The Latest: Chicago mayor restricts vehicle, transit access

By The Associated Press 01 June 2020, 12:00AM

The Latest on the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck:

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lighfoot says access to downtown is restricted to only to residents and essential workers and the National Guard will have a presence in the city as officials seek to stem violence arising from demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd.

Lightfoot again Sunday praised peaceful protesters, saying she stands “shoulder-to-shoulder” with those condemning Floyd’s death after Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck during an arrest earlier this week.

But she said that in order to protect the city, the state has agreed to dispatch “a contingent of the National Guard” to take up a “limited presence.”

She says bus and train service to the downtown Loop is temporarily suspended. Drawbridges that span several stretches of the Chicago River in and out of the area are raised to limit vehicle access.

And Lightfoot says a citywide 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew will remain in effect indefinitely. Officials say there were 240 arrests Saturday night and early Sunday, and that six people were shot, one fatally, in the Loop during a four-hour span Saturday evening.

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LOS ANGELES — Armed National Guard soldiers patrolled the streets of Los Angeles on Sunday as the city began cleaning up after a night of violence that saw demonstrators clash repeatedly with officers, torch police vehicles and pillage businesses.

Fire crews responded to dozens of blazes, and scores of businesses were damaged. One of the hardest-hit areas was around the Grove, a popular high-end outdoor mall west of downtown where hundreds of protesters swarmed the neighborhood, showering police with rocks and other objects and vandalizing shops. One officer suffered a fractured skull, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said.

Windows were shattered at nearly every shop along a stretch of Melrose Avenue. At Tony K’s Shoe Store, owner Alan Kokozian said his entire product stock was either stolen or damaged.

Kokozian said he was hit in the head with a flying bottle as he pleaded with looters to spare his establishment Saturday evening.

“This was not a political protest. This was basically a bunch of thieves getting together taking advantage of a situation,” Kokozian said Sunday as he surveyed the hole in his roof caused by fire.

Security camera footage showed a swarm of people shattering the front window of DTLA Smoke Shop in downtown Los Angeles early Saturday. Within a minute they had emptied the store’s shelves and fled.

“I’m so angry. I’m so angry. You know, it’s my life, I put everything into it,” owner Natali Mishali told KCAL-TV. “I’m for speaking for human rights. I believe in that. I’m very passionate about that. This is just an excuse to steal.”

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PORTLAND, Oregon — Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that his city’s curfew would continue and starts again at 8 p.m. Sunday.

For a second night, people in Portland roamed city streets.

Officers said some threw projectiles at them. According to a statement, fireworks and “aerial mortars” were thrown at the Multnomah County Courthouse late Saturday.

In a tweet Sunday morning, Wheeler, Portland’s mayor, wrote: “Agitators are not led by a conviction to change systemic racism. They are opportunists, using the cover of legitimate protests to sow fear in our communities. Don’t let them.”

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GOLDSBORO, N.C. — The North Carolina minister who has mobilized people nationally with his Poor People’s Campaign reacted to protests gripping the nation, saying systemic racism and economic inequality have gone on for too long.

“Thank God people are in the streets, refusing to accept what has been seen as normal for too long,” said the Rev. William J. Barber in a sermon telecast from his Greenleaf Christian Church in North Carolina.

He called the video replay of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which has sparked huge demonstrations in cities across the United States, “viscerally reminiscent of lynching photos used to terrorize African-Americans for decades in this nation and literally terrorize the nation.”

In what he called a pastoral letter to the nation, Barber said the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, a war economy and a false moral narrative of religious nationalism all must be addressed together.

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DENVER — City crews spent Sunday morning scrubbing graffiti off buildings and cleaning streets in a scene playing out across the country after nationwide protests turned turbulent and destructive.

Many of the businesses in downtown Denver boarded up their store fronts, with some covered in graffiti such as “I can’t breathe.” Buildings throughout downtown were scrawled with graffiti with messages like “Kill Cops!” At the top of the Capitol’s West Steps, graffiti on the windows above the three entrances read “Stop Killing Us.”

Police were searching for the person driving the vehicle who they say intentionally struck a police cruiser after the nearby protest had largely broken up in downtown Denver. Two of the injured officers were out of the hospital; all three are expected to recover, Denver police tweeted.

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SALT LAKE CITY — In Salt Lake City, where 41 demonstrators were arrested after they lit a police car on fire and struck an officer with a bat Saturday night, city officials reflected Sunday morning on the situation facing the nation as crews scrubbed graffiti from buildings and cleaned empty streets.

“We are all hurting from this week and yesterday in particular was heartbreaking for our city and cities across the country, but this is about something much deeper and longer lasting than a protest or a riot,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, a Democratic former city councilwoman who is in her first year as mayor.

“We will recover and we will recover coming together to rebuild policies and to address, unearth, unpack the systemic racism that exists in this city and in every city across this nation.”

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said he wants to hear from people how his officers can do better, but said, “We cannot have meaningful conversations in a riotous situation.”

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Police in Detroit arrested dozens more people during continued protests over the death of George Floyd.

The Detroit Police Department says Sunday that of the 84 people taken into custody Saturday night 63 don’t live in the city and two live outside Michigan.

Sixty people were arrested during demonstrations Friday night and early Saturday morning. Of that number, 37 live outside Detroit.

The protests in Detroit were among others held in cities across the United States.

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WASHINGTON — George Floyd’s family attorney Ben Crump says he thinks more serious murder charges should be filed against the white Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck as he begged for air.

Crump says he believes there’s enough evidence to show the officer’s actions were premeditated.

Officer Derek Chauvin, 44, was charged last week with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, which are filed in cases of unintentional death. Chauvin also was accused of ignoring another officer who expressed concerns about Floyd, a black man, as he lay handcuffed on the ground.

Crump tells CBS: “We don’t understand how that is not first-degree murder.”

According to the complaint, Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes, including nearly three minutes after he stopped moving and talking.

An autopsy said the combined effects of being restrained, potential intoxicants in Floyd’s system and his underlying health issues, including heart disease, likely contributed to his death.

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SEATTLE — Seattle will again have a 5 p.m. city-wide curfew Sunday and police say they arrested at least 27 people during Saturday protests over the killing of George Floyd.

Looters smashed downtown storefronts and at one point Interstate 5 was briefly closed through downtown when demonstrators got onto the roadway. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is dispatching up to 200 National Guard troops to help maintain order.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. — Some business owners in Charleston, South Carolina, swept up broken glass, boarded windows and took stock of ransacked shelves Sunday morning after protests erupted into violence.

Broken glass littered sidewalks outside storefronts in downtown Charleston, where restaurants and shops just recently reopened after being shutdown because of the coronavirus. Hundreds of people turned out Saturday for what began as peaceful protests in wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but spiraled into vandalism and violence overnight.