7:36 a.m.
Flames, tear gas, fear engulf D.C. as protests turn violent
Peaceful protests exploded into unrest and outrage in Washington on Sunday night, with some demonstrators setting and feeding fires as an 11 p.m. curfew neared.
Protesters pulled an American flag off St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House, where presidents have historically worshiped, and set fire to an orange street sign nearby. A small fire was also set in the basement of the 19th-century yellow church, D.C. police said. Firefighters, escorted by police, quickly extinguished the blaze.
Nearby, a car had been set on fire, along with a small building near the White House and the lobby of AFL-CIO headquarters. Car windows were smashed, and looting was reported in multiple neighborhoods.
Police officers periodically sprayed pepper bullets and tear gas into the crowds near the White House.
Just before 10 p.m., police fired flash bangs in an apparent attempt to clear the area. A few protesters threw fireworks at the officers. One young man marched toward the police with a fire extinguisher, ready to fling it. But Emily Stanford, 21, and Amber Gilden, 19, yelled, “No! Don’t do that.” A third woman threatened to assault him if he threw the extinguisher. “Don’t give them a reason to retaliate,” Stanford said. “This is a peaceful protest. There’s no need.”
Groups broke windows of Sweetgreen, Compass Coffee and SunTrust Bank, among other buildings, in downtown D.C. On F Street, looters ransacked Zara and Sephora, leaving mascara, eyeliner, peach-colored striped shirts and distressed jeans strewn in the street.
“Somebody get me something!” yelled one of the lookouts. One man came out with striped shopping bags, while another carried out an entire display case of body products.
In Friendship Heights, Steve Bellman found his shop, Paul’s Wine and Spirits, with a window smashed but relatively few bottles missing. “It’s sad,” he said. “I hope it stops and we go back to normal.”
By Emily Davies
7:17 a.m.
'Being silent or not intervening, to me, you’re complicit’: Minneapolis police chief quizzed on live TV by Floyd family
The brother of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody after an officer knelt on his neck, received the family’s first personal response from the Minneapolis police chief during a news conference Sunday.
CNN correspondent Sara Sidner conveyed the question to chief Medaria Arradondo as Philonise Floyd spoke to her over a video call.
“I want to know if he’s going to get me justice for my brother, arrest all the officers, and convict them,” he said.
Sidner apologetically interrupted another reporter to relay the question to Arradondo.
“This is the Floyd family right now?” the chief asked before removing his hat to answer.
“Being silent or not intervening, to me, you’re complicit,” Arradondo said. “To the Floyd family, I want you to know, that my decision to fire all four officers was not based on some sort of hierarchy. Mr. Floyd died in our hands, and so, I see that as being complicit.”
Everyone needs to watch this interview as my colleague @sarasidnerCNN passes along questions from George Floyd’s family directly to the Minneapolis Chief of Police in real time. Wow. #GeorgeFloyd
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Arradondo said he would have hoped at least one officer would have spoken up and intervened as multiple officers pinned George Floyd against the pavement for several minutes, one pressing his knee into the man’s neck as he pleaded, “I can’t breathe.”
“And that’s what you would expect from your officers, yes?” Sidner asked.
“Absolutely,” the chief answered. “And that did not occur.”
Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, was arrested Friday and charged with third-degree murder.
Floyd’s brother said he still doesn’t understand why the other three officers involved in the police stop that killed his brother have not been arrested as well.
“They arrest guys everyday,” Philonise Floyd said on CNN. “They had enough evidence to fire them, so they have enough evidence to arrest them. I don’t know who he’s talking to, but I need him to do it because we all are listening. Black lives matter.”
By Katie Shepherd
7:00 a.m.
Austin police fire on protesters after a day of peaceful demonstrations
AUSTIN — It was a scene like countless others this weekend: a swirling mass of protesters of all ages and backgrounds descending on police headquarters, chanting “black lives matter.”
Suddenly — and seemingly without warning — a group of officers on an overpass across the street opened fire Sunday with what protesters described as rubber bullets, sending the panicked crowd of several hundred screaming demonstrators scrambling for safety.
At least three people were struck by the projectiles, including a young woman who was hit in the back of the head.
Police are firing beanbag rounds in Austin. There was no warning, it has made the situation much worse.
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Demonstrators helped the injured woman to a small medical camp run by volunteers across the street, seating her in a folding chair where she collapsed, a stream of blood running down her back.
“That shook me up,” Ericka Jennings, 40, said after consoling someone who was struck by a projectile and later carried to a nearby car and whisked away. “It was peaceful and then someone threw a water bottle and they just started shooting!”
Protesters spent much of the day outside the police department without incident. But as the sun began to set, they scrambled up a concrete embankment and poured onto Interstate 35, a traffic-choked thoroughfare that runs up the spine of Texas and has historically separated downtown Austin from several historic African American and Latino neighborhoods.
Austin resident Russel Bangor, 36, said he was shocked when police fired on the protesters. “I came here expecting to hold a sign and ended up dragging injured bodies to safety,” he said. “I never expected this.”
By Peter Holley
6:50 a.m.
Fire set at historic St. John’s church near White House
A fire was set in the basement of historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, across Lafayette Square from the White House, during demonstrations Sunday night expressing outrage at the death of George Floyd in police custody, police said.
Although the protests were largely peaceful in the afternoon and evening, small groups of people began setting fires and smashing windows once darkness fell.
Shortly after 10 p.m., someone tore down the American flag that hangs outside the butter-yellow church and appeared to toss the flag into a nearby fire. A glass door or window was shattered. A person sprayed graffiti: “The Devil is across [the] street.”
Read more here.
By Peter Hermann, Sarah Pulliam Bailey and Michelle Boorstein
6:48 a.m.
De Blasio’s daughter arrested in New York protest
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s daughter, Chiara, was among the hundreds of protesters arrested in the city Saturday after failing to disperse when ordered by police, law enforcement sources told The Washington Post.
Chiara, 25, was in a group of about 100 protesters who were allegedly throwing “unknown objects” at police officers near 12th Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan around 10:30 p.m. When police ordered the group to clear the roadway, she was among those who refused, leading to a citation on charges of unlawful assembly in lieu of detention.
The Democratic mayor’s daughter was among the 345 protesters who were arrested Saturday night. That same night, Mayor de Blasio blamed the chaos enveloping New York and some of the violent incidents on “out-of-town” agitators, many of whom he said were not people of color and intent on harming police.
On Sunday morning, de Blasio acknowledged that some were from New York and some were not, but reiterated that “what we do know is there is an explicit agenda of violence” coming from a small group of people.
“It is well organized even though many of the people associate with the anarchist movement, and we often think of that as not an example of organization and hierarchy,” the mayor said at a news conference Sunday. “In this case, we have a lot of people who are organized, they planned together online, they have very explicit rules.”
Late Sunday, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, a New York police union, shared Chiara de Blasio’s personal information, including her date of birth and address, in a Twitter post that was later removed. The union suggested that the mayor’s daughter’s participation in the protests influenced his decisions about policing.
“How can the NYPD protect the city of NY from rioting anarchist when the Mayors object throwing daughter is one of them,” the union tweeted. “Now we know why he is forbidding Mounted Units to be mobilized and keeping the NYPD from doing their jobs.”
By Meagan Flynn
6:37 a.m.
As small and large businesses in Chicago are looted, the city braces for a long week
CHICAGO — After being looted for hours, a liquor store on Madison Avenue on the city’s West Side was torched Sunday night, thick smoke rising skyward.
Glenn Johnson, 45, stood in the doorway of his graphic design business across the street. He had watched people haul the wine and booze out from the store, most putting their plunder into cars with out-of-town license plates. “The weirdest thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said.
Similar damage had been seen earlier Sunday at several malls and big-box retailers, from Tinley Park, south of the city, to Skokie on the North Shore, as mobs smashed glass storefronts to make away with goods. But the looting was concentrated on Chicago’s South and West Sides.
At least three dozen police officers in riot gear guarded one location where businesses, including a Foot Locker, had been destroyed. Mannequins, shoe boxes and the cash register were strewn on the street.
The destruction continued late. In Englewood, a South Side neighborhood hit hard over decades by unemployment and poverty, people darted from a Family Dollar store and stuffed goods in the back seats or trunks of their vehicles. Moments later, a large fire went up in the parking lot, followed by the arrival of a fire department ladder truck and then the police.
A few blocks away, several officers headed into City Sports, an indoor mall that had been stripped bare earlier. “We show up and chase them out. We leave, and they come back. It’s been happening all day and all night,” one officer said as the mall’s alarms blared.
The police department announced 12-hour days for officers and no time off, a sign that the city is preparing for unrest at least all week.
Johnson said he doesn’t condone the violence, “but I don’t condemn it.” At the same time, as his city unravels, he fears “we’re so far into this, everything is going to be gone.”
“There’s no telling when this will be rebuilt,” he said.
By Mark Guarino
6:12 a.m.
‘Burn it down until they hear us’: Allies and activists plea for change at the Minneapolis vigils
MINNEAPOLIS — It’s an hour past curfew and the vigil site for George Floyd, East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, has a crowd of 500 people. Music plays as a group guards the perimeter of the Speedway gas station and convenience store across the street. In the intersection, people gather peacefully amid the flowers and memorials for Floyd’s life.
Miryea Fajardo came from Flint, Mich., to participate in the Minneapolis protests over his death.
“I’m tired of it always being a recurring problem,” said Fajardo, who is Latinx. She’s never traveled to a protest before. “I wanted to see it for myself.”
