Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Across California, protests for Floyd
White demonstrators back Black Lives Matter
SAN FRANCISCO — Thousands of demonstrators filled the streets in San Francisco, Sacramento, Simi Valley, San Diego, Los Angeles and elsewhere across California on Saturday, continuing more than a week of protest marches expressing outrage over the death of George Floyd.
Roderick Sweeney, 49, who is black, said he was overwhelmed to see the large turnout of white protesters waving signs that said “Black Lives Matter” as hundreds marched back and forth across San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate Bridge.
“We’ve had discussions in our family and among friends that nothing is going to change until our white brothers and sisters voice their opinion,” he said. The large turnout of white protesters “is sending a powerful message. You can see protests are happening around this world and so I’m hoping change will happen.”
Floyd, a black man, died on May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer put his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while he was handcuffed and lying on the ground.
Danielle Chetrit, 22, who is white, said she participated in a protest on Tuesday and felt compelled to march again on Saturday to support Black Lives Matter movement.
“There are no words to capture the level of disgrace that I feel about these senseless killings,” she said. The strong turnout by people of different racial backgrounds “goes to show that there are people around the world that agree that … we have a certain group that’s really suffering and we need to take care of them now,” she said.
In Los Angeles, protesters organized by Refuse Fascism LA took over Hollywood Boulevard, chanting “Revolution nothing less!”
In Simi Valley, a protest drawing several thousand demonstrators spilled onto the street and stopped traffic on a major road through the suburban town northwest of Los Angeles. It was there that four white Los Angeles police officers were found not guilty of beating motorist Rodney King, sparking riots in 1992.
On Saturday, marchers there carried signs with messages such as “We stand together” and “Change is now” and some of them thanked police officers as they passed by them.
Demonstrations in recent days have been boisterous but nonviolent, in contrast to last weekend when some protesters smashed windows, burned police cars and confronted cordons of riot-clad police who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Gone, too, was most of the looting that ransacked dozens of stores and which authorities say appeared mainly to be the work of non-protesters.
However, police in Bakersfield said some counterprotesters threw smoke bombs and clashed with a group of Black Lives Matter protesters at the end of a peaceful march Friday night, though no injuries were reported and no one was arrested.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg on Saturday summoned Sacramento’s City Council into emergency session, recommending that the capital city end a curfew that had been planned to last each night though the weekend. He also recommended that Sacramento end its use of National Guard troops who were deployed to aid law enforcement after many buildings in the city’s downtown were damaged a week ago.
“Last night’s peaceful and powerful demonstrations give me confidence that these steps, which we took reluctantly, are no longer necessary,” Steinberg said.
Nearly 4,200 troops are deployed across the state, officials said Saturday, including more than 1,000 in Sacramento and 2,900 in Los Angeles County.