Emboldened protesters march again, demanding police reforms after Floyd killing
WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - A mounting wave of protests demanding police reform after the killing of a black man in Minneapolis swept across the United States yesterday, building on the momentum of huge demonstrations across the country the day before.
The near-festive tone of many of the weekend protests unfolded with no major violence, in sharp contrast to heated clashes between marchers and police in previous days.
The outpouring of protests followed the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after being pinned by the neck for nine minutes by a white officer’s knee. A bystander’s cellphone captured the scene as Floyd pleaded with the officer, choking out the words “I can’t breathe.”
“I have cops in my family, I do believe in a police presence,” said Nikky Williams, a black Air Force veteran who marched in Washington on Sunday. “But I do think that reform has got to happen.”
The change in the tenor of the demonstrations this weekend may reflect a sense that the demands of protesters for sweeping police reform were resonating in many strata of American society.
In a step that would have seemed unthinkable just two weeks ago, a majority of the Minneapolis City Council pledged on Sunday to disband the police department in favor of a community-led safety model.
“A veto-proof majority of the MPLS City Council just publicly agreed that the Minneapolis Police Department is not reformable and that we’re going to end the current policing system,” Alondra Cano, a member of the Minneapolis council, said on Twitter.
One of the largest protests on Sunday was in Los Angeles. A crowd estimated by a local television station at 20,000 packed Hollywood Boulevard, filling the street from curb to curb along the famous strip from Vine Street to Highland Avenue. The crowd assembled after a Twitter message from the rapper YG on Saturday.
In New York, at least half a dozen loosely organized groups of protesters marched through midtown Manhattan carrying handmade signs with slogans including “Defund the Police, Fund Schools.”
One group marched toward Times Square but was turned aside without incident by police who blocked access to the famous “Crossroads of the World,” best known for the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop. The area remained cordoned off by police hours later.
It was a far cry from the scene in the country’s most populous city on some recent nights, when some officers in riot gear resorted to heavy-handed tactics as they sought to enforce a curfew, and TV images showed looters running rampant on main avenues.
New York Mayor Bill de
Blasio said the curfew was being lifted on Sunday, a day ahead of schedule.
Criticized by activists who say he should have reined in NYPD officers during recent demonstrations, the mayor also announced a series of reforms he said were designed to build trust between city residents and the police department.
De Blasio told reporters he would shift an unspecified amount of money out of the police budget and reallocate it to youth and social services in communities of color.
He said he would also take enforcement of rules on street vending out of the hands of police, who have been accused of using the regulations to harass minority communities.