Thousands of protesters have hit the streets of New York after a grand jury declined to charge a white police officer in the choking death of a black man, days after a similar decision sparked unrest in US cities.
Soon after the decision on Wednesday by the grand jury, hundreds of protesters converged on Rockefeller Center and in New York City's iconic Times Square chanting "No justice, no peace," the rallying cry of demonstrators already angered by a separate grand jury decision last week not to indict a white policeman in the fatal shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Police made at least 30 arrests, New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said.
A series of small protests converged into a march of about 5000 people down Broadway and eventually into Times Square, the Washington Post reported. Drivers stuck in traffic by the march honked their horns in solidarity, the paper said.
Both cases, coupled with the death of a 12-year-old black boy who was gunned down by police officers in Ohio while handling a toy pistol in a playground, have reignited a longstanding debate in the United States about relations between law enforcement and African Americans, as well as accusations of overly aggressive policing.
Following Wednesday's jury decision, Attorney General Eric Holder said the US Justice Department will launch a federal civil rights investigation into the case of Eric Garner, 43, who died after being placed in a choke-hold by New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo while being arrested on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes.
An amateur video of the arrest shows Garner, a heavy-set man who suffered from asthma and had six children, gasping "I can't breathe, I can't breathe" as police officers held him to the ground with his throat constricted.
Holder's announcement means Pantaleo could still face trial.
There was another protest at Grand Central Terminal, where about 50 protesters lay, pretending to be dead, and on Staten Island, where Garner's clash with police happened.
Small demonstrations also broke out in Harlem, Union Square and Columbus Circle, while there were similarly small but peaceful protests in Washington, DC.
Garner's widow, Esaw Garner, said she rejected Pantaleo's apology.
"The time for remorse for the death of my husband was when he was yelling to breathe," she told the New York Times.
In brief comments following the grand jury decision, Barack Obama - the first black president of the US - addressed the inherent mistrust many African Americans have of police.
"We're seeing too many instances where people do not have confidence that folks are being treated fairly," Obama said.
"In some cases, those may be misperceptions, but in some cases that's a reality, and it is incumbent upon all of us as Americans... that we recognise this is an American problem and not just a black problem or a brown problem."
The August shooting death of 18-year-old Brown by a white policeman in Ferguson sparked consecutive nights of violence and became a rallying cry for African-American communities across the United States fed up with what they say is racially biased policing.
A grand jury in that case also decided not to charge the white officer involved, triggering demonstrations in cities across America last week and into the weekend.
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