A sombre and defiant memorial for George Floyd in Minneapolis gave way to a 10th night of protests on Thursday as thousands of demonstrators again poured into the nation’s streets, crowding outside City Hall in Seattle and marching across the Brooklyn Bridge.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who gave a eulogy for Floyd, pledged that his death would be a catalyst for change, after video showed a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes as he lay face down and handcuffed on the pavement, saying “I can’t breathe.”
The tragedy, Sharpton said, was also a symbolic message: “Get your knees off our necks.”
The tone at many protests on Thursday was largely mournful, after more than a week of crowds burning with grief and anger over the death of Floyd and other black Americans whose deaths have spurred calls for criminal justice reform.
Fuelling the anguish on Thursday, an investigator in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was fatally shot while being chased by three white neighbours in suburban Georgia, said that one of the suspects had used a racial slur after the shooting.
The developments came as officials from Louisville, Kentucky, to Seattle have been lifting nightly curfews, after protests there had become largely peaceful in recent days.
New York:
Crowds gathered Thursday outside Gracie Mansion, the Upper East Side mayoral residence, and snarled traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, ahead of a nightly curfew that will remain in effect until June 8.
Nashville, Tennessee:
The Black Lives Matter movement held a protest at the Bicentennial Mall. Demonstrators marched to the National Museum of African American Music, which is scheduled to open later this year. The procession made its way to the state capitol.
Boston:
In Jamaica Plain, a silent vigil was held on Thursday afternoon to protest racial injustice. The city’s mayor, Marty Walsh, led a moment of silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, which was how long the Minneapolis police order charged in the killing of George Floyd kept his knee on Floyd’s neck.
Washington:
Mayor Muriel Bowser said there would be no curfew on Thursday night, despite President Donald Trump encouraging shows of force from the military and law enforcement to crack down on protesters,
Santa Monica, California:
In Los Angeles County, a nightly curfew that had been widely criticised was lifted on Thursday. The decision came after more than 3,000 people had been arrested in the nation’s second-largest city since the protests began last week. Most of the arrests were for curfew violations, with offenders issued citations and released. There were demonstrations in several places in the county, including Santa Monica.
Salt Lake City:
A man who pointed a bow and arrow at demonstrators and brandished a knife during a protest last week was charged with two felony weapons counts and one count of aggravated assault, the county’s district attorney said. The man, Brandon McCormick, drove his car into the crowd and said, “Yes, I’m American. All lives matter,” a video of the altercation showed. The crowd beat him up and set his car ablaze.
About 700 airborne troops who were in the Washington area for possible use in controlling protests were expected to go back to their base in North Carolina Thursday night, a Defence Department official said.
The move could represent an uneasy compromise in a standoff between the Pentagon leadership and the White House over whether to use the military against civilians in the streets of American cities.
Federal law generally prohibits use of the active-duty military for civilian law enforcement, but a president can authorise it in certain limited circumstances by invoking a 200-year-old law called the Insurrection Act.
In a break with Trump, Defence Secretary Mark Esper said on Wednesday that he opposed using troops that way and that the present situation did not warrant it. And Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised Trump this week not to invoke the Insurrection Act, arguing that National Guard forces could handle the job.
More than 2,000 National Guard forces are already in Washington, and their numbers are expected to grow to about 4,500 in the next few days.
Esper said Wednesday that the deployment of active-duty troops in a domestic law enforcement role “should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.”
Trump was angered by Esper’s remarks and criticised the defence secretary later at the White House, an administration official said.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its handling of protests near the White House, calling aggressive efforts to disperse those gathered a violation of their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit filed on Thursday in federal court names Trump, Attorney General William Barr and other administration officials. Scott Michelman, the legal director for the ACLU of the District of Columbia, said the tactics employed with the blessing of the nation’s top law enforcement official “chills protected speech for all of us.”
“The president’s shameless, unconstitutional, unprovoked, and frankly criminal attack on protesters — because he disagreed with their views — shakes the foundation of our nation’s constitutional order,” Michelman said.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter D.C. as well as individual protesters who were at Lafayette Square.
On Monday, federal agents using smoke, flash grenades and chemical spray abruptly dispersed protesters and clergy members who had gathered peacefully near the White House. Trump and aides then held a photo op in front of a historic church.
The ACLU said it also planned to file many other lawsuits around the country in response to law enforcement tactics used against protesters.
Democrats to unveil bills to address race and policing.
Democrats in Congress are “on the brink” of unveiling legislation to address police brutality, racial profiling and the loss of trust between the police and their communities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.
Pelosi said the Congressional Black Caucus planned on Monday to unveil bills that would go beyond the kind of incremental changes considered by Congress in the past. She called the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis “a threshold that our country has crossed” and predicted that the debate could help push the country forward in meaningful ways.
