Famed DC monuments defaced after night of protests


Tyler Olson

As protests swept the nation following the death of George Floyd in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department last week, some of the most iconic monuments in Washington, D.C. were vandalized Saturday night.

The affected monuments, photos of which were posted in a tweet by the National Mall National Park Service (NPS), included the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial and the statue of General Casimir Pulaski. It is not clear to what extent any other monuments might have been vandalized.

NOT A SINGLE PHOTO PROVIDED BY FOX NO VISUAL EVIDENCE TO PROVE ITS TRUE 

NATIONAL GUARD MOBILIZED IN STATES ACROSS THE COUNTRY AS RIOTS, LOOTING FEARED

"In the wake of last night's demonstrations, there are numerous instances of vandalism to sites around the National Mall," The National Mall NPS tweeted. "For generations the Mall has been our nation’s premier civic gathering space for non-violent demonstrations, and we ask individuals to carry on that tradition."

Floyd, who is black, died, according to officials, after an officer used his knee to pin Floyd to the ground by his neck as Floyd gasped for air and was not visibly resisting arrest in several minutes of the incident caught on video. The officer who pinned Floyd to the ground, Derek Chauvin, was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

SECRET SERVICE TOOK TRUMP TO UNDERGROUND WHITE HOUSE BUNKER AMID GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS, OFFICIAL SAYS

Saturday night's demonstrations were reprised on Sunday night as Washington, D.C. Mayor Murial Bowser ordered a curfew for city residents beginning at 11 p.m. A tweet from Bowser's account said that "[s]he has also activated the DC National Guard to support the Metropolitan Police Department."

Video showed gatherings of protesters near the White House setting fires Sunday night.

On Saturday night President Trump went to the bunker underneath the White House as the U.S. Secret Service worried about the president's safety while demonstrators approached White House grounds.

"It wasn't long," a senior administration official said of the action taken to protect the president, "but he went."

The Secret Service said that "demonstrators repeatedly attempted to knock over security barriers, and vandalized six Secret Service vehicles" on Saturday, leading to one arrest.

© Provided by FOX News Dr. Marc Siegel says he's very concerned about the spread of COVID-19 amid the nationwide protests.

On Sunday, as protests again ramped up in D.C. and around the country, the Secret Service asked people to stay away from the White House.

"In an effort to ensure public safety, pedestrians and motorists are encouraged to avoid streets and parks near the White House complex," the Secret Service tweeted.

Fox News' Bret Baier contributed to this report.

OK FOUND ONE FROM FAUX NEWS

COVERAGE FROM CNN YOU KNOW THE FAKE MEDIA
THEY HAVE PICTURES



CNN- Popular landmarks across Washington, DC, were defaced with graffiti during the second consecutive night of protests in the nation's capital over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis who was pinned down by police.


Graffiti from Saturday night protests on Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
"In the wake of last night's demonstrations, there are numerous instances of vandalism to sites around the National Mall," the National Park Service for the National Mall said in a tweet with photos of defaced monuments.

"For generations the Mall has been our nation's premier civic gathering space for non-violent demonstrations, and we ask individuals to carry on that tradition."

The vandalism appeared after skirmishes between groups of protesters and law enforcement flared across the city Saturday night.

Some protesters gathered in downtown Washington, DC, at Lafayette Square, which is across from the White House, into the evening, but additional protesters were not allowed in by police. At times there were attempts by some protesters to enter the park. They were met with pepper spray or other mechanisms pushing them back.

Separately, a group marched and then rallied at the Lincoln Memorial where the words "Yall not tired yet?" were spray-painted.

The question "Do black Vets count?" also appeared to be spray-painted across part of the National Mall World War II Memorial.

DC Chief of Police Peter Newsham said Sunday that the Metropolitan Police Department had arrested 17 people Saturday night and that 11 MPD officers were injured during the protests.

None of the officers sustained life-threatening injuries, though one officer is undergoing surgery for multiple compound fractures to his leg after a protester threw a rock at him.
Newsham said that of the 17 people arrested, eight either live in DC or have some ties to the area.

He said police expect to make more arrests, as the department is asking private businesses to review their security footage, and will ask the DC community to help identify those who were damaging property or hurting people.

CNN's Nicky Robertson contributed to this report.








VANDALISM IS NOT VIOLENCE, POLICE BRUTALITY IS!

One dead in Louisville after police and national guard 'return fire' on protesters

A man was shot dead in the Louisville protests after police officers and the Kentucky National Guard "returned fire" while clearing a large crowd during a protest early Monday.

THAT MAKES EIGHT DEAD IN LOUISVILLE THIS WEEK

© Max Gersh Image: Police and Kentucky National Guard troops chase protesters as they flee toward a fence Sunday, May 31, 2020, in a parking lot at the corner of East Broadway and South Brook Street in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad said in a statement that at around 12:15 a.m. his officers and the national guard were sent to a parking lot to break up a crowd.