Also standing at the memorials was Sean Skibbie, who lives just blocks away. He has come to the intersection daily, sometimes by himself, but also with his young daughters, who he says are sad and frightened by what happened. “They are struggling to process it,” he said.
He wears a T-shirt that signals his support for the Black Lives Matter movement. “I feel, as a white ally, it’s important to show up and do what I can to help,” he said. “Being here is important. It shows we haven’t forgotten. There is power in numbers.”
Some in the crowd were ready to take drastic action. Lucy Suarez, a black and Mexican woman with bright green hair, had been to multiple protests last week — at the Capitol, the police precinct, and in downtown Minneapolis.
“I’m just tired of seeing videos of my black brothers and sisters murdered” by police, she said. Suarez has a “battle wound,” a bruise from where she was hit by a projectile fired by officers in front of a Kmart on Saturday night.
She has witnessed the fires started at some of those protests, and offered a blunt suggestion for how to move forward. “Burn it down until they hear us,” she said.
By Sheila Regan
5:51 a.m.
Florida police officer suspended after shoving kneeling protester
A police officer has been suspended after video showed him shoving a kneeling woman during a protest in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Sunday afternoon.
The video shows police walking through a crowd of protesters as several people dropped to their knees and held their hands overhead. As one officer passed a black woman kneeling at his feet, he reached down and shoved the back of her head, sending her falling forward into the pavement.
Nearby protesters erupted in shouts and several people threw water bottles at the police. The officer retreated, followed by other officers who appeared to be yelling at him over his actions.
Video shows protesters tossing water bottles at police AFTER officer shoved head of woman already on the ground, according to @WPLGLocal10 news cast. #FortLauderdale #GeorgeFloydProtests
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The officer who shoved the woman has been suspended pending an internal investigation of the incident, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis (D) told The Washington Post. Trantalis did not release the officer’s name. The protester was not injured, Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Rick Maglione told told WPLG Local 10 News.
Meanwhile, a standoff between police and protesters grew increasingly tense. Officials in Fort Lauderdale and Broward County declared a state of emergency and implemented a 9 p.m. curfew after police fired tear gas into the crowd and demonstrators responded by tossing rocks and bottles, NBC Miami reported.
Similar instances of police violence have been captured on video at protests across the nation, but only a few officers have been publicly disciplined. In Atlanta, the mayor announced Sunday that two officers had been fired for using excessive force when arresting two black men while enforcing a citywide curfew Saturday night.
By Katie Shepherd
5:31 a.m.
Ohio deputies raise ‘thin blue line’ flag after U.S. flag ‘stolen’
A U.S. flag was stolen from the grounds of an Ohio sheriff’s office, prompting deputies to raise a “thin blue line” flag in its place, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday.
The replacement provoked fierce criticism over social media for the use of the flag, which is synonymous with the Blue Lives Matter movement, launched in opposition to Black Lives Matter. Critics have said the iconography emphasizes the safety of police over black communities.
The sheriff’s office said the flag — typically a subdued banner with a stark blue line replacing one of the red or white stripes of the American flag — was flown to honor a Cincinnati Police Department officer shot Saturday during a protest.
Police Chief Eliot Isaac said the officer was intentionally shot in the helmet but was not injured, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. The sheriff’s office did not return a request for comment about the stolen flag and why another U.S. flag was not flown in its place.
The “thin blue line” flag has been taken down and will be replaced Monday morning, the sheriff’s office said.
By Alex Horton
5:06 a.m.
A flash bang sends protesters scrambling in Miami’s historic district
As more than 1,000 protesters marched through downtown Miami on Sunday night, what had been a largely peaceful demonstration throughout the afternoon erupted into chaos.
The city’s curfew went into effect at 8 p.m., even as hundreds of people still clogged street traffic near the American Airlines Arena and Bayside Marketplace.
As police started moving in, about two dozen protesters began hurling what appeared to be rocks at a CVS storefront’s windows. Others tried futilely to discourage the vandalism. There were loud thuds and the sound of a hammer hitting glass.
That’s when a law enforcement officer lobbed a flash bang into the roadway, sending screaming protesters tripping over one another as they scrambled away from the CVS. At least one man was bloodied; he said he thought a rock had hit him in the head.
“Any individuals who remain in this area are subject to arrest or other police action,” an officer‘s voice boomed through a megaphone.
By Michael Majchrowicz
4:44 a.m.
Scenes from Washington protests near the White House
By Evelyn Hockstein
4:13 a.m.
Trump taken to underground bunker in White House on Friday amid protests, sources say
President Trump was taken by Secret Service agents to an underground bunker at the White House on Friday night, according to two officials familiar with the incident, as protests over the death of George Floyd erupted near the presidential residence.
It was unclear how long the president stayed in the bunker. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, which was first reported by the New York Times.
“The White House does not comment on security protocols and decisions,” Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said Sunday night.
The White House had gone under lockdown on Friday night amid the protests at Lafayette Square.
By Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey
3:55 a.m.
In Edwardsville, Ill., a largely white crowd chants, ‘I can’t breathe’
When 18-year-old Haylee Cathorall decided last week that she wanted to organize a protest in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, she meant to tag Alton, Ill., as the location of the event on Facebook.
Somehow it ended up as Edwardsville, a college town 30 minutes east of St. Louis. More than 300 people still turned out Sunday afternoon. They stood on the lawn and steps of the Madison County Courthouse, chanting, “I can’t breathe.” Most of those gathered were white. There did not appear to any police presence.
It was not only the first time Cathorall had organized a protest — it was first time the biracial teenager had participated in one.
“Just the death of George Floyd and his not getting justice inspired it,” she said. She did not expect the parade of cars that continually circled the block for hours, honking in support. “This turned out amazing,” she said.
Although Cathorall was new to activism, others said they had long been engaged in efforts to correct racial injustice.
Pamela Denise Long, who is black, said she was there “because I’m the mother of a black daughter who doesn’t have a car because I fear for her life.”
Long, 47, lives in Edwardsville but works across the Mississippi River in St. Louis as director of organizational development for Alive & Well Communities, a nonprofit organization that provides trauma-informed care.
“I have black nephews and colleagues with black sons who just last week were crying on our [work] team call, because they were questioning if they should have kids,” she said. “I’m out here because systemic change has to happen, and it has to happen efficiently and precisely.”
Rose Bates, who is white and lives in Edwardsville, was gratified to be part of a vigorous community response to Floyd’s death. “That could have been my pastor, it could have been anybody,” she said.
By Eric Berger
3:45 a.m.
Truck driver arrested after plowing into protesters on Minneapolis highway, police said
A truck driver who barreled toward protesters filling Minneapolis’s I-35 highway Sunday has been arrested, according to police. The truck did not appear to hit any of the thousands who had gathered peacefully in the name of George Floyd, they said.
“To not have a tragedy and many deaths is simply an amazing thing,” Gov. Tim Walz in a Sunday evening news conference, addressing the “horrifying image on our television” of the truck sending people scattering.
The male driver, was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries sustained after being pulled from the truck by protesters, officials said. Video shows the vehicle being swarmed by people and coming to a stop. The man was taken into custody and has left the hospital, they said, as authorities conduct a criminal investigation.
Walz said he did not know the man’s motive and that law enforcement quickly worked to clear the area and ensure that nothing “volatile” was in the truck.
“I think the incident just underscores still the volatile situation we have out there,” Walz said.
With many wondering how the truck had gotten onto the pedestrian-clogged highway in the first place, given that it was closed to traffic, authorities said it appeared the truck entered before closures. Authorities denied suggestions that a shortage of resources had let the truck through.
A woman who identified herself to KARE 11 as a witness told the station that the driver was blasting the horn as he plowed northbound.
“Short of that driver having some sort of medical incident, obviously an intentional thing,” one reporter said on KARE 11.
BREAKING- Truck moves at full speed into a crowd of thousands of demonstrators #GeorgeFloyd #Minnesota @KSTP
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By Hannah Knowles
3:44 a.m.
Protester allegedly killed by bar owner in Omaha
A black protester was killed in a struggle with a local business owner on Saturday, one of several killings linked to unrest and demonstrations nationwide.
Omaha police did not release the name of the alleged shooter, but a family member and media reports identified him as Jake Gardner, owner of the Hive, a bar styled on the band 311. It is not clear whether he was charged.
Authorities identified the victim as James Scurlock, 22, who died at a hospital of a gunshot wound.
A cellphone video of the shooting circulating on social media appears to show Gardner in a confrontation with several people, although it is unclear how it began. Gardner backs away, with one arm visible. The person recording appears to mention that Gardner has a gun, and in a struggle, two shots are fired.
Scurlock’s family could not be reached for comment.
“My kids lost a brother. His daughter lost a father,” said Scurlock’s father, also named James, the Omaha World-Herald reported. “We want them to go to court.”
An attorney for Gardner could not be identified.
Social media posts accuse Gardner, who is white, of being a racist, which prompted the band 311 to say it does not stand for “bigotry or prejudice.”
Jenny Heineman, who said she is Gardner’s cousin, said that he had a history of discriminatory remarks, including inflammatory comments about transgender women that made local headlines.
“We will never be able to make it right” with the Scurlock family, she told The Washington Post.
Gardner’s friend Stephen Cochran served with Gardner for about four years in the Marine Corps, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He told The Post that Gardner never appeared racist in the years he has known him and that he isn’t the aggressive type, he said.
Cochran said he thinks Gardner was there to protect his business when the incident occurred.
