» Officers kneel in support of protesters in Beavercreek,
Five police officers took a knee to show solidarity Monday with the hundreds of protesters gathered in Beavercreek near the Mall at Fairfield Commons.
The kneeling brought cheers, high-fives and celebrations from protesters.
Earlier, officers had lobbed tear gas canisters to get protesters out of the busy Beavercreek intersection at North Fairfield Road and Pentagon Boulevard. A second round of tear gas was directed at protesters kneeling in the intersection after police had already blocked it to traffic.
The protesters gathered at the intersection for what a poster called a sit-in protest for George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The protest was located near the same Walmart where John Crawford III was shot and killed in August 2014. The 22-year-old Crawford, a Fairfield resident, was shot to death by Beavercreek police Officer Sean Williams after a 911 caller told dispatchers a black man was holding a rifle, appeared to be loading it and waving it near people. Crawford was holding a Crosman MK-177 BB/pellet rifle that he found unboxed on a store shelf.
The city and Crawford family reached a $1.7 million settlement agreement, which was announced May 13.
At one point during the protest, protesters got down on one knee, chanting “take a knee” and asking police and Greene County Sheriff ’s deputies to join them, chanting “take a knee with us.”
Cheers erupted after Beavercreek officer David Majercak took a knee first to show solidarity with the protesters. Minutes later, four more Beavercreek and Fairborn officers took a knee and other officers dropped their shields on the pavement.
One Fairborn police officer took photos with protesters. He said he is from
Greene County and he recognized a lot of people out protesting as from Greene County, too. The officer said he wanted to show his solidarity with the protesters because they all go through some of the same struggles.
“Hopefully this will be the beginning of change,” Laqueta Maze of Beavercreek said as she stood at the protest.
Maze said she protested in Dayton this past weekend.
“I thought numbers yesterday would decrease and they didn’t,” she said. “I’m from Greene County and I came out and supported Dayton and they actually came out and supported us and that means a lot.”
“I’m happy that in a time like this people feel like their voice matters and they’re going to use it because it’s their weapon. We can stop the violence because we use our voices.”
Maze also went to protests in Columbus. She was planning to go to Minneapolis before those protests turned violent.
She said she felt emotional when she saw the Beavercreek police officer kneel.
“We want them to come out here and join us on their own terms, when they’re given approval from their department,” Maze said.
Walmart, Sam’s Club and other businesses closed ahead of the demonstration, and an entrance off Pentagon Boulevard to the Mall at Fairfield Commons is blocked.
Sidney Creager and Hannah Taylor of Kettering were among those in front of Walmart.
“I feel like there’s nothing to do but this,” Creager said.
Taylor said that as a white woman she can’t understand what it’s like to fear for her life because of the color of her skin.