"Officers and soldiers began to clear the lot and at some point were shot at," Conrad said in a statement. "Both LMPD and national guard members returned fire, we have one man dead at scene"

Conrad did not specify who fired the fatal shot, and authorities have not released information about the victim. Louisville police say they are interviewing "several persons of interests" and collecting video.

Louisville has seen a weekend of protests, as the city mourns Breonna Taylor, 26, a black woman killed in her home in March by Louisville police who were executing a "no-knock" warrant targeting her former boyfriend.

Last Thursday, seven people were shot in the city during protests that turned violent.

NYC Mayor de Blasio's daughter arrested during Saturday night protests

AFTER DE BLASIO BLASTED PROTESTERS AS ANARCHISTS 

HIS DAUGHTER IS ONE

Adam Edelman and Tom Winter

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter, Chiara de Blasio, was arrested Saturday night during the citywide protests over the death of George Floyd, a senior NYPD law enforcement official told NBC News.

© Demetrius Freeman Powered by Microsoft News

Chiara de Blasio was arrested Saturday night at East 12th Street and Broadway in Manhattan for "unlawful assembly."

The official said Chiara de Blasio was taken into custody at 10:30 p.m. She has been released.

The news was first reported by the New York Post. The Post reported that de Blasio had been blocking traffic and was arrested after she refused to move.

Her arrest came roughly one hour before the mayor held a late night news conference Saturday, telling protesters that "it's time to go home."

NBC New York reported that the NYPD made at least 345 arrests during Saturday's protests and that 33 officers were injured over the course of the day.

The protests also saw two incidents of NYPD vehicles driving directly into crowds of protesters.

De Blasio defended the department after a pair of the force's SUVs drove into a crowd during Saturday's protest against George Floyd's death.De Blasio reacted after videos were posted to social media, which showed protestors moving a yellow barrier in front a police vehicle in Brooklyn. Protestors threw traffic cones and other items at the SUV as a second vehicle arrived and slowly drove through the crowd forming around it.

On Sunday morning, de Blasio clarified his comments about the video, saying he didn't like what he saw "one bit" and announced an independent review into the video.


De Blasio now says some 'anarchist' protesters are local amid continued defense of NYPD
By MICHELLE BOCANEGRA
05/31/2020 

NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday blamed an organized group of anarchists for inciting violence and vandalism amid protests over the killing of George Floyd, but conceded some were from the city and the neighborhoods where demonstrations were happening — a shift from his message Saturday night.

“Some come from outside the city. Some are from inside the city,” he said. “Some are from the neighborhoods where the protests take place, some are not. But what we do know is there is an explicit agenda of violence and it does not conform with the history of this city in which we have always honored non-violent protests.”


Only hours before, on Saturday night, the mayor insisted the threat of violence was coming from “out of town” demonstrators, many of whom are “not from communities of color” and have a “warped ideology” that leads them to “harming working people who are police officers.”

De Blasio, who first came to office with a promise of police reform, has ardently defended the NYPD during the recent protests and insisted officers were exercising great restraint in the face of threats from demonstrators bent on attacking cops. He’s faced fierce backlash from criminal justice advocates and members of his own party.

“@NYCMayor your comments tonight were unacceptable,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted early Sunday morning. “Defending and making excuses for NYPD running SUVs into crowds was wrong. Make it right. De-escalate.”

Police officers drove through a barricade into throngs of protesters in Brooklyn Saturday evening. Video of the incident, which quickly went viral, shows demonstrators throwing cones, garbage bags and water bottles at the NYPD vehicles before they plowed into the crowds.

The mayor insisted again Sunday the officers were reacting to a dangerous situation caused by threats of violence.

“We’re going to fully investigate that incident,” the mayor said Sunday. “I don’t ever want to see a police officer do that. ... But I also know that it was an extremely dangerous situation and the one thing [police] couldn’t do was stay there.”

“There are protests, and there are mobs,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea added later in the conference. “A protest does not involve surrounding and ambushing a marked police car.”

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, speaking in a separate press conference that morning, criticized the mayor’s earlier remarks to the incident as “a terrible response.”

“We can’t have police officers who haven’t been trained on how to handle a panicked situation and are handling it through plowing protesters,” he said. “That’s not something we can accept.”

The mayor announced he was appointing his corporation counsel, Jim Johnson, and Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett to conduct a full investigation into the police response to protests which began late last week and will continue Sunday night.

Shea said multiple officers were injured in skirmishes over the weekend and close to 350 arrests were made — but aside from property damage, police said no serious injuries or fatalities have occurred.

