Michael Nigro: Escape From Freedom

Photograph Description 1
December 3, 2015. Sarah Wellington of the activistart collective We Will Not Be Silent, at the one year anniversary of the non-indictment of Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who choked Eric Garner to death. The incident was recorded on a cellphone.

Photograph Description 2
July 17, 2015. Richard Lynch, known as the Angry Pacifist, marches in a Black Lives Matter action in NYC. Why does he march? Every 28 hours in the USA a black male is killed by a police officer. Over 1,134 people were killed by law enforcement in 2015. Americans are 58 times more likely to be killed by police than a terrorist. Americans killed by cops now outnumber Americans killed in the Iraq war.

Photograph Description 3
December 29, 2105. Protesters took to the streets of Cleveland, Ohio after the local grand jury decided not to indict the officers who shot and killed 12-year old Tamir Rice in less than 2 seconds of arriving on the scene. Rice was holding a toy gun. Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback remain on the Cleveland Police force.

Photograph Description 4
October 22, 2015. The 20th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalisation of a Generation.

Photograph Description 5
April 29, 2015. This is Deputy Inspector Andrew J. Lombardo, NYPD’s most prominent point men on NYC protests. Lombardo was part of the military chain of command during the time of the notorious human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Photographer's Profile
Michael Nigro is a writer-director-activist based in Brooklyn. His current documentary is about prison inmates who penned a play under the tutelage of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges. He began shooting protests during Occupy Wall Street in 2011. He wants his photos to give a 'voice' to those who feel they have no other recourse but to take to the streets and shout and scream and dissent.