July in downtown Phoenix.
“Until you’ve been black and until you’ve been driving through the streets of Tempe, you won’t understand,” Maupin said through a megaphone shortly before being taken into custody.
Tempe police warned protesters that any person blocking the road was “subject to arrest.”
At one point, protester Brandon Riggins Gastineau, the uncle of Hollins, said he was “willing to go to jail today.”
He didn’t, but Hollins’ father was arrested during the rally.
Sarah Coleman, mother of Hollins, also spoke to the crowd during the protest. “My son had a future,” she said.
Counter protesters attended the rally in support of police officers, and they clashed with protesters.
Reporters Alicia Gonzales, Kia Murphy, Keerthi Vedantam and Kennedy Scott contributed to this article.