De Blasio praised Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s remarks from Saturday morning, in which he said he would sign legislation updating New York’s 50-a law, criticized by criminal justice advocates who say it shields too much information relating to police disciplinary records.

The de Blasio administration had previously cited the law when groups and officials across New York City pushed for the records of former officer Daniel Pantaleo, who fatally placed Staten Islander Eric Garner into a chokehold in 2014.

“I have said we need to repeal and replace, I want to be abundantly clear,” de Blasio said Sunday. “There must be some provision in the law to protect the personal information, the home address, the type of information about an individual police officer that is about their safety and security.”

De Blasio said Sunday he hoped Cuomo would sign such legislation in June.

Footage from Minneapolis of Floyd’s death, whose final words were “I can’t breathe” as a police officer knelt on his neck, has drawn parallels to Garner’s death in Staten Island as he gasped the same words.

“I think that when you look at something as terrible as that incident, what could come out of it?” said Shea of footage of Floyd, who was apprehended while unarmed for allegedly using counterfeit money to buy cigarettes. “Hopefully something does come out of it.”

“Whether it’s law enforcement or not, there is universal condemnation ... to what we saw in that video,” he said.

Minneapolis police rendered 44 people unconscious with neck restraints in five years

Several police experts said that number appears to be unusually high. "By using this tactic, it's a self-fulfilling tragedy," said one.

A protester in Minneapolis on Thursday, May 28, 2020.Julio Cortez / AP

GEORGE FLOYD DEATH

June 1, 2020
By Emily R. Siegel, Andrew W. Lehren and Andrew Blankstein

Since the beginning of 2015, officers from the Minneapolis Police Department have rendered people unconscious with neck restraints 44 times, according to an NBC News analysis of police records. Several police experts said that number appears to be unusually high.

Minneapolis police used neck restraints at least 237 times during that span, and in 16 percent of the incidents the suspects and other individuals lost consciousness, the department's use-of-force records show. A lack of publicly available use-of-force data from other departments makes it difficult to compare Minneapolis to other cities of the same or any size.

Police define neck restraints as when an officer uses an arm or leg to compress someone's neck without directly pressuring the airway. On May 25, Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was captured on video kneeling on the neck of a prone and handcuffed George Floyd for eight minutes — including nearly three minutes after he had stopped breathing.

Chauvin was charged Friday with third-degree murder and manslaughter for Floyd's death.

More than a dozen police officials and law enforcement experts told NBC News that the particular tactic Chauvin used — kneeling on a suspect's neck — is neither taught nor sanctioned by any police agency. A Minneapolis city official told NBC News Chauvin's tactic is not permitted by the Minneapolis police department. For most major police departments, variations of neck restraints, known as chokeholds, are highly restricted — if not banned outright.

Related

Nation's police widely condemn move used to restrain George Floyd

The version of the Minneapolis Police Department's policy manual that is available on-line, however, does permit the use of neck restraints that can render suspects unconscious, and the protocol for their use appears not to have been updated for more than eight years.

Live updates on George Floyd's death and protests around the country.

Minneapolis police data shows that in the bulk of use-of-force cases involving neck restraints when an individual lost consciousness, the restraint was used after a suspect fled on foot or tensed up as they were being taken into custody. Almost half of the people who lost consciousness were injured, according to the reports, which do not spell out the severity of those injuries.

Five of the cases involved assaults on officers, while several others involved domestic abuse or domestic assault cases. In most cases, there was no apparent underlying violent offense.

Watch a minute-to-minute breakdown leading up to George Floyd's deadly arrest

MAY 28, 2020

The Minnesota police data showed three-fifths of those subjected to neck restraints and then rendered unconscious were black. About 30 percent were white. Two were Native Americans. Almost all are male, and three-quarters were age 40 or under.

One was a 14-year-old in a domestic abuse incident that was in progress when the officer arrived. Another was a 17-year-old fleeing from a shoplifting incident. Another involved a traffic stop where the suspect was deemed "verbally non-compliant."

The on-line version of the policy manual says, "The unconscious neck restraint shall only be applied … 1. On a subject who is exhibiting active aggression, or; 2. For life saving purposes, or; 3. On a subject who is exhibiting active resistance in order to gain control of the subject; and if lesser attempts at control have been or would likely be ineffective."

The passage includes a date in parentheses, April 16, 2012. The front of the manual is dated July 28, 2016.

George Floyd died May 25 after being pinned to the ground by an officer who put his knee on the man's neck for about eight minutes.Darnella Frazier

The Minneapolis Police Department did not immediately provide comment on the data, and did not respond to a request to confirm that the dates in parentheses refer to when the manual and its sections were updated.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts on this story

Ed Obayashi, an attorney and the deputy sheriff in Plumas County, California, is a national use-of-force expert who trains and advises California police agencies. He said police departments across the country have been moving away from the neck restraint option for many years because of its "inherent life-threatening potential" and because officers often misinterpret resistance by a suspect, who may simply be struggling to breathe.