By Alex Horton
3:40 a.m.
Two officers have been fired over excessive force used during protests, Atlanta mayor says
Two Atlanta police officers have been fired after video showed them using excessive force during Saturday’s protests, tasing and then dragging two college students from a car, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at a news conference Sunday.
Bottoms called the video “disturbing,” as other police forces face scrutiny for some officers’ responses to demonstrations that have left officials nationwide pleading for peace. In New York City, footage showed police vehicles pushing through protesters. Viral video from Minneapolis, the epicenter of the country’s unrest, captured officers firing projectiles at people sitting on a front porch.
New York City police have said they are investigating incidents of alleged excessive force.
In Atlanta, college presidents had called for an inquiry as footage of force used on the two students circulated. Bottoms said three other officers involved were not fired after a review. Body camera footage is forthcoming, she said.
Bottoms has also made emotional pleas for people to stop the destruction and chaos in Atlanta.
By Hannah Knowles
3:39 a.m.
D.C. protesters return to the streets to vent and engage: ‘This is not an Instagram moment’
As demonstrators prepared for a third night of protests in front of the White House, Sokka Asif, 19, a Towson University student who is black, saw a white woman photographing her two friends — who also were white.
“This is not an Instagram moment,” Asif snapped at the woman. “We got n------ dying in the street.”
The woman lowered the phone, apologized and walked away.
If downtown Washington took on a festive feel at moments on Sunday, with demonstrators breaking into song and otherwise relishing their place in a historic setting, it was mostly a stage for people to vent, shout and express outrage over a wide spectrum of issues, from President Trump to racism to policing. Especially policing.
By Samantha Schmidt, Rebecca Tan, Rachel Chason and Paul Schwartzman
3:27 a.m.
Detroit protesters defy city’s curfew with chants at police headquarters
Detroit police began firing tear gas and arresting protesters about 8:40 p.m. Sunday, after hundreds of protesters defied an 8 p.m. curfew.
The crowd gathered outside the front gates of the Detroit police headquarters, formed human chains and knelt on the ground despite multiple orders from officers to disperse, according to live video from the Detroit Free Press. They chanted, “This is what democracy looks like” and “Say his name! Which one?”
A few protesters had smeared themselves with red paint.
Within minutes, people were scattering with the police in pursuit.
By Eva Dou
3:17 a.m.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to lead prosecutions related to George Floyd’s death
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) will take the lead on prosecutions related to George Floyd’s death, Gov. Tim Walz (D) announced Sunday, saying the change will help ensure justice in the high-profile case.
Ellison said he will be working with the original prosecutor, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. Freeman had said earlier that “recent developments in the facts of the case” meant Ellison’s help would be valuable.
Walz acknowledged Sunday many people’s distrust that authorities would bring justice for Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for about eight minutes. Floyd, a black man, repeatedly said “I cannot breathe” before going limp as bystanders protested.
Chauvin, who was fired, has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Authorities have yet to announce charges for three other Minneapolis officers who were also fired after Floyd’s death, but Freeman has said more charges may come.
People “don’t trust the process,” Walz said Sunday. “They don’t believe justice can be served. … They believe time and time again, the system works … to deny … justice to communities of color.”
“We are going to bring to bear all the resources necessary to achieve justice in this case,” Ellison said, asking for the public’s trust.
By Hannah Knowles
3:04 a.m.
Violence erupts in West Philadelphia
Violence erupted Sunday in West Philadelphia along a commercial corridor in a historically black and economically disadvantaged neighborhood, although one that has been gentrifying in recent years. Businesses were broken into in the afternoon and at least one police car was set on fire.
About 6 p.m., police had barricaded off sections of 52nd Street and Chestnut Street. Police fired tear gas into a crowd composed of some who came to protest and others who live nearby.
Sergio Hernandez, 24, lives on the block and said that he had earlier put a cone over a tear gas bomb to keep it from spreading.
“Look how many windows are open,” he said. “I didn’t want it to get into people’s homes.”
A taxi sat vacant with a bullet hole through the window. Several protesters said that a police officer shot a rubber bullet at the car at about 5:20 p.m., as well as into the crowd. The driver was struck in the head. One protester, Quinn, who did not want to give her last name, said she is a “street medic” on the scene to help injured protesters and bystanders. She described the taxi driver’s injury as a “lump the size of a golf ball on his right temple.” She said that she and others helped calm him down, patch his wound and encouraged him to seek medical care.
Police officers warned those gathered that they would begin to impose the city’s 6 p.m. curfew. About 6:30 p.m., a group of officers in full riot gear and armed with what appeared to be assault rifles rushed some bystanders down the street and launched tear gas bombs into the crowd. Farther down 52nd Street, storefronts were boarded up and spray-painted “black-owned business,” a plea for rioters to spare them.
By Maura Ewing
2:47 a.m.
Demonstrators — and looters — pop up in Santa Monica
Most of the Los Angeles area was calm throughout Sunday afternoon, except in Santa Monica, a lovely blufftop neighborhood west of the I-405. A relatively small demonstration, focused on the Floyd death and police reform, faced off against police at the foot of the Santa Monica Pier. It remained peaceful for hours.
But within the city itself there were several groups each numbering about 20 or so people — some in cars with license plates masked with paper — that methodically looted stores such as Vans, the Gap and Nike, malls and other retail spots. Much of the looting was filmed by news crews.
The Santa Monica curfew was moved up until 4 p.m. Pacific time as a result.
By Scott Wilson
2:42 a.m.
United States on edge after a weekend of protests against police brutality
A violent and chaotic weekend came to a close on Sunday with the United States on a precipice, as rage over the death of a black man in police custody continued to smolder across a country already reeling from the deadly coronavirus and the resulting economic crisis.
The question, as May turned to June, was whether the events of a hot summer weekend — which saw police escalate their tactics against protesters as parts of cities were set ablaze — would mark the climax of the unrest, or instead its onset.
“We’re at a crossroads,” said Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and a professor at California State University at Los Angeles. “Either the existing system of repressive and brutal policing is going to continue to assert itself, and the powers that be will sign off on it, or they will get the message that the people are sending, that we cannot continue with this form of policing in this country.”
By Isaac Stanley-Becker, Felicia Sonmez and Katie Mettler
2:21 a.m.
Black New Yorkers say they’re ‘tired’ of injustice as turbulent protests rage on
New Yorkers echoed protesters in several cities with calls for racial justice on May 30, following the police-involved death of George Floyd.
By Washington Post Staff
2:16 a.m.
Farther-out suburbs of Washington, D.C., also seeing protests
Police in Prince William County, Va., were girding for more unrest Sunday after five people were arrested overnight, when a peaceful gathering of several hundred people turned unruly and violent. Six police vehicles were mangled by rocks or debris, and five businesses were damaged, deputy chief of police Jarad Phelps told an emergency session of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.
In increasingly tense exchanges over the course of the evening — lasting until 1 a.m. — protesters lobbed stones at police, and reportedly stopped motorists to jump on the roofs of their cars and assault some inside the vehicles. In response, law enforcement officials used “a chemical agent” and rubber bullets to try to force calm, Phelps said. Two state police troopers and four county police officers were injured, along with a woman whose foot was run over by a car.
In Germantown, Md., dozens of peaceful protesters blocked an intersection on Sunday afternoon. Protesters started near Montgomery College’s Germantown campus and marched down Route 355 to Germantown Road, with county police officers directing traffic around them.
“It is a peaceful protest, so it is something that we 100 percent support,” said Capt. Tom Jordan, a spokesman for Montgomery County police. “This is why we are in this country. You are able to express your displeasure and we are supportive of that.”
By Hannah Natanson and Emily Davies
1:00 a.m.
At least 84 protesters arrested in Detroit
Hundreds of protesters continued marching through the streets of Detroit on Sunday evening, as the first night of curfew was set to take effect.
The number of arrests Saturday night in Detroit rose to 84, up from 60 the previous night. The number could rise further Sunday if protesters do not return home by 8 p.m., when the curfew begins.
Curfew will remain in place from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. every day until further notice, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan (D) said at a news conference Sunday.
By Eva Dou
12:58 a.m.
Police are marching and kneeling in solidarity with protesters
Even as tensions between police and protesters rise — and erupt in violence — some officers are joining demonstrators in shows of allegiance, taking knees and joining marches for accountability in George Floyd’s death.
In New York City — where officers and protesters alike have been injured, and where footage of police vehicles plowing through crowds drew particular condemnation late Saturday — a video now circulating widely on Facebook captured two people in uniform joining a kneeling crowd in Queens.
“Thank you!” people yell, cheering. The officers stay as a circle begins to chant names of black Americans killed in police encounters.
“Trayvon Martin!”
“Philando Castile!”
Code Black Protest. The Excelling Church and The BlaQue Resource Network
Posted by Aleeia Abraham on Sunday, May 31, 2020
Tensions over the demonstrations have grown in New York City as Mayor Bill de Blasio (D)defended the officers who drove through a crowd.
“I wish the officers had found a different approach. But let’s begin at the beginning. The protesters in that video did the wrong thing to surround them, surround that police car, period,” de Blasio said. Other leaders including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose district includes Queens, were aghast at the officers’ actions and slammed de Blasio’s comments.
New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on Sunday also drew ire from activists as he praised officers’ handling of “a mob,” declaring: “What we saw in New York City last night and the night before was not about peaceful protest of any kind.” Police have denounced assaults on officers with bricks and molotov cocktails, while protesters have decried videos that shows officers firing tear gas and rubber bullets at people who do not appear to be behaving violently.
