8th day of protest marked by a pair of rallies

Hundreds of people gathered and marched Saturday for the eighth straight day of demonstrations against police brutality in the killing of George Floyd, evidence of the enduring interest in San Antonio's most impassioned protest movement in decades.

Two separate demonstrations — one Saturday morning in Alamo Heights and one downtown in the afternoon — each drew crowds of at least 300 people.

Another demonstration is planned this afternoon to honor Marquise Jones and Charles “Chop” Roundtree, two black San Antonians who were killed by local police in recent years.

The protests that began May 30 have drawn thousands of people and spurred city leaders to renew promises to dismantle institutional racism and combat police violence.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg lifted the nightly curfew Saturday after a few days of protest without reports of violence.

“The fact that San Antonio would come together as a community with every age, shape, size, colors, backgrounds, creeds, religion, coming together for a common cause — that's powerful, and that's change,” said Kristen Calahan, 29, the organizer of Saturday's protest at police headquarters.

The movement in San Antonio is among a wave of protests that have swept the nation, and now the world, since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes.

Floyd was lying face-down and handcuffed at the time. Even after becoming “nonresponsive,” the officer continued kneeling on him for 2 minutes and 53 seconds, the complaint against the police officer states.

The white officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, and three other officers have been charged with aiding and abetting murder.

Floyd had told them, “I can't breathe,” multiple times before he lost consciousness — words that have become a rallying cry for the racial justice movement.

As the crowd gathered Saturday at the Police Department, some of the city's littlest protesters took over the megaphone. In front of more than 300 people, 6-year-old Thalia Wilson led a chant of, “I can't breathe,” before timidly handing back the megaphone to organizers.

Next up was 3-year-old Fern

Skidmore.

Fern's mother, JoJo, 23, said she chose to attend the protest after thinking about the death of Breonna Taylor, a Kentucky emergency medical worker who was shot eight times and killed by police in her own home March 13.

Taylor had been asleep in her apartment when officers burst into her home while serving a warrant in the middle of the night. She would have turned 27 on Friday.

“My daughter is going to go to college someday, and she could be the next Breonna Taylor if change doesn't happen,” JoJo said. “So we are here for Breonna Taylor.”

As a white parent of a black child, JoJo said helping Fern understand racial issues has been a challenging process, but one she wanted to start early.

“They've been hard conversations,” JoJo said. “It hurts that I even have to do this, but all in all, it's necessary.”

Later in the afternoon, the crowd swelled to nearly 500 people. Waving signs that read, “Black lives matter,” and, “We demand change,” the protesters marched a few blocks to the Bexar County Courthouse.

The downtown streets had transformed from the scene a week ago, when San Antonio's first protest ended with clouds of tear gas and shattered storefronts. Water bottles and bricks had been hurled at police, and officers in riot gear responded with rubber bullets, pepper spray and sound grenades called “flash bangs.”

The fourth day of protests also concluded violently when police fired pepper balls and wooden bullets at the crowd of protesters in Alamo

Plaza — and continued to do so as the demonstrators fled in the opposite direction.

It was an apparent response to a protester who, a few moments earlier, had thrown a water bottle at a heavily armed officer.

The show of force drew outrage from protesters, community leaders and medical professionals who called the police actions dangerous and unwarranted. In the days since then, none of the protests saw violence.

On Friday, the Population Health Advisory Committee, a volunteer group of local public health professionals that formed to offer science-based advice to city officials during the pandemic, issued a statement in support of people protesting racism and urged police to stop using of crowd-control weapons.

“Less-than-lethal” projectiles such as wooden and rubber bullets can kill people at close range, the

group warned. It also urged police to stop using tear gas, smoke and other chemicals that can damage the lungs and make people more susceptible to COVID-19.

“Besides my personal opinion of just thinking that's cruel to do to anybody, any inhaled chemicals — whether it's tobacco smoke or the gasses that they are using — cause irritation of the lungs,” said Dr. Erika Gonzalez, a local immunologist on the committee. “Once you have irritation of the lungs, then you have a higher chance of getting infected.”

The guidance also urged protesters to take certain precautions to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, such as wearing masks, staying 6 feet apart whenever possible and considering the use of noisemakers and signs in lieu of yelling, which can spread droplets that contain the virus.

“We realize that it's going to be very important for them to be able to peacefully protest against systemic racism,” Gonzalez said. “We feel that systemic and institutional racism is a public health crisis.”

On Saturday, even with the 95degree heat, the vast majority of those who demonstrated at police headquarters wore face coverings.

Among them were a group of friends who'd set up a table to register people to vote during the protests. Dana Wrann, a teacher, said her group dubbed the “radical registrars”

has signed up between 150 and 200 new voters over the previous week.

“We're just a group of friends that in general find that voting is really important,” Wrann said. “It's important for us to vote for people in power that will stop this systemic oppression.”

Protest organizers said they will continue the demonstrations until local leaders begin to tear down the structures that allow institutional racism to exist.

Katelyn Menard, 20, walked in front of the march leading chants for change and justice. “Hands up, don't shoot,” echoed along the street as marchers moved from SAPD headquarters to the courthouse and back.

After the march, Menard, a criminal justice major at Our Lady of the Lake University, said the protesters are calling for action similar to that taken by Los Angeles.

That city's Mayor Eric Garcetti said $250 million would be slated for jobs for youths, peace centers and health initiatives. He said as much as $150 million would come from the LAPD budget.

Menard said the protests would go on until there is a change in the police budget and officers' training in San Antonio.

“Until we see change,” she said, “these will keep going on, day in and day out, no matter how long.”

The downtown streets had transformed from the scene a week ago, when San Antonio’s first protest ended with clouds of tear gas and shattered storefronts.