"It's common sense," Obayashi said. "Any time you cut off someone's airway or block blood flow to the brain, it can lead to serious injury or death as we have seen in so many of these tragedies. By using this tactic, it's a self-fulfilling tragedy."

Video appears to show George Floyd in struggle in police vehicle
JUNE 1, 202001:36

Obayashi said it's notable that the Minneapolis Police Department policy on neck restraints appears to be dated and said that rather than discouraging or generally prohibiting the tactic, its policy language is consistent with a permissive stance.

"The [Minneapolis] policy doesn't appear to reflect what California and other law enforcement agencies using best practices recognize, which is if officers don't use extreme caution with this force option, the likelihood of serious injury or death rises significantly," Obayashi said.

"This seems to be a routine practice by the Minneapolis Police Department," said Obayashi. "As a cop, the tone is there, 'Use it when you think it's appropriate.'"

Shawn Williams, an assistant professor and professional peace officer coordinator at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, worked at the Minneapolis Police Department for more than 10 years and oversaw training his last two years there, including the use of unconscious neck restraints. He said he understands why other departments do not use the maneuver.

This March 31, 1991 frame from a video tape shot by George Holliday from his apartment in a suburb of Los Angeles shows a group of police officers beating a man with nightsticks and kicking him as other officers look on. The April 29, 1992 acquittal of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King sparked rioting that spread across the city and into neighboring suburbs. George Holliday / Courtesy of KTLA Los Angeles / AP, file

"If it's used correctly, you can cause the suspect to render themselves compliant and we can take someone into custody without damage internally," he said. "If it's not used correctly, and the arm is placed in the wrong place, you're talking about damage to one's trachea and you're talking about taking someone's life."

During his time in the department, he said officers needed to be trained correctly, often and while under stress so they could fully understand how to use the move.

Richard Drooyan served as counsel to the Christopher Commission, which investigated the LAPD beating of Rodney King, and later on the independent panel that examined the Rampart Division corruption scandal. Drooyan, who now oversees the L.A. County jail, said neck restraint should only be employed when there is an urgent matter of life or death, and that the number of times it was used by the Minneapolis Police Department seemed "extraordinary."

People participate in a protest to mark the five year anniversary of the death of Eric Garner during a confrontation with a police officer in the borough of Staten Island on July 17, 2019 in New York City.Spencer Platt / Getty Images
"In many cases," he said, "the justification was that the suspect tensed up, which I read to mean resisted arrest or fled on foot without any indication that the suspect was armed or dangerous. You have a combination of a large number of incidents involving the use of neck restraints on individuals who were not engaged in violent criminal activity and appeared to have been restrained because they appeared to be resisting arrest."

Despite a turbulent past, the LAPD was one of the first police agencies to address deadly or excessive force incidents that grew out of using chokeholds. In 1982, at the request of then-Chief Daryl F. Gates, the department banned the bar-arm chokeholds and limited upper-body controls, then commonplace, after a federal lawsuit. Sixteen people — including a dozen African-American men — died from various forms of upper-body controls over a seven-year period leading up to the decision.

The Los Angeles Police Commission followed up the bar-arm ban weeks later by restricting the carotid chokehold, designed to immobilize a suspect by blocking the neck artery and, by extension, the flow of blood to the brain. The department still allows officers to use a carotid restraint but limits those situations to immediate danger to life.
Related

Eric Garner's mom says video of man's police death is 'reoccurring nightmare'

Use of unconscious neck restraints is not specifically referenced in the New York Police Department patrol guide. On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner died after he was put in a chokehold by New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo while under arrest for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes in New York's Staten Island.

A chokehold is prohibited by the NYPD in the normal course of policing, but in a self-defense situation officers are allowed to use whatever technique is appropriate. NYPD procedure for use-of-force states that officers "take necessary action to protect life and personal safety of all persons present, including subjects being placed into custody."

Pantaleo was fired from the department. A state grand jury and federal prosecutors both declined to bring charges against him. The Garner family settled a lawsuit against the city for $5.9 million.

--------------------

Emily Siegel is an associate producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Andrew W. Lehren is a senior editor with the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Andrew Blankstein is an investigative reporter for NBC News. He covers the Western United States, specializing in crime, courts and homeland security.
Tom Winter contributed.

How the Supreme Court enabled police to use deadly chokeholds

When the Supreme Court turns its back on injustice, there are consequences.

By Ian Millhiser May 30, 2020, 9:00am EDT

Protesters gather in a call for justice for George Floyd, a black man who died after a white policeman pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck for several minutes, at Hennepin County Government Plaza on May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

The video is horrific.

