Chokehold demonstrations during Prince William and Kate Middleton’s NYC visit
Prince William and Kate Middleton have attended a basketball game in New York as about 200 people demonstrated nearby against incidents of police violence in the US.
The royals met player LeBron James and Jay-Z and Beyonce at the Barclays Center, where the Cleveland Cavaliers took on the Brooklyn Nets.
LeBron James – commonly known as King James – presented them with Cavaliers shirts.
He was among stars to wear T-shirts protesting against police violence.
The T-shirts carried the words “I can’t breathe”. They refer to last words spoken by Eric Garner, a black man who died after being held in an apparent chokehold by a white New York police officer.
It was the sixth straight night of protests in the city, following the December 3 decision by a grand jury not to press charges over the incident.
Photo EPA
Activists staged a “die in” lying on the pavement outside the arena.
Prince William and Kate Middleton sat courtside for the final two quarters of the basketball match at the end of the first full day of their US visit.
Images of Prince William, casually dressed in a blue and red checked shirt, and Kate Middleton in a grey jacket and jeans, were flashed up on the arena’s big screen, to cheers from the crowd.
Jay-Z and his singer wife Beyonce chatted to the royal couple during an interval.
At the end of the game, LeBron James, who led the Cavaliers to a 110-88 victory over the Nets, presented them with a Cavaliers shirt marked Cambridge and another carrying the name of their one-year-old son Prince George.
Earlier in the day, Prince William held talks with President Barack Obama at the White House and delivered a speech to the World Bank on wildlife crime.
Kate Middleton, who is five months pregnant with her second child, stayed in New York and visited a children’s centre in Harlem.
They both later attended a reception to highlight wildlife conservation efforts at the British Consul General’s residence where they met the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea.
The final day of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s three-day trip will include a technology reception for UK and US entrepreneurs at the Empire State Building and a visit to the memorial to those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terror attacks.
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