Ferguson Protestors Flood New York's Times Square As Grand Jury Clears Darren Wilson

Chanting, placard-bearing protesters took to the streets of New York’s Times on Tuesday night in outcry at the Ferguson, Missouri grand jury decision to clear an officer for shooting dead an unarmed black teenager.

Michael Brown, 18, was killed by officer Darren Wilson, who claimed he had feared for his own life during the encounter.

Wilson has insisted there was nothing he could have done differently and disputed witness accounts that Brown had put his hands in the air.

A young man wears a noose around his neck during the protests in New York's Times Square

“Hands up, don’t shoot,” became a familiar refrain during the country-wide rallies.

In Times Square, protesters marched between lanes of traffic as police followed, congregating at the entrances to the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges and the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

Commissioner William Bratton said police were giving protesters "breathing room."

Demonstrators kneel with their hands in a surrender pose in New York's Times Square

"As long as they remain nonviolent, and as long as they don't engage in issues that cause fear or create vandalism, we will work with them to allow them to demonstrate," he said.

Protests have taken place in a number of American cities since the grand jury decision was announced on Monday night including Oakland and Los Angeles, California, Seattle, Washington and Washington, D.C.