George Floyd lies on the ground, facing the back end of a police SUV, as three cops kneel on his body. One of them, Derek Chauvin, has his knee on Floyd’s neck as the helpless man begs for his life.

“I can’t breathe, man. Please understand. Please, man.”

It’s a sadly familiar scene, and quite like one that played out in 1976 after Los Angeles police officers pulled over Adolph Lyons for a broken taillight.

Like Floyd, Lyons was black. The officers met him with guns drawn and ordered him to face the car, spread his legs, and place his hands on top of his head. Not long after Lyons complained that a ring of keys that he held in his hands was causing him pain, one of the officers wrapped his forearm around Lyons’s throat and began to choke him. Lyons passed out. He woke up facedown on the ground, covered in his own urine and feces. The officers released him with a citation for the broken taillight.

Lyons brought a federal lawsuit against the city and officers who assaulted him. But that case, City of Los Angeles v. Lyons (1983), did not end well for him. Decades later, the 5-4 decision still stands as one of the greatest obstacles to civil rights lawyers challenging police brutality in cases like George Floyd’s.
Lyons was a case about whether courts can prevent police violence before it happens

Adolph Lyons was not the only man choked by a Los Angeles police officer. Between 1975 and 1980, LAPD officers used chokeholds on at least 975 occasions.

As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in his dissenting opinion, “the city instructs its officers that use of a chokehold does not constitute deadly force.” Nevertheless, “no less than 16 persons have died following the use of a chokehold by an LAPD police officer,” 12 of whom were black men.


According to Justice Marshall, “the evidence submitted to the District Court established that, for many years, it has been the official policy of the city to permit police officers to employ chokeholds in a variety of situations where they face no threat of violence.”

When Lyons sued the city, he wanted more than just a sum of money compensating him for his injuries. He sought an injunction — a formal court order that would have forbidden the LAPD from using chokeholds “except in situations where the proposed victim of said control reasonably appears to be threatening the immediate use of deadly force.”

But the Supreme Court held that Lyons could not obtain such an injunction unless he could show that he was personally likely to be choked by a Los Angeles police officer in the future. “Past exposure to illegal conduct,” Justice Byron White wrote for the Court, does not permit someone to seek an injunction. Rather, “Lyons’ standing to seek the injunction requested depended on whether he was likely to suffer future injury from the use of the chokeholds by police officers.”

It didn’t matter that nearly a thousand other Los Angeles residents were subjected to police chokeholds. To obtain a court order protecting future victims of police violence from being choked, Lyons would have to show that he was likely to be choked by an LAPD officer a second time.

Indeed, White’s opinion went even further than that. To obtain an injunction, White wrote for the Court, Lyons “would have had not only to allege that he would have another encounter with the police, but also to make the incredible assertion either (1) that all police officers in Los Angeles always choke any citizen with whom they happen to have an encounter, whether for the purpose of arrest, issuing a citation, or for questioning, or (2) that the City ordered or authorized police officers to act in such manner.”

As Justice Marshall pointed out in dissent, Lyons made it so difficult to obtain an injunction preventing police misconduct that “if the police adopt a policy of ‘shoot to kill,’ or a policy of shooting 1 out of 10 suspects, the federal courts will be powerless to enjoin its continuation.”
Why injunctions are necessary to stop police violence

Lyons did not foreclose lawsuits against rogue cops altogether. Someone like Adolph Lyons (or, for that matter, George Floyd’s survivors) may still sue cops who violate their constitutional rights, and they may potentially receive monetary damages from those cops.

But those lawsuits would face numerous barriers.

For one thing, cops benefit from a doctrine known as “qualified immunity,” which protects them from having to pay for violating the legal rights of another person, unless the police officer violates “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” As the Supreme Court explained in Malley v. Briggs (1986), qualified immunity “provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”

Even if a civil rights plaintiff overcomes qualified immunity, many jurisdictions have indemnity laws protecting police from civil suits. Under these laws, the government agrees to pay any damages awarded against an officer. Indeed, these indemnity laws are so common that a 2014 study by UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz found that “during the study period, governments paid approximately 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement.”

So cops are unlikely to face financial consequences themselves if they violate someone’s civil rights. And, while the jurisdiction that employs them may be forced to pay for their actions, money damages won in civil lawsuits often are not painful enough to inspire policymakers to make lasting changes.

In most lawsuits, the primary purpose of money damages is to compensate the victim for the injury inflicted on them. That may be enough to cover hospital bills, lost wages, and the like, but it’s not always enough of a hit to state or municipal budgets to inspire the government to change its behavior.

In particularly egregious cases, a victim of police violence may also receive punitive damages — extra money awarded to a plaintiff to deter future bad behavior by the defendant. But the Supreme Court is reluctant to allow large punitive damage awards. Indeed, in State Farm v. Campbell (2003), the Court held that “few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process.” Thus, for every dollar that a plaintiff receives in compensation, they typically may not receive more than $10 in punitive damages.

