BROOKLYN — Recent fiery clashes between protesters and the New York police in Brooklyn quickly de-escalated when a van blaring gospel music and a preacher’s words about Jesus rolled into the mix. 

New York City experienced consecutive nights of unrest over the weekend as thousands took to the streets to protest police violence and racism after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer last week.

Hundreds of demonstrators marched through Flatbush, Brooklyn on May 30. Marchers carrying signs and chanting slogans were upbeat and peaceful. Then they reached an intersection where NYPD officers stood in riot gear, and the protesters gathered along the police roadblock. Some broke into chants of “go home” and “whose streets, our streets” while others yelled, “Why are you here?”

The marchers continued down a street where two NYPD vehicles were parked, their windows soon smashed, causing the police officers to sprint forward amid screams from the crowd. They knocked several protesters down and made a few arrests. The officers again formed a barricade at an intersection until smoke billowed from another parked police vehicle the next block up. 

This intersection was different, though. A church ministry van was parked across the street from the fire.  

The van’s attached trailer carried large speakers pumping out gospel music and chorus singers proclaiming “Hallelujah.” The Rev. Terry Lee inside prayed into a microphone, his exhortations for Jesus’ mercy emanating out over the tense scene.

“Across this globe today, we call on your mercy,” Lee said. “The black man can’t do it. The white man can’t do it. The Republicans, the Democrats can’t do it, oh God. The rich and the poor can’t do it, God. Only you alone can give us mercy. We need your mercy.” 

Lee’s group, called Immigrants Responding to Crisis, is a team from By-Ways & Hedges Youth for Christ Ministry, a church in East Flatbush. “That’s where we’re gonna bring Christ, in the midst of the crisis, you know?” Lee said. 

The church’s website calls its outreach arm “the little David among the Goliaths of domestic violence, street violence, drugs and gangs, against immigration fraud, the spread of HIV/ AIDS, inequality and injustice.”

Lee, who was born in Jamaica, has long been an advocate for better relations between the city’s communities and police department. He has led an annual Unity Walk since 1997, when Abner Louima was beaten and sodomized with a broom handle by NYPD officers who arrested him. 

“We need your healing today,” Lee said, at about the 8:30 mark in the video below. “Heal us today, oh God.” 

The group’s music and Lee’s prayers were noticed by police and protesters alike. The tension seemed to subside a bit as protesters regrouped, held their hands up and began chanting again.  

The calm lasted for about 30 minutes before protesters moved another block with officers alternatively in pursuit and forcing them forward. Another vehicle was torched and an increasing amount of bottles, rocks and other objects were thrown at officers. The night continued that way, with some protesters tossing fireworks that exploded at officers’ feet and police knocking down dozens of protesters. 

The NYPD said it arrested 345 people that night. No serious injuries were reported.

“God really restored some calm,” Lee said. “People were coming here and saying thank you, man, thank you, we need God’s mercies. And people need justice.”

Micah Danney is a Poynter-Koch fellow and a reporter and associate editor for Religion Unplugged. He is an alumnus of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and has reported for news outlets in the NYC area, interned at The Times of Israel and covered religion in Israel for the GroundTruth Project.