At the same time, some officers nationwide have sought to show common ground with people angry about Floyd’s death and police violence.
In Michigan, Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson marched with demonstrators. So did the police chief in Norfolk. Police from Lafayette Square in Washington to Miami to Santa Cruz, Calif., have taken knees to show their solidarity.
Amazing scene unfolding in Flint, Twp, Michigan. Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson has joined protesters in a peaceful march. Read More: bit.ly/3eB3jbK @MichStatePolice @GovWhitmer
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"We are taller when we bow"
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Miami PD's response to protestors
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By Hannah Knowles
12:38 a.m.
Philadelphia protesters march through an empty neighborhood chanting, ‘We can’t breathe’
In Philadelphia, about 200 protesters marched several miles in a loop that started at City Hall and ultimately culminated at the Philadelphia Police headquarters in Center City.
“We can’t breathe,” protesters chanted to a line of officers in riot gear standing behind barricades.
The streets downtown were shut to traffic following a night of unrest, but police escorted protesters through the otherwise empty neighborhood.
Lance Magwood, 25, held his 4-year-old nephew on his shoulders. He traveled from Washington, D.C., to march with his sister, brother-in-law and nephew. “I want to teach my nephew to stand up for other people, to stand up for himself,” said Magwood, who is black. The young boy’s father, Kyrian Batiste, added that he has high aspirations for his son, who wants to be a pilot when he grows up.
“His life matters,” he said.
Meghan Aro, a 29-year-old white woman from Philadelphia said that she was there to support racial equality.
“The pandemic brought this to the forefront. Most of the people who died were people of color,” she said. “Our government didn’t show up.”
A young white woman lagged a bit behind the rest of the protesters, walking with her bike. A police officer shook her bike’s back wheel roughly and yelled at her, “Move along!” A verbal confrontation ensued, with one protester yelling, “This is how violence starts!”
Several protesters said they would continue to show up day after day if others do the same.
Wilmer Wilson IV, 30, said he joined the march to City Hall because of “the continuing state of disaster that is unfolding across the country and across black bodies.” He said he will be out again Monday if others are — “as long as people are coming out.”
By Maura Ewing
12:08 a.m.
More than 2,500 arrested over the weekend as dozens of cities impose curfews
As escalating tensions between police and demonstrators fueled thousands of arrests on the sixth day of unrest and protests over the death of George Floyd, many more are expected to be detained as cities increasingly enforce curfews.
Police arrested 2,564 people in two dozen U.S. cities over the weekend, according to a tally by The Washington Post. Nearly a fifth of those arrests were in Los Angeles, where protesters clashed with police on Saturday, causing city officials to ask the state for 500 to 700 National Guard troops overnight as Los Angeles ordered a curfew.
Charges against the protesters arrested included violating curfew but also burglary and damaging property, as reports of looting and rioting bubbled overnight.
On Sunday night, protests and arrests could escalate as cities increasingly enforce curfews and set them earlier.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez set that city’s curfew time earlier, to 8 p.m. He said that peaceful protests are welcome before then but that the curfew will be strictly enforced. In Miami, 57 people were arrested during protests that shut down a major highway, Interstate 95, Saturday night.
“Some of them are from here, some of them were [from] out of town,” he said of the protesters who were arrested, “but I can tell you that those that were arrested came here to do something, that was a dishonor to the legacy in the life of George Floyd. We will protect our residents, their safety and the right to enjoy their city.”
Philadelphia’s curfew was moved earlier as well Sunday evening, from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. At least 138 people were arrested for breaking Saturday’s curfew, Philadelphia Police tweeted. Police said 54 people were arrested in connection with burglary or looting since Saturday morning.
In New York City, 345 people were arrested Saturday evening and early Sunday morning, police told The Post, bringing the total number of arrests in the city over the weekend to nearly 600. Police were unable to provide a breakdown of the charges against those arrested. Forty-seven police cars were damaged and 33 officers were injured Saturday, police said.
Curfews were enacted in more than two dozen cities, and the National Guard was summoned in at least 12 states and D.C.
By Meryl Kornfield
12:04 a.m.
Bent knees, raised fists and pleas for peace near the White House
The third day of protests in the nation’s capital over the death of George Floyd in police custody began with bent knees, raised fists and pleas that this night, unlike the last, would remain peaceful. And for a moment, the more than 1,000 people who marched to Lafayette Square across from the White House listened.
The crowd — multigenerational and diverse — extended down H and 16th streets, holding up ripped-off pieces of cardboard that read, “I can’t breathe,” three of the final words Floyd spoke as a white Minneapolis police officer dug a knee into his neck.
A man with a megaphone called out for a moment of silence, and for a full minute, nearly everyone went quiet.
The solemnity, though, didn’t last long.
On the north side of the square, hundreds of the protesters gathered around the barricades that, not 24 hours before, had been dismantled. As one person attempted to take them down again, an argument broke out.
“You are putting us all in danger!” a protester shouted. “Dismantling this fence proves nothing!”
“That’s what I’m here to do!” the person who attacked the barricade yelled back.
Moments later, the barricade fell, and protesters marched forward, shouting “Hands up, don’t shoot!”
By Gregory S. Schneider, Petula Dvorak, Justin Wm. Moyer, Samantha Schmidt and John Woodrow Cox
11:39 p.m.
Trump calls for ‘LONG TERM jail sentences’ after man is brutally beaten on video in Dallas
Dallas’s second day of protests reached a flash point late Saturday as a widely circulated, graphic video showed a man charging at protesters with a machete before being brutally beaten.
In various videos on social media, the man is seen carrying a machete and chasing a group of protesters. A Dallas Police Department spokesman said the man was trying to protect his neighborhood.
The man was then assaulted by a group of people, who kicked and punched him in the body and head. Once the attackers cleared, the unidentified man was left behind with a bloody head and twisted limbs, and he was not moving.
Shortly before midnight local time, the police spokesman said the victim was in stable condition at a hospital. The man was transported from the scene before officers arrived, the spokesman said.
Trump called for consequences Sunday as he tweeted about the incident.
“SO TERRIBLE!” he wrote. “Where are the arrests and LONG TERM jail sentences?”
Trump retweeted a suggestion that the beaten man was attacked by antifa, or anti-fascist, activists, whom the president and his advisers have blamed for the escalating violence amid a week of protests. But different leaders have advanced conflicting theories about who is behind the demonstrations’ destructive turn, and Dallas police said Sunday that no one had been arrested for the attack captured on video, according to local news outlets.
The Washington Post could not immediately reach Dallas police.
Mayor Eric Johnson (D) had earlier condemned the violence in an interview with WFAA ABC 8, adding that police are investigating the attack.
“It’s unacceptable for a beating like that to happen in my city,” Johnson said.
The initial call came in as a stabbing at the House of Blues, a popular downtown music venue.
By Rachel Siegel, Meryl Kornfield and Hannah Knowles
11:26 p.m.
Only justice and police accountability ‘can put out these fires,’ Floyd family attorney says
Benjamin Crump, the lawyer representing George Floyd’s family, on Sunday denounced the violent actions of some protesters and called for nationwide changes in the criminal justice system.
Floyd is “just the latest tipping point in a string of killings of unarmed black people at the hands — or should I say, in his case at the knee — of the police,” Crump said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
“Many elected officials have to understand that it is not these protesters that started these fires across America,” he added. “It is police brutality and a racist criminal justice system. And the only thing that can put out these fires are police accountability and equal justice. [Neither] the Floyd family, nor I, agree with violence. Just like Dr. King, we don’t try to justify it.”
Crump also said that he hopes the charges against fired officer Derek Chauvin are upgraded to first-degree murder.
“The fact that officer Chauvin kept his knee on [Floyd’s] neck for almost three minutes after he was unconscious — we don’t understand how that is not first-degree murder,” Crump said. “We don’t understand how all these officers have not been arrested.” Three other officers were at the scene.
By Felicia Sonmez
11:09 p.m.
Arizona announces statewide curfew
Arizona is enacting a statewide curfew at the request of local leaders, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) announced Sunday, as dozens of major cities try similar measures to maintain order amid protests that have erupted into chaos at night.
The curfew will start Sunday at 8 p.m. and remain in place for a week, Ducey tweeted as he declared an emergency in Arizona. The state has also joined a growing group mobilizing National Guard units to help quell the unrest.
“This gives law enforcement an additional tool to prevent the lawlessness we’ve seen here and in cities nationwide,” Ducey wrote. “Police will be equipped to make arrests of individuals who are planning to riot, loot or cause damage and unrest.”
As mass demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd spread across the country this weekend, sometimes sparking violent clashes with police and looting or vandalism of businesses, local leaders from Portland, Ore., to Chicago to Philadelphia announced temporary curfews Saturday night. But not everyone stayed home, and scenes of destruction continued to play out amid calls for justice for Floyd.
More cities, including Dallas and Cleveland, enacted curfews on Sunday.
By Hannah Knowles
11:00 p.m.
In Los Angeles, feelings about the protests are mixed
On a normal Sunday morning, one that is protest- and pandemic-free, coffee and brunch would be the most pressing task at hand along Beverly Boulevard. Today, the trendy strip was an open-air gallery for the anti-police graffiti and vandalism that transformed the area overnight.
Neighborhood residents grabbed brooms and scrub brushes, trash bags and spray cleaner before heading to Beverly, volunteering spontaneously to clean up the detritus of a demonstration whose motive has divided the city.