Which brings us back to injunctions. When a court enjoins a particular defendant, they don’t just order that defendant to cease a particular behavior, they also can enforce that order with criminal sanctions or by imposing escalating fines until the defendant ceases their illegal conduct. A party subject to an injunction, in other words, can be squeezed so hard by court sanctions that they have no choice but to change their behavior.

Consider the case of Eric Garner, who was killed by a New York police officer’s chokehold in 2014. Although the NYPD had a formal policy barring chokeholds, it was frequently unenforced. The city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board received 219 chokehold complaints against NYPD officers in just one year.

If one of the victims of those chokeholds had obtained an injunction against the NYPD, then a court could have imposed strict sanctions on the city until police chokeholds ceased. And Eric Garner might be alive today.

MAP OF PROTESTS

THIS MAP IS PROVIDED COURTESY A CONSERVATIVE 
PRO COP TWIT(ER)

MOST OF THESE EVENTS ARE VANDALISM NOT VIOLENCE

ALLEGED LOOTER SHOT BY PAWNSHOP OWNER IS VIOLENCE
ASSAULT BY CAR IS VIOLENCE, DONE IN ATLANTA OR DONE
IN NEW YORK WHEN COPS RAMMED PROTESTERS WITH THEIR
SUV!

THIS MAP DOES NOT INCLUDE INCIDENTS LIKE 2 COPS WHO
TASERED CITIZENS IN THEIR CAR WHO WERE FIRED IMMEDIATELY
BY MINNEAPOLIS POLICE CHIEF!

In Some Cities, Police Officers Joined Protesters Marching Against BrutalityLisette Voytko Forbes Staff
Business
I cover breaking news.
Updated Jun 1, 2020

As protests sparked by George Floyd’s death entered their chaotic fifth day, social media filled with images and video of police officers using batons, tear gas and rubber bullets to quell crowds⁠—but some squads joined in with Saturday protesters to express their stance against police brutality and to show solidarity with the anti-racism movement.


Police officers kneel during a rally in Coral Gables, Florida, on Saturday in response to the death ... [+] EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
KEY FACTS


“We want to be with y’all, for real. I took my helmet off, laid the batons down. I want to make this a parade, not a protest,” Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson was seen telling protesters in Flint, Michigan, before he joined the assembled crowd to march, eliciting cheers.

Officers in Camden, New Jersey, helped carry a banner reading “Standing in Solidarity,” and seemed to join in with the crowd chanting, “No justice, no peace!”

In Santa Cruz, California, Police Chief Andy Mills took a knee with protesters in the pose made famous by Colin Kaepernick, with the department tweeting it was “in memory of George Floyd & bringing attention to police violence against Black people.”

Two Kansas City, Missouri, police officers⁠—one white man, one black man⁠—were photographed holding aloft a sign reading “END Police Brutality!”

In Fargo, North Dakota, an officer was seen clasping hands with protest organizers while holding up a sign reading “We are one race . . . The HUMAN race.”

Officers in Ferguson, Missouri, participated in a nine and a half-minute kneel in Floyd’s memory, with cheers erupting from the crowd.

Despite the moments of solidarity, conflict broke out between protesters and police in Kansas City, Fargo and Ferguson.

THESE COPS ARE PROBABLY NOT MEMBERS OF THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE! 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-fraternal-order-of-police-is-not.html

WASHINGTON – Protesters clashed with police outside the White House and throughout the nation's capital Saturday as the demonstrations grew more confrontational in their second day, with President Donald Trump threatening to shut down "mob violence" he said dishonored the memory of George Floyd.
Even as they halted traffic on the Capital Beltway and shouted obscenities at the fleet of presidential helicopters that carried Trump back to the White House, the demonstrations scattered throughout the city remained mostly peaceful.

But there were also signs of increased tension as the protesters sought to call attention to the killing of Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody after a white officer pinned him to the ground under his knee. Some threw bottles at Secret Service agents and police near the White House. Officers responded by firing tear gas to break up the crowds. The D.C. National Guard joined other armored forces in Lafayette Square, near the White House, in trying to control protesters.

“Don’t run! Don’t run!” some yelled as police and protesters clashed outside the park Saturday night.

Showing at least five red welts on her bare left arm, Lindsay Kouyate, 21, said she was shot with something she couldn't identify. Kouyate said she was holding her "I Cant Breathe" sign near the police in front of Lafayette Square at the time.

"I was just standing there with my sign. A bunch of other people were yelling and screaming,” she said. "He shot me so many times. I don’t know what it was."

Kouyate, who lives in Maryland, said she had been at the protests all day but wasn’t going home, even after her injury.

