7June 2020
Thousands of demonstrators filled the streets in San Francisco, Sacramento, Simi Valley, San Diego, Los Angeles and somewhere else across California on Saturday, continuing more than a week of demonstration marches revealing outrage over the death of George Floyd.
Roderick Sweeney, 49, who is black, said he was overwhelmed to see the big turnout of white protesters waving signs that said “Black Lives Matter” as hundreds marched back and forth throughout San Francisco's renowned Golden Gate Bridge.
“We've had discussions in our household and amongst buddies that absolutely nothing is going to alter till our white brothers and sis voice their opinion,” he said. The big turnout of white protesters “is sending an effective message. You can see demonstrations are taking place around this world, and so I'm hoping change will happen.”
Local Regional news from across Southern California
Floyd, a black male, died on May 25 after a white Minneapolis policeman put his knee on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes while he was handcuffed and resting on the ground.
Danielle Chetrit, 22, who is white, stated she took part in a demonstration on Tuesday and felt forced to march once again on Saturday to support the Black Lives Matter movement.
“There are no words to catch 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 concur that … we have a specific group that's really suffering and we require to look after them now,” Chetrit said.
In Los Angeles, protesters arranged by Refuse Fascism LA took over Hollywood Boulevard, shouting “Revolution, nothing less!”
In San Diego, more than 3,000 people marched downtown and took on with officers securing authorities head office, while a caravan of 300 cars moved past the state university there.
In Simi Valley, a demonstration drawing several thousand demonstrators spilled onto the street and stopped traffic on a major roadway through the suburban town northwest of Los Angeles. It was there that four white Los Angeles police officers were found not guilty of beating driver Rodney King, stimulating riots in 1992.
On Saturday, marchers there carried signs with messages such as “We stand together” and “Change is now.” Some of them thanked law enforcement officer as they went by them. However some had actually heated up arguments with a small number of counter-protesters, while an Associated Press professional photographer saw a motorcyclist strike a protester who was blocking the street in the face prior to speeding off.
In Huntington Beach, the Orange County Register reported policemans separated protesters at a beachside rally from a few dozen counter-protesters who waved American flags and pro-Trump indications. A battle broke out amidst the scrum, and a single person was apprehended and taken into a patrol car.
Presentations in recent days have typically been lively but non-violent, in contrast to last weekend when some protesters smashed windows, burned police vehicle and confronted cordons of riot-clad authorities who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Gone, too, was most of the robbery that ransacked dozens of stores and that authorities say appeared generally to be the work of non-protesters.
California Highway Commissioner Warren Stanley, who is black, waded into a crowd of lots of protesters who had jumped barriers ringing the state Capitol Saturday afternoon. Live video from The Sacramento Bee showed him pacifying what had actually been a tense conflict by talking with representatives, minutes after Stanley informed demonstrators that Floyd's death was “completely inappropriate.”
Sacramento on Saturday halted a nighttime curfew that started Monday and ended its use of National Guard troops who had actually been released to help law enforcement after many structures in the city's downtown were harmed a week ago.
“The tranquil and effective demonstrations of the previous five days have given me self-confidence that these measures, which we imposed reluctantly, are no longer required.” Mayor Darrell Steinberg stated.
It was the latest local government to relieve or end curfews that resulted in the arrests of thousands of demonstrators. Almost 4,200 Guard soldiers are deployed across the state, officials stated Saturday, consisting of more than 1,000 in Sacramento and 2,900 in Los Angeles County.
In Los Angeles, City Attorney Mike Feuer stated he is dealing with a plan to handle curfew offenses outside the courts, in a way he said “will be developed to be productive, instead of punitive.”
A number of thousand demonstrators prior to midday Saturday marched past an area near the state Capitol where “Black Lives Matter” has actually been painted in giant letters stretching for three blocks. They were joined at a downtown rally by managers and former gamers of expert basketball's Sacramento Kings.
Brian Marvel, president of the rank-and-file Peace Officers Research Association of California, which represents more than 77,000 people and 930 associations, on Saturday called for a nationwide cops use-of-force basic patterned after a set of brand-new California laws that were stimulated in part by Stephon Clark's death in 2018 in Sacramento after he was shot by policeman.
Authorities can't operate without community trust that is broken when officers act improperly as they did most just recently with Floyd, he said. He said that is why the U.S. needs a national standard “to mandate that all peace officers have a task to intercede, to raise the bar for use of force training standards for all peace officers.”
____
Thompson reported from Sacramento. Associated Press professional photographers Jeff Chiu in San Francisco and Mark Terrill in Simi Valley contributed to this report.