“It’s our neighborhood and we love it, too,” said Jordan Reynolds, a 25-year-old resident of what’s known as the Fairfax district, who with a group of friends showed up early to clean the sidewalks. “If we have to clean up here every day in order to protest what has happened, then we will,” Reynolds said.
Like others here, Reynolds participated in the march down Beverly Boulevard, which began around 2 p.m. Saturday and started peacefully. But several demonstrators said that around 4 p.m., another group of people arrived, staging in the parking lot of Pan Pacific Park, which today was packed with dump trucks, street sweepers and other tools of city cleanup crews. The vandalism and looting began soon after.
The police turned to tear gas, smoke and rubber bullets to clear the crowds. L.A. Police Department officers arrested about 400 people overnight Saturday.
The graffiti included anarchist symbols and “F--- 12,” the numerical shorthand for police. That message was painted in large yellow letters across the U.S. Post Office windows.
At Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s request, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) deployed hundreds of National Guard troops to the city overnight. Garcetti announced that the citywide curfew would last through Sunday night.
“People are angry, I don’t mind saying it,” said Elijah M., 26, an Orthodox Jew who spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld for fear of reprisal, scrubbing graffiti reading “KKK=Police” off the Ganzweig Synagogue. “What Black Lives Matter is doing, what it has become, is making no sense anymore.”
By Scott Wilson
10:19 p.m.
Owner of damaged D.C. restaurant: ‘Before anyone puts a single word in our mouths. Black lives matter’
It was just after midnight, and her restaurant near the White House, Teaism, was on fire. Michelle Brown, still in pajamas, grabbed her hand sanitizer and car keys to check out the damage.
Before she left, she fired off a tweet. “Before anyone puts a single word in our mouths. Black lives matter,” she wrote.
Brown would soon learn protesters had destroyed her 21-year-old tea chest, that her beloved art work was engulfed in flames.
By Emily Davies
9:29 p.m.
Protests over the death of George Floyd spread to London, Berlin and Toronto
LONDON — Street protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis went global over the weekend, as demonstrators in London, Berlin and Toronto gathered under banners declaring that Black Lives Matter and called for an end to police brutality in the United States and around the world.
In London, hundreds defied rules against large gatherings Sunday to rally at Trafalgar Square and mass outside the new U.S. Embassy on the south bank of the River Thames, where they chanted “no justice, no peace” in solidarity with U.S. movement against racial bias in the criminal justice system.
Demonstrators there and in Berlin waved signs reading “I can’t breathe” — some of the last words that the dying Floyd, captured by an onlooker’s video, gasped out in Minneapolis as a police officer pressed his knee down on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.
By William Booth and Loveday Morris
8:46 p.m.
Journalists at several protests were injured, arrested by police while trying to cover the story
Across the country a similar scene unfolded: police spraying tear gas and rubber bullets at journalists who were covering demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody last week.
Several of the most chilling accounts came from Minneapolis, where Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) had just the day before strongly denounced the arrest of CNN’s Omar Jimenez on live television, warning that it sent a chilling message to the community.
By Elahe Izadi
8:15 p.m.
Mass protests could cause coronavirus to spread, officials say
As nationwide protests sparked by the death of a black man in police custody stretched into their sixth day, former and current government officials warned Sunday the mass demonstrations could lead to new waves of coronavirus infections.
“There’s going to be a lot of issues coming out of what’s happened in the last week, but one of them is going to be that chains of transmission will have become lit from these gatherings,” former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation."
He noted that Minnesota, which has been hit hard by the pandemic, has seen an uptick in cases and hospitalizations in recent days.
“We still have pockets of spread in communities that aren’t under good control,” said Gottlieb, who is advising state governors and the Trump administration on their coronavirus response.
He also called attention to the virus’s outsize impact on black and Hispanic people, who are contracting and dying from it at disproportionate rates. Low incomes, overcrowded housing, limited access to health care and high rates of underlying conditions were all factors that put those communities at greater risk, he said.
“I think it’s a symptom of broader racial inequities in our country that we need to work to resolve,” Gottlieb said.
In an interview with CNN, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said he was worried the demonstrations could lead to spikes in cases.
“There’s no question that when you put hundreds or thousands of people together in close proximity when we’ve got this virus all over the streets, it’s not healthy,” Hogan said.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) said on CNN on Sunday morning that she, too, was “extremely concerned” about the spread of the coronavirus during the protests.
“It’s a pandemic, and people of color are getting hit harder,” she said. “We’re going to see the other side of this in a couple of weeks.”
By Derek Hawkins and Laura Stevens
7:37 p.m.
More cities impose curfews, restrict movement amid protests
Cleveland and Chicago have restricted access and extended curfews in certain areas after tense downtown demonstrations Saturday caused damage to storefronts and businesses.
The city of Chicago announced reduced access to its downtown Sunday — open only to essential employees and people who live in the area. The Chicago Transit Authority has suspended trains and buses in and out of the central business district. Highway closures are also in effect. Protests are still scheduled to take place in the afternoon. However, citywide curfew will begin at 9 p.m. Sunday evening and end at 6 a.m. Monday.
Cleveland officials have imposed a curfew starting at noon that restricts access to the city’s downtown until 8 a.m. Monday. Mayor Frank Jackson announced via Facebook Live Sunday morning that the curfew will allow for cleanup of storefronts that were vandalized during Saturday evening’s protests that turned destructive.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett announced Sunday that he will implement a countywide curfew effective 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. Monday after two days of peaceful protests turned violent in downtown Indianapolis.
“Of course, a curfew is one option that we do not embrace with any celebration,” he said. “But I do believe it has become necessary and that’s why I’ll be signing the executive order today."
“These actions are necessary, but they break my heart,” Hogsett said.
Curfews implemented in over two dozen cities across the country amid protests over the death of George Floyd will remain in place Sunday. After violent riots, a 5 p.m. curfew was implemented in Seattle, and an 8 p.m. curfew will continue in Portland, Ore.
In Louisville, where protesters have decried the March death of Breonna Taylor for multiple days, Mayor Greg Fischer instituted a 9 p.m. curfew Saturday that will also be in effect Sunday evening.
By Jacqueline Alemany
7:29 p.m.
Minnesota governor extends curfew, attempts to shift tone toward healing
A day after he spoke in militant and sweeping language about quelling the unrest overtaking the Twin Cities, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) attempted to shift the tone toward healing Sunday during a news briefing where he and other state officials addressed another night of demonstrations over the death of George Floyd and confrontations with police.
Walz extended the 8 p.m. curfew through Sunday night and said law enforcement would again be in the streets enforcing it.
He thanked peaceful protesters who stayed home Saturday night, saying the increased presence of local and state police and the National Guard helped to restore “trust to our streets.”
“That simply gets us back to a place we were before, and that place is not good enough,” Walz said.
The “before,” the governor said, “led to our communities on fire, our security and safety in question and a searching of who we are.”
Walz said he believed the manner of Floyd’s death “warranted” charges for the three other officers involved in his arrest and said he was listening to calls from elected officials and Floyd’s family to appoint state Attorney General Keith Ellison as special prosecutor on the case. Walz said “no decision has been made” but that it would be “incredibly negligent” of him to not consider all options.
Preliminary data showed at least 50 people were arrested by 2 a.m. Sunday in both Hennepin and Ramsey counties, said Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington. As many as 50 more people were arrested between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., Harrington said.
One officer was shot at but not hit, Harrington said. Two people were taken into police custody, and officers recovered an AR-15 rifle from them, according to authorities.
Walz and Harrington addressed previous messaging on who was instigating the riots and looting. Officials had claimed Saturday that people from out-of-state were taking advantage of Floyd’s death to sow chaos. Walz and others walked those statements back Saturday night.
“The catalyst that started all of this was the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, and that is our problem,” Walz said, adding that his remarks casting blame on outsiders was not intended to be a “deflection.”
“Candidly, I certainly think I want to believe it’s outside more,” the governor said.
Harrington said at the briefing just 20 percent of those arrested as of Saturday were from out of state.
By Katie Mettler
6:43 p.m.
Minnesota attorney general says some ‘very suspicious behavior’ is fueling protests
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) shied away from making any sweeping claims about the origins of the violent protesters Sunday, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that there has been “very suspicious behavior” but ultimately “nobody really knows” if outside provocateurs are amping up the violence.
“There’s been a lot of videotape taken by demonstrators of people who are very suspicious … and there have been other, you know, photographs of cars with no license plates,” he said. “I’ve talked to people who are demonstrating. Some of them say they think some of those folks are from Minnesota, and they also say some people have come from out of town. What the exact political motivation is, is unclear at this point. We need to investigate it.”
Ellison’s comments came after Gov. Tim Walz (D) and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter had to retreat statements blaming violence on interlopers after county arrest data showed that most arrestees were from Minnesota.
Ellison said additional charges in the death of George Floyd are possible, though he noted the decision belongs to the Hennepin County prosecutor — not his own office.
The charges against former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin “could well be amended to include other additional charges or even higher charges, and the other individuals are not out of the woods,” he said, referring to three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest who were later fired. “The investigation is ongoing.” Ellison said, adding that more announcements were coming in the “near future.”
By Mike DeBonis
6:18 p.m.
NYPD commissioner praises police officers while calling protesters ‘a mob’
After a night of clashes between police and protesters, New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on Sunday praised what he called his officers’ composure in the face of “a mob.”
“What we saw in New York City last night and the night before was not about peaceful protest of any kind,” he said in a tweet thread to his officers.