More: Joe Biden on George Floyd protests: 'We must not allow this pain to destroy us'

"You have to keep protesting," she said, "otherwise it won’t ever stop."

Nour Faladi, a 22-year-old programmer from Maryland, was among those caught in a round of tear gas.

She was in a crowd when a gas canister hit the ground, she said, and it was “immediately harder to breathe." She said her eyes started running. She said a volunteer in the crowd washed her eyes out, and then she headed back into the crowd.






 

Slide 1 of 50: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/protests-over-george-floyd-escalate-near-white-house-around-dc-as-trump-warns-against-mob-violence/ar-BB14Ots4#image=BB14EiNo|8

People run out of a smoke shop with smoking instruments after breaking in as police arrive on Monday, June 1, 2020, in New York. Protests were held throughout the city over the death of Floyd, a black man in police custody in Minneapolis who died after being restrained by police officers on Memorial Day. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E) 

Police wearing helmets and holding shields formed a line between the protesters and the White House, a hot spot in the city throughout much of Saturday evening.

At times, some protesters tried to knock over temporary barriers or approach officers, although none appeared to get near the tall fence at the White House. At least one vehicle was on fire a few blocks north of the White House, and firefighters also responded to an alley fire near the White House. A local TV station reported that stores in the city's tony Georgetown neighborhood had boarded windows.

"Multiple" special agents and uniformed officers were injured when some protesters threw bricks, rocks, bottles and fireworks at officers, officials said.

Trump attended the historic SpaceX rocket launch in Florida earlier Saturday and returned to the White House on Marine One at around 8:30 p.m. As the presidential helicopters buzzed overhear near the White House grounds, some demonstrators shouted obscenities and shook their fists.

Trump used his address at the Kennedy Space Center to offer a stern warning to "rioters, looters and anarchists" against violence.

"My administration will stop mob violence and we’ll stop it cold," Trump said, blaming violence in several cities on "radical left-wing" groups. "I will not allow angry mobs to dominate...It is essential that we protect the crown jewel of democracy: The rule of law."

The unrest in Washington came as protests erupted in cities across the nation against police brutality and racial discrimination. At least two deaths have been linked to the demonstrations. Protesters set cars on fire, smashed windows and clashed with police officers dressed in riot gear in Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Portland, Oregon; and elsewhere.

Attorney General Barr: Peaceful protests over George Floyd 'hijacked' by 'far left extremist groups'

Outside the White House, officers wearing plastic body shields charged and pushed back a crowd of people who had removed metal barriers set up on Pennsylvania Avenue. A police helicopter circled overhead. The smell of marijuana also hung in the air.

"Trump is the reason why cops feel they can do certain things to black people,” said Cameron Jackson, 25, a supervisor at a grocery store, as he stood in the middle of 16th Street. “He condones it. He is a racist.”

But Jackson said he opposed violence.

"I'm peaceful," he said. "I'm away from the violence."

Dave Pringle, 32, who works on criminal justice policy in D.C., also condemned Trump.

"This man – this occupant of this building – represents the worst of humanity," Pringle said. "I think he is an avatar of the worst of humanity."

Six people were arrested near Lafayette Square on Friday and early Saturday, according to the Secret Service, which said it "respects the right to assemble, and we ask that individuals do so peacefully for the safety of all."

President Trump says he spoke to George Floyd's family, addresses protests and violence

Secret Service agents and police carrying shields blocked off Lafayette Square north of the White House as drivers honked in support of the protesters and raised their fists in the air. Some demonstrators held up signs that read: "Stop Murdering Black People" and "White Silence is Violence."

"I came here to enforce the Black Lives Matter movement and to get justice for the injustices we have been receiving for over hundreds of years," said Ariel Weems, a 16-year-old high school student from Bowie, Maryland.

She called Trump part of the problem.

“I don’t agree with any of his policies," Weems said. "His Twitter comments? Shooting and looting? That was absurd. ... We’re out here protesting for our lives.”

In the heat of the afternoon, some moved through the crowds, passing out water bottles. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, others distributed masks. Most of the demonstrators wore masks but were closer than six feet from each other.

Strumming a guitar, Steve Canciani, 28, sang the Christian song “Break Every Chain” with Daniel Faludi, 22, near the White House. Their music mixed with the sound of sirens and the whirring of a circling helicopter.

"God always has a solution," Canciani said.

Jake Schindler, 26, was one of several people handing out water. Schindler said his Christian faith "called him" to justice. After running by the protest earlier in the afternoon and seeing others giving out water, he came back with a case of bottles to distribute.

James Bryant, a 30-year-old Washington resident, said he felt “like he needed to show up as a black man in America.” The protests, he said, were part of a “collective anger” that Americans can't ignore.

Asked if he was worried about tensions between the crowd and the cordon of police, he shrugged and said, “they’re just people.”

