New York: Hundreds of people, mostly African Americans, disrupted rush hour traffic here with peaceful protests over the aquittal of three police officers who allegedly killed an unarmed black man on his wedding day in 2006.

Protestors gathered in six rallies throughout the city yesterday in what they called "civil disobedience movement" to force authorities to hold federal civil rights probe into the 50-bullet police shooting of Sean Bell outside a night club in Jamaica in 2006 hours before he was to have been married.

The three officers involved in the shooting, white, black and Hispanic, were acquitted by a court of all charges which led to large-scale but peaceful protests across the city.

A leading African American leader Rev Sharpton, Nicole Paultre, fiancee of the deceased man Sean Bell, and two of his friends who survived the shooting were among dozens arrested for disorderly behaviour.

But there was no resistance as police handcuffed the demonstrators and asked them to get into the vehicles.

The demonstrators say that they do not agree with the verdict and want the federal investigations to continue.

Meanwhile, the attorneys of the three police officers were lobbying with the Congressional leaders against holding of civil rights probe.

Source : PTI