“What it was, quite frankly, was a mob bent solely on taking advantage of a moment in American history, to co-opt the cause of equality that we all must uphold, to intentionally inflict chaos, mayhem, and injury just for the sake of doing so,” he wrote.
Shea’s remarks infuriated many activists and their supporters, who responded by sharing videos that showed officers using force against peaceful demonstrators.
In some clips, officers could be seen firing tear gas and rubber bullets indiscriminately into crowds, hitting protesters who did not appear to be engaged in any violent activity. In one instance, two NYPD cars plowed through a crowd of protesters, knocking people to the ground.
State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D) blasted Shea’s remarks and called on him to take another look at the videos.
“This is spectacularly tone deaf and willfully ignores or justifies every instance of misconduct that EVERYONE has seen the last few days,” Rivera wrote on Twitter. “Accountability starts at the top.”
Shea said he believed most officers showed “restraint and professionalism.”
“I know some officers — I believe very few — reacted emotionally,” he wrote. “The NYPD is in the process of addressing those incidents.”
Both Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) have announced investigations into the New York Police Department’s use of force amid the escalating protests.
By Meryl Kornfield and Derek Hawkins
6:11 p.m.
5,000 National Guard troops activated in 15 states and D.C., officials say
About 5,000 National Guard troops have been activated in 15 states and the District of Columbia to assist with the response to widespread unrest, the National Guard Bureau said Sunday.
Another 2,000 Guard soldiers and airmen were standing by for possible activation, the Guard Bureau said in a statement. “The situation is fluid so those numbers can change rapidly,” the statement said.
Jurisdictions that activated National Guard personnel are Minnesota, Ohio, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
“All troops are currently responding under the direction of their governor with state and local law enforcement as the lead agency,” said Army Master Sergeant W. Michael Houk, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau.
Pentagon officials have downplayed the possibility President Trump could put National Guard forces under federal control in response to the unrest, which has unfolded following the killing of George Floyd and included clashes between protesters and authorities in several cities.
The Pentagon also has put an engineering unit and small number of military police units on alert status, meaning they would need to be ready to deploy within hours if asked to do so.
While the president has the authority to put National Guard troops under direct federal control, Pentagon officials have suggested the military is likely to play a supporting role. They have said they are discussing ways to assist in Minnesota, for example, that don’t require utilizing the Insurrection Act.
By Missy Ryan
5:41 p.m.
Richmond mayor imposes curfew, cites outside influence in violence
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced a citywide curfew of 8 p.m. Sunday in an effort to prevent further violence after a night of mayhem that he and Police Chief William C. Smith said was provoked by “outside actors.”
Sunday morning the city awoke to widespread scenes of destruction. Most of the famous Confederate statues on Monument Avenue had been tagged with graffiti, and the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy — the group that led the construction of most of the statues a century ago — had been damaged by fire.
Photos on social media showed black smoke marks above at least one window of the low marble building along Arthur Ashe Boulevard and adjacent to the Kehinde Wiley statue of a black man on a horse unveiled last year. That statue seemed to have been left unmarked.
Social media also featured blurry images of white people who had broken windows at a synagogue across the street, with claims that the group was espousing a far-right ideology of “boogaloo,” or race war.
Along Broad Street near the state capitol, windows had been smashed at many stores and dumpsters set on fire. One dumpster fire at Virginia Commonwealth University briefly spread into a high-rise dormitory, but city officials reported little internal damage to the building.
Smith attributed much of the violence from Saturday night and early Sunday morning, as well as less severe incidents from Friday night, to “people from outside this state and outside this area. And we’re doing our best to identify them.”
He said protests had begun peacefully both Friday and Saturday nights, with large numbers of residents holding signs and chanting against police violence.
“But it suddenly turned,” he said, referring to Friday night. “Our citizens left very quickly. This more organized group was active until about 6 a.m. Saturday morning.”
By Gregory S. Schneider
5:34 p.m.
Elected officials of both parties condemn Trump’s response to protests
Speaking on CNN, several politicians of both parties criticized President Trump’s response to the protests, particularly his Twitter declaration, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
“He should just stop talking,” said Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D). “This is like Charlottesville all over again. He speaks, and he makes it worse. There are times when you should just be quiet. And I wish that he would just be quiet. Or if he can’t be silent, if there is somebody of good sense and good conscience in the White House, put him in front of a teleprompter and pray that he reads it and at least says the right things, because he is making it worse."
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) also invoked Trump’s comments after the 2017 Charlottesville protests, as well as his targeting of the Central Park Five and attacks on majority-black U.S. cities, in saying he was not surprised by the tone of Trump’s response.
“Every time I respond to Donald Trump, I do it from a place where I realize he doesn’t deserve a response,” he said.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said Trump’s words have served to escalate, not defuse, the tensions.
“It’s not lowering the temperature. It’s sort of continuing to escalate the rhetoric,” he said. “And I think it’s just the opposite of the message that should’ve been coming out of the White House.”
Hogan also went further than national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien in acknowledging a more systemic problem with police brutality and racism.
On ABC News’s “This Week,” Patrick Gaspard, president of the Open Society Foundations and former U.S. ambassador to South Africa, also pushed back against O’Brien’s comments and emphasized the broader issue of police brutality.
“This is not about bad apples,” Gaspard said. “This is about systemic rot.”
By Mike DeBonis and Felicia Sonmez
5:27 p.m.
Pelosi, Omar stress need for systemic reforms to stop police violence
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Sunday emphasized the need for broader reforms in the wake of Floyd’s death.
“This is part of a pattern,” Pelosi said on ABC News’s “This Week,” describing Floyd’s death as “murder.” “We saw the execution of a person on live TV.” Asked about the protests that have erupted across the country, she said, “When you have a crowd, you will have those who will disrupt, and that is most unfortunate.”
“Let’s have a look at what really is happening, who is … taking what actions. But we should not, we should not ignore the fact that there is a room for peaceful protest in all of this,” the speaker said.
Pelosi also called for Trump to be “a unifying force” but declined to weigh in on his most recent inflammatory comments.
Omar was more forceful in criticizing Trump’s recent statements, arguing that the president has been “glorifying violence” and that his behavior must be met with “the highest sort of condemnation.”
“This president has failed in really understanding the kind of pain and anguish many of his citizens are feeling,” Omar said, also on “This Week.” She also condemned the use of violence by some protesters, saying that those who are setting fire to buildings and taking other violent actions “are not interested in protecting black lives.”
Omar called for the other three officers involved in the Floyd case to be charged, as well. But she added that the unrest rippling across the country “isn’t just because of the life that was taken.”
“It’s also because so many people have experienced injustices within our system. … We are living in a country that has a two-tiered justice system, and people are sick and tired of being sick and tired,” she said.
By Felicia Sonmez
5:06 p.m.
Protests intensify across California
Across California on Saturday night and into Sunday morning, demonstrators gathered to protest the death of George Floyd and clashed with law enforcement in some places, shutting down highways and burning buildings.
- Los Angeles: Mayor Eric Garcetti implemented a curfew from 8 p.m. Saturday to 5:30 a.m. Sunday, and the governor declared a state of emergency there and sent in the National Guard. Other L.A.-area cities also enforced a curfew, reported CBSN Los Angeles: Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Pasadena and Culver City.
- San Francisco: Protesters took their grievances to Mayor London Breed’s home Saturday night, lighting fireworks and tearing down signs outside, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Elsewhere in the city, retail stores were looted or set ablaze, reported the Chronicle. Breed issued a curfew that will go into effect at 8 p.m. Sunday and said the National Guard will be on standby.
- Oakland: As of Sunday morning, Oakland police told ABC 7, they had arrested three people overnight and other law enforcement agencies made six arrests on burglary and looting charges. Police said on Twitter that a demonstration in one area of town had become “unlawful” and asked protesters to disperse. In nearby Emeryville, a shopping mall was vandalized and looted and a vehicle was set on fire.
- Sacramento: Peaceful demonstrations over Floyd’s death became a five-hour looting spree in the state’s capital and ended after 2 a.m. Sunday, reported the Sacramento Bee. Police in riot gear used pepper balls, tear gas and rubber bullets to push out the looters. KCRA reported that a teen boy was struck in the head and bloodied by a rubber bullet fired from a Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy.
- Santa Ana: No injuries were reported in Santa Ana, though law enforcement told ABC 7 that some protesters among the hundreds gathered threw fireworks at police.
- La Mesa: Demonstrators clashed with police after midnight Sunday after refusing to leave downtown La Mesa, reported the San Diego Union-Tribune, prompting the city manager to issue a curfew from 1:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. Branches of Chase Bank and Union Bank were burned, the paper reported. Looters broke into a shopping center and stolen flower bouquets that were left at a memorial for Floyd, according to the paper.
By Katie Mettler
4:46 p.m.
Trump national security adviser O’Brien blames violence on ‘Antifa militants,’ dismisses reports of far-right groups’ involvement
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien on Sunday repeatedly blamed “Antifa militants” for stoking violence in U.S. cities and discounted the possibility that right-wing provocateurs may have played a role.
“I haven’t seen the reports on far-right groups,” he said. “This is being driven by Antifa, and they did it in Seattle. They’ve done it in Portland. They’ve done it in Berkeley. This is a destructive force of radical — I don’t even know if you want to call them leftist — whatever they are, they’re militants who are coming in and burning our cities. And we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
Pressed by host Jake Tapper on the issue of police violence, O’Brien responded by referring seven times in a 14-minute interview to “bad apples” in police forces that should be rooted out. He also questioned why officials in Minneapolis did not act sooner to get the officer charged in the George Floyd case, Derek Chauvin, off the street.