By early evening, some protesters marched to the National Museum of African American History and Culture near the Washington Monument. Along the route, someone painted a Wells Fargo bank branch with the words "capitalism is murder." Others painted references to the police and to Floyd on the ground.

Bowser and Trump: DC Mayor Bowser responds to Trump's criticism over police after George Floyd protests






a group of people walking down the street: Authorities look on as demonstrators protest the death of George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, near the White House in Washington. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers.

1/4 SLIDES © Evan Vucci, AP

Authorities look on as demonstrators protest the death of George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, near the White House in Washington. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers.

Corey Gwynn, a 27-year-old speech pathologist from Virginia, told USA TODAY she had joined the protest because she was "upset about the lack of equality," especially as people had peacefully protested for so long "with no change."

Asked what she thought of the protests around the country, some of which turned violent, she said she "can’t blame her brothers and sisters, but that’s not the way I’m going about it."

"Merchandise can be replaced, but black lives can’t, she said.

Floyd, 46, died Monday evening, shortly after video footage showed him handcuffed, gasping for air and saying "I can't breathe," as a white officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. The video, taken by a bystander, circulated online and prompted widespread protests nationwide.

Who was George Floyd? George Floyd remembered as 'gentle giant' as family calls his death 'murder'

George Floyd death'Why can't I just be black in the state of Minnesota?'

The Minneapolis Police Department fired four officers involved in the incident while state and federal authorities have launched investigations into the matter. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was seen kneeling on Floyd's neck, was arrested Friday and is facing third-degree murder and manslaughter charges. Subsequent charges are possible and charges for the other officers involved are anticipated, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said.

But those actions have done little to quell the anger many feel.

Sherese Teixeira, 33, posed for a photo in front of graffiti sprayed on the side of a building near the White House that read: “Why do we keep having to tell you that black lives matter?”

"It’s been going on too long,” Teixeira said. "We're just tired of it."

Contributing: Kristine Phillips, Bart Jansen, Matthew Brown, John Fritze, Courtney Subramanian

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Protests over George Floyd escalate near White House, around DC as Trump warns against 'mob violence'

TRUMP AND BARR CLAIM THAT ANTI-FA (THEY PRONOUNCE IT ANTIFA OR AUNTY-PHA) ARE TO BLAME FOR THE VANDALISM AT NIGHT DURING THE PROTEST

Attorney General Barr: Peaceful protests over George Floyd 'hijacked' by 'far left extremist groups'

IT'S NOT TRUE 

BECAUSE ANTIFA STANDS FOR ANTI-FASCISTS OR ANTI-FASCIST

YOU KNOW THE FOLKS WHO FOUGHT IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR AGAINST FRANCO AND HIS FASCISTS, AND THE NAZI'S AND MUSSOLINI.

YOU KNOW WHO HATES ANTI-FASCISTS? WHO CLAIMS THEY ARE ANARCHISTS AND BOLSHEVIKS? FASCISTS THATS WHO! LIKE TRUMP WHO SAYS THAT THEIR ARE SOME VERY FINE PEOPLE WHO ARE FASCISTS.

Truck driver arrested after appearing to drive into protesters

Reuters A police officer looks in the cab for the driver of a tanker truck that drove into thousands of protesters marching on 35W north bound highway during a protest against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. May 31, 2020. REUTERS/Eric Miller

Video captured by CBS Minnesota and a webcam shows a tanker truck apparently trying to plow through a large crowd of people on Interstate 35W in Minneapolis on Sunday night. Officials said the man is under arrest and was taken to a local medical center with non-life-threatening injuries.

Footage shows a tanker truck approaching the throng of protesters at a high speed, as protesters frantically try to avoid being hit. The truck slowly stops and is then surrounded by protesters who pull open both the driver and passenger doors. The State Police said there was no immediate word of injuries.

The crowd was part of a protest group marching against the death of George Floyd, and demonstrators had taken position to take a knee on the bridge, CBS Minnesota reports. It had been a relatively peaceful protest up until that point.

CBS Minnesota video footage also showed people climb atop the cab of the tanker truck after it had stopped. Police intervened into the tense situation minutes later and could be seen dispersing the crowd with a liquid.

The interstate had been closed at 5 p.m. CT and it wasn't immediately known why the truck was on the road. Officials said they will investigate.

There have been six days of protests in Minneapolis since the death of Floyd, who was captured on video pleading for air as a police officer kneeled on his neck while he was handcuffed. Four Minneapolis officers have been fired and one, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Protests have spread across the state and country, with some turning violent. For the first time since World War II, the National Guard was fully activated in response to the violence and a curfew was placed on the Twin Cities. More than 5,000 National Guard troops were deployed Saturday night in what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz described as the "most complex public safety operation in the history of our state."