Updated Aug. 23, 2014 2:51 p.m. ET
Theodore Shearin, a Staten Island resident, carried his daughter Ameariah, 5, during a march and rally for Eric Garner in Staten Island on Saturday. Reuters
Thousands of demonstrators marched peacefully in Staten Island on Saturday afternoon in a protest of the death of Eric Garner at the hands of a New York City police officer.
The "We Will Not Go Back" march, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, is the largest public expression yet of outrage over Mr. Garner's death last month in a chokehold during his arrest for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes.
"We are not against police," Mr. Sharpton said. "But those police who break the law must be held accountable."
Signs reading "Justice for Eric Garner" and "Stop police brutality" were among those held by the largely African-American crowd.
At least one sign read "Hands up, don't shoot," a nod to the Ferguson, Mo., police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, whose death sparked days of racial tension and unrest in the St. Louis suburb.
Near the front of the crowd marching to the Staten Island district attorney's office was Constance Malcolm, the mother of Ramarley Graham, an unarmed 18-year-old shot and killed by New York City police in 2012.
Demonstrators gathered in Staten Island. Andrew Hinderaker for The Wall Street Journal
"This is my family now," Ms. Malcolm said, gesturing toward the protesters. "Eric Garner's family is my family now. We're in the same boat, the one no one should want to be in. I don't want to be here—I have to be here."
Mr. Sharpton, who marched alongside former New York Gov. David Paterson and United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew, urged calm on Saturday.
The police department had a heavy presence, but officers seemed to take a light approach, a contrast to the force depicted in Ferguson. Officers wore blue and white polo shirts for the event, not military garb, and largely kept their distance from marchers.
Saturday's march and rally cap weeks of fresh scrutiny of the police following years of criticism of its controversial "stop-and-frisk" tactics.
"We need a city where an illegal chokehold is an illegal chokehold," Mr. Sharpton said at the Mount Sinai United Christian Church on Staten Island.
In Harlem, as protesters prepared to board the buses to Staten Island, Ruth Johnson said she had been through this many times before.
"I've been marching a long time," Ms. Johnson, 70 years old, said, stomping her cane into the pavement. "But it was time to come out again, and so I did."
Thousands marched along Bay Street in Staten Island. Andrew Hinderaker for The Wall Street Journal
She added: "I'm here for Eric Garner, for his family."
The death of 43-year-old Mr. Garner—which came during his July 17 arrest—has sparked a debate over police crackdowns of relatively minor offenses as a way to prevent more serious crimes.
A medical examiner ruled Mr. Garner's death a homicide, the result of compression to his neck and chest while being laid flat on the ground as police officers restrained him. A Staten Island grand jury is slated to weigh evidence in the case.
After the church event, protesters marched from the intersection of Bay Street and Victory Boulevard, where police confronted Mr. Garner, to the district attorney's office roughly ½ mile away. The event was to conclude with a rally and speeches.
Mr. Sharpton scrapped earlier plans to march across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Critics worried such a march could snarl traffic if it tied up a critical link between Brooklyn and Staten Island.
While organizers planned for a peaceful protest, some Staten Island businesses were nonetheless bracing for potential problems and planned to close Saturday.
Ahead of the march, Mr. Sharpton urged calm. "If you are too angry to be nonviolent, stay here at the church or go home," he said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio didn't attend the march. But at a church in Brooklyn, the mayor pledged to reform the NYPD, and noted that Police Commissioner William Bratton has ordered retraining for all police officers.
"We're all feeling, still weeks later, the pain of the tragic loss of Eric Garner," Mr. de Blasio said. "Everyone wants to see fairness, and we believe in due process. That's a fundamental American value."
—Adam Janos contributed to this article.
Write to Mara Gay at mara.gay@wsj.com
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