O’Brien called Chauvin a “dirty cop” who should have been be fired long before, but he said he saw no evidence of a deeper problem with American policing.
“I don’t think there’s systemic racism,” O’Brien said. “I think 99.9 percent of our law enforcement officers are great Americans, and many [are] African American, Hispanic, Asian. They’re working in the toughest neighborhoods. They’ve got the hardest jobs to do in this country. And I think they’re amazing, great Americans, and they’re my heroes."
“But you know what?” he added. “There are some bad apples in there. … There are some bad cops that are racist, and there are cops who maybe don’t have the right training, and there’s some that are just bad cops, and they need to be rooted out because there’s a few bad apples that are giving law enforcement a terrible name.”
O’Brien also said he knew of no firm plans by President Trump to address the country about the violence. “Whether he has an address from the Oval [Office] or he speaks to the press, he’s accessible and will continue to be accessible to the country and give his views on these events,” he said.
By Mike DeBonis
4:33 p.m.
Police turn more aggressive against protesters and bystanders alike, adding to violence and chaos
Police in several cities significantly increased their use of force on Saturday night against protesters decrying police use of force — wielding batons, rubber bullets and pepper spray in incidents that also targeted bystanders and journalists.
The intent seemed to be a forceful restoration of control, after earlier nights where police in Minneapolis were criticized for being too passive — even abandoning a police precinct to protesters, who set it afire.
But in Minneapolis and elsewhere on Saturday the effect was often the opposite, signaling disorder among those whose job it was to restore order.
By David Fahrenthold and Arelis Hernández
3:11 p.m.
Confederate monuments vandalized across the South
On a night of violence in the former capital of the Confederacy, protesters targeted Richmond’s symbols of history as they decried the killing of George Floyd — a scene repeated in Charleston, S.C., Raleigh, N.C. and other Southern cities.
The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which towers over Monument Avenue in Richmond, was covered with graffiti, including the words “No More White Supremacy,” “Blood On Your Hands,” and “Black Lives Matter.” The Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis memorials were also defaced. A noose hung from the statue of Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and an ardent defender of slavery.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the United Daughters of the Confederacy headquarters was set on fire early Sunday morning. The blaze was extinguished by Richmond firefighters.
By Lynda Robinson
3:04 p.m.
Night of chaos in New York City
BROOKLYN — The downtown area of this New York City borough looked like it was under martial law as Saturday night turned into Sunday morning.
Dozens of police vehicles screamed to a halt in front of a McDonald’s near the DeKalb subway stop, as what appeared to be at least a hundred officers with plastic shields pushed back on crowds shouting “George Floyd,” and “Eric Garner,” two African Americans killed by police. “Go home!” officers shouted back, waving batons.
A pile of trash burned on the asphalt. Cars honked their horns. Sirens blazed. Fire trucks rushed to the scene. Multiple times, police pushback caused a stampede — sometimes prompted by glass bottles thrown at officers from the crowd, sometimes seemingly prompted by nothing at all.
One woman who said she was a medic rushed forward to help a man bleeding from his forehead. Seconds later, she ran the opposite direction, clutching her eyes, saying she’d been pepper sprayed and asking for someone, anyone to grab saline solution from her bag.
“At nighttime they get real dirty. They want you to go home and they become very, very aggressive,” said protester Derek Rutledge, 53, an unemployed accountant born and raised in downtown Brooklyn.
He’d arrived by bicycle for a way to escape if things got hairy and said this was his second night protesting. “There are good cops and there’s a whole bunch of dirty cops. If I was a cop and I saw somebody killing somebody for $20, I’d say, ‘Dude, get off of him!’ There’s no need.”
On Sunday morning, the police said that they’d made more than 300 arrests during the overnight protests in New York. At least 30 officers were injured and nearly 50 police vehicles were damaged or destroyed.
“I’m extremely proud of the way you’ve comported yourselves in the face of such persistent danger, disrespect, and denigration,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea wrote to the NYPD force on Twitter. Shea noted that the spams of violence in the city were driven by “a mob bent solely on taking advantage of a moment in American history, to co-opt the cause of equality that we all must uphold, to intentionally inflict chaos, mayhem, and injury just for the sake of doing so.”
All along Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue thoroughfare were shattered windows and piles of glass, at a TD bank, a Men’s Wearhouse, and the downtown Brooklyn Apple Store, where a single panel of the store’s tempered glass facade had cracked but was not broken.
Photographer Flo Ngala, 25, came from Harlem and was wearing a Martin Luther King Jr. T-shirt. She carried a sign reading, “Can’t breathe with a mask on. Can’t breathe without one.” Most of the day, she said, had been inspiring, with crowds cheering protesters on from cars and balconies. Two little black boys had marched with them, one with a sign that read “Stop killing us.” Ngala stopped talking mid-sentence, as batons and plastic shields came into view, and ran.
Among the bystanders caught up in the melee were a few people exiting the subway and a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart filled with her belongings. She leaned over and let out a hacking cough. A protester with his mask around his chin stood in the sidewalk, directing the traffic of fleeing protesters around her. “Yo brother, run that way,” he said. “Coronavirus is real.”
Around a corner, a 26-year-old black woman slumped on the sidewalk surrounded by five other protesters, all of them people of color who said they came from the city. They’d been strangers to her until moments earlier, when, they said, she’d gotten pepper sprayed. The woman’s face was caked with salt and milk from a solution the other protesters poured into her eyes to stop the burning.
Even when the stinging stopped, she cried. “They’re just good people who saw me in pain,” she said of her new protest friends. “I’m moved to tears by the kindness.”
A special education teacher from Brooklyn, the woman said she’d previously been arrested when an ex-boyfriend beat her and she physically defended herself. “I want to believe in them so badly. I want to believe that they’re good,” she said of police, but that was hard when she’d spent five hours in the same station as her ex-boyfriend.
She burst into tears explaining that she’d come out to protest, despite her fears of the police and the pandemic, because she felt like she’d be letting her students down if she didn’t.
The woman works in a poor school district with mostly children of color. “And they tell me, ‘I want to be an astronaut. I want to become a pilot,’” she said.
This protest was for them, she said, and getting pepper sprayed wasn’t going to stop her from staying out all night if she had to. “I want them to live long enough to achieve their dreams.”
By Jada Yuan
1:10 p.m.
Fox News host joins other conservatives in urging Trump to give national address
Fox News host Griff Jenkins implored President Trump to address the nation as chaotic protests continued into Sunday morning following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“I really believe it is time for President Trump to do an Oval Office address,” Jenkins said on “Fox and Friends Sunday.”
“Remember George H.W. Bush’s address after the [Los Angeles] riots was one, by many political analysts’ reckoning, one of the most effective of his presidency,” Jenkins said.
Bush addressed the nation on May 1, 1992, just days after Los Angeles Police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King, a decision that sparked riots in that city. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has declared a state of emergency and deployed the National Guard to help enforce a Los Angeles curfew as violent demonstrations continued Saturday night.
Jenkins, like Trump, slammed the response of local officials in cities like Minneapolis who have failed to gain control of protests that continued to gain steam overnight Sunday in places like New York and California.
He called on Trump to be the “uniter in chief."
The urge for an Oval Office address is not the only one from a conservative ally of the president.
Other conservative media figures, including Jack Posobiec, a right-wing provocateur and correspondent for the One America News Network, have made a similar push.
Trump’s last Oval Office address was widely panned due to his failure to properly articulate his own policy on the novel coronavirus, until this week a crisis threatening to consume his presidency.
By Brent Griffiths
12:11 p.m.
Ocasio-Cortez slams de Blasio after New York police cruisers drive into crowd
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) for saying he would not “blame” New York City policy officers who appeared to have driven their vehicle into a throng of protesters.
“@NYCMayor your comments tonight were unacceptable,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter. “This moment demands leadership & accountability from each of us. Defending and making excuses for NYPD running SUVs into crowds was wrong.”
Though it was unclear to what exactly he was referring, President Trump tweeted late Saturday night, “Let New York’s Finest be New York’s Finest. There is nobody better, but they must be allowed to do their job!”
De Blasio was responding to social media footage that shows two clearly marked NYPD SUVs partially surrounded by protesters on Saturday, some of whom appear to be throwing water bottles at one of the vehicles. The first SUV idles behind a barrier as the other begins to move through the crowd. The other then accelerates through the barrier into more people, followed by more protesters pounding on the vehicle’s windows and an individual jumping on top of the SUV as its siren continued to blare.
The mayor said the incident is under investigation. But he added that he would not criticize police officers facing such an “impossible situation.”
“If those protesters had just gotten out of the way and not created an attempt to surround that vehicle, we would not be talking about this,” de Blasio said on local television station NY1.
He added: “In a situation like that, it’s a very, very tense situation. And imagine what it would be like, you’re just trying to do your job and then you see hundreds of people converging upon you. I’m not gonna blame officers who are trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation,” de Blasio said. “The folks who were converging on that police car did the wrong thing to begin with and they created an untenable situation. I wish the officers had found a different approach. But let’s begin at the beginning. The protesters in that video did the wrong thing to surround them, surround that police car, period.”
Other New York City politicians have also criticized the police actions in the video.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson called it “outrageous” and added “if NYPD’s intent is to keep folks safe, this isn’t it.”
By Brent Griffiths
11:12 a.m.
