Peaceful protests continue across Connecticut
Protests against police brutality continued in Connecticut Saturday, having gone on for more than a week since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.
Floyd died after, video showed, a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd, a black man, was face down on the pavement, not resisting and repeatedly saying he couldn’t breathe.
When video of what happened to Floyd circulated, protests broke out in Minneapolis and then started to pop up in other cities and towns, many outraged over the actions of the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, as well as three other officers who didn’t intervene. The four officers have since been charged for their roles in Floyd’s death.
The protests reached Connecticut late last week and have continued since, bringing out groups ranging from dozens to thousands.
In West Haven, a group of protesters gathered at City Hall at 1 p.m. and marched to the police department.
While the protest continued at the police station, a group marched past police vehicles and into traffic. About 50 protesters rushed an entrance ramp to Interstate 95 and briefly held up traffic on both sides of the highway.
“We didn’t want to be a huge inconvenience to drivers, especially because some of them had been at the protest earlier in the day,” said Daniel Godlewski, a protester who was on the highway in West Haven. “I think the big thing that made us move was we felt like we made our point and it wouldn’t drive it home any better to force people to sit in their cars.”
In Norwalk, protesters — who had taken to the city streets against police brutality around 6 p.m. — prompted the closure of Interstate 95 north between Exit 15 and Exit 16 around 6:20 p.m.
A similar situation played out in Derby, with protesters marching in the city before some made their way on to the Exit 14 off ramp of Route 8 south, prompting a roughly 30 minute closure, around 3:10 p.m. The Exit 14 ramp off ramp of Route 8 south, in Shelton, was also closed for about 40 minutes.
In Danbury, about 1,000 people marched through downtown, demanding change and accountability for police officers. Matt Price, one of the organizers, said Floyd’s death should be “something that disturbs everyone.” He said he does not want black people being killed by police to be normalized.
Protesters met at noon at Rogers Park, where Chief Patrick Ridenhour, who is black, spoke to the crowd. Shouting “black lives matter” and “no justice, no peace,” the group then marched about 1.5 miles to the police station.
At the station, the group knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds — the amount of time the officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck.
In Greenwich, a group of roughly 600 people gathered to rally for justice at Greenwich Town Hall around 2 p.m.
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, a Greenwich resident, was among those who spoke at the protest, where he called Floyd’s death “a moment of horror and evil.” He said he was “deeply conscious ... that one of the attributes of the systemic racism that has haunted this country for four centuries.”
“I wake up every day grateful to represent every single one of you, agree with me or not, and the next thing I think to myself is that a child who is born in Darien is going to succeed and a child who is born poor in South Norwalk probably won’t,” Himes said. “That is not OK.”
In Trumbull, attendees of a Black Lives Matter protest vigil observed 4 minutes as 23 seconds of silence on the Town Hall Green. Event organizer Ashley Gaudiano explained that the moment of silence represented half the time that George Floyd spent on the pavement with a knee on the back of his neck, while students read a list of names of black Americans who had been killed based on bigotry.
And the protests aren’t over in Connecticut this weekend.
The Oxford Democratic Town Committee will host a peaceful protest against police brutality at noon on Sunday at the Quarry Walk, 300 Oxford Road. There will also be tablets available — with gloves and Clorox wipes for cleaning — to help anyone interested in registering to vote. At 1:30 p.m., protesters will take a knee for eight minutes and 46 seconds in recognition of the death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement in Minneapolis.
Hamden Police Capt. Ronald Smith also announced that the police department will participate in a “tribute honoring the life of Mr. George Floyd” on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Memorial Town Hall.
“Members of the Hamden Police Department stand with our community to not only pay tribute to Mr. Floyd, but to denounce police brutality,” Smith said. “The actions of the 4 Minneapolis police officers on that fateful day (May 25th), do not represent the law enforcement profession or the values of our department. We are both saddened and sickened by Mr. Floyd’s death at the hands of these officers.”