‘Stay safe. Stay dangerous, too,’ formerly incarcerated New York protester says
BROOKLYN — Sultan Malik, 40, who seems to have become an impromptu leader of protesters here, was exhausted after two days of demonstrations. He sat down on the speaker he’d been carrying for seven hours. His voice was gone.
“When y’all ready to fight, I’ll fight,” Malik told fellow protesters as they scattered.
Police had closed in like a vise on both the north and south ends of one of Brooklyn’s main streets in the upper-middle-class, largely white neighborhood of Cobble Hill. Some onlookers cheered on the demonstrators as they drank to-go cocktails.
A native of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Malik said the protests had gone on peacefully and unimpeded for hours in the poor, predominantly black neighborhood of Flatbush where he had started his day Saturday. Flatbush is also one of the areas hardest-hit by covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in a city that was a hotspot of the epidemic.
“As soon as we came into where the wealthy white folks are, that’s when the police showed up in riot gear,” he said. “But not when we was in the ghetto."
Malik didn’t want to be called a leader of the protesters, but everyone on the street was leaning in to listen. He is used to taking command, as a fitness trainer and part owner of ConBody, a prison-style fitness boot camp where all of the instructors were formerly incarcerated. Malik spent 14 years at a maximum-security prison for armed robbery. Seven of those, he’s said, were in solitary confinement for acting out against abuse from the guards.
Beyond his frustration over the police brutality that sparked these protests, Malik is dismayed by the direction of the protests.
“No one seems to have an outright game plan as to how to approach power. It’s just, ‘End racism,’” he said.
But he has thought of a three-point plan.
First, there should be economic consequences for police officers who abuse their positions.
“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for any civil litigation made against them,” said Malik. “We’re paying for police brutality! So to stop it we need to have a law and a mandate that not only are they fired and not reinstated — it comes out of their pensions. If the civil litigation is successful following their removal from their position, they need to be penalized monetarily.”
Second, police should not have a “license to kill,” he said. “It’s indescribable when we see these terrible shootings. They’re trained professionals. Are they not trained to disable arms, legs? No, it’s shoot to kill. It’s head shots. Same with batons. Head shots.”
Third, Malik believes there should be legislation to hold other law enforcement officers who witness crimes accountable.
“Officers who are present during these assaults and murders, they, too, are held responsible,” Malik said. He pointed to a young white man on a bike nearby. “If this young man unfortunately finds himself in a situation where a crime is committed and his friends are nearby, wouldn’t he be culpable? Why does that not apply to the officers?”
In Brooklyn, Malik looked out at the peacefully dispersing crowd. “They got the nerve to talk about looting,” he said, shaking his head. “This very country was created by looting, burning, bleeding, pillaging, stealing — any of the synonyms.”
He picked up the speaker he’d been sitting on. “Stay safe,” he said. “Stay dangerous, too.”
By Jada Yuan
9:21 a.m.
Newsom declares emergency in Los Angeles, deploys National Guard
The California National Guard is being deployed to Los Angeles overnight to support our local response to maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city.
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After days of protests and bursts of violence around the city, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles County late Saturday night.
The state also granted Mayor Eric Garcetti’s request to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles to help “maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city,” wrote Garcetti in a late-night tweet.
Garcetti had already extended curfew in the city from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Sunday to maintain order after fires raged and violence broke out around the city Saturday. The mayor initially resisted calling on troops to avoid evoking memories of the 1992 Rodney King riots.
The Los Angeles Times reported that people lit a dumpster fire in the Melrose district and continued looting until long after the curfew. In his state of emergency declaration in the county, Newsom acknowledged that “local authority is inadequate to address the threat posed by civil unrest within Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles.”
Elsewhere in the state, protesters did not disperse until early Sunday morning. In La Mesa, local reporters caught footage of banks burning and reported destruction of a block of bars and businesses.
Crowds also lingered into the morning hours in Sacramento; shortly before 2 a.m. local time police tweeted out an advisory warning they would be using “chemical agents” to “disperse a crowd throwing rocks at officers and lighting fires.”
About 40 minutes later, the department tweeted that most people had dispersed.
By Chelsea Janes
8:52 a.m.
Ferguson police department evacuated
The police department in Ferguson, Mo., was evacuated early Sunday morning as multiple officers were injured and the building sustained significant damage, according to the St. Louis County Police Department.
“At this time, 2 officers were injured and transported. 2 others were treated at the scene for minor injuries,” the county police department wrote on Twitter, adding that some protesters are throwing rocks and fireworks at officers.
The St. Louis County Police Department said it is continuing to assist officers in the suburb that became a national focal point after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in 2014. Ferguson, like many cities across America, is also under a curfew, which went into effect at midnight Sunday.
By Brent Griffiths
8:47 a.m.
In Houston, protesters say threat of police brutality outweighs fear of the coronavirus
Before she left her home, Chavon Allen, 33, agonized over whether it was a good idea to bring her eight-year-old daughter to an unpredictable protest in the streets of downtown Houston Saturday evening.
It was frightening enough that some protests had turned chaotic the day before, with some people destroying police property and officers responding with force. Video footage captured a mounted patrol officer trampling a protesting woman, who narrowly avoided severe injury.
But what was scarier than the potential chaos, Allen said, was the risk of being exposed to the deadly coronavirus amid the dense crowd of protesters. Ultimately, she decided the viral menace paled in comparison to another threat to her health and safety.
“I understand we’re in a global pandemic right now, but I also feel like our lives are in a state of emergency as well because of the police,” she said, noting her brother had been shot by a Houston police officer three years earlier and survived. “That’s why we’re out here.”
Allen and her daughter were joined by several hundred other demonstrators of all ages who gathered at City Hall before peeling off to walk through the streets of downtown Houston chanting “black lives matter!”
Like Allen, many in the crowd wore masks and said the urgency of addressing George Floyd’s death was worth the risk of exposure to severe illness.
“There’s some things more important than your own life — like the life of your children,” said Rickey Davis, a 56-year-old father who was motivated to march to keep his 20-year-old son safe from police brutality. “We want an end to this senseless violence.”
Despite a few minor skirmishes between protesters and police, Saturday night’s demonstration, in which Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo participated, was far calmer than the day before.
The crowds dispersed around 9 p.m., with only a handful of arrests. For her part, Allen said bringing her daughter to the demonstration was the right choice.
“She just did a report for Black History Month on Dr. Martin Luther King,” she said. “This is why she’s out here. If you’re going to read about it and going to speak about it, I want you to live through it, too.”
By Peter Holley
7:40 a.m.
Trump’s conservative media allies urge him to address nation
Some of the president’s most prominent proponents in right-wing media took to Twitter late Saturday to urge him to address a nation seething with racial and economic unrest.
“It’s time for @realDonaldTrump to address the nation,” wrote Jack Posobiec, a right-wing provocateur and correspondent for the One America News Network.
The same message was then posted by numerous other conservative Internet personalities, including writers affiliated with Breitbart and the website Infowars.
It was unclear what they wanted him to say, or how additional words from a president prone to conflict would shape events through the critical early-morning period.
Trump’s most recent post, at about 10 p.m., assailed the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, where Monday’s death of a black man in police custody touched off nationwide protests punctuated by looting and rioting in some cities.
The president’s silence in the wee hours, as peaceful protests descended into violent chaos, was striking, especially as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden, issued a nine-paragraph statement that ended with a plea to “stay safe” and “take care of each other.”
By Isaac Stanley-Becker
7:27 a.m.
Biden: Protesting is ‘right and necessary,’ but violence is not
Shortly after midnight, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden released a statement acknowledging the pain that has inspired widespread protests across the country and urging those feeling it to avoid violence as a means of expression.
“Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It’s an utterly American response,” Biden wrote. “But burning down communities and needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not.”
The statement from Biden amounted to the most detailed and forceful warning yet from the presumptive Democratic nominee against violent and destructive activities by protesters. Although he has said in recent days that protesters should demonstrate peacefully, he has put much more focus on the need to speak out.
In a five-minute video address on the killing of George Floyd on Friday, for example, Biden made no effort to warn protesters to be mindful of their tactics. In his remarks, Biden urged people not to be complacent or silent, lest the risk perpetuating the violence that Floyd and others have been subjected to over the years.
He offered a similar message Saturday.
“If we are complacent, if we are silent, we are complicit in perpetuating these cycles of violence,” he tweeted. “None of us can turn away. We all have an obligation to speak out.”
Many high-profile Democrats, including potential vice presidential pick Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), have been urging the public to listen to protesters’ grievances in tweets and other public statements. Harris attended a protest outside the White House on Saturday.
But Biden’s remarks combine continued support for the rights of protesters and the reality of a “nation in pain” with a warning against allowing “pain to destroy us.”
“We are a nation enraged, but we cannot allow our rage to consume us,” he wrote. “We are a nation exhausted, but we will not allow our exhaustion to defeat us.”
Biden also vowed to keep a promise he said he made to George Floyd’s brother, Philonise, that George will “not just be a hashtag.”
“I know that a grief that dark and deep may at times feel too heavy to bear. I know. And I also know that the only way to bear it is to turn all that anguish to purpose,” Biden said. “So tonight, I ask all of America to join me — not in denying our pain or covering it over — but using it to compel our nation across this turbulent threshold into the next phase of progress, inclusion, and opportunity for our great democracy.”
By Chelsea Janes and Sean Sullivan
George Floyd’s death: What you need to know
George Floyd’s death at hands of a police officer triggered protest in Minneapolis and other cities in the U.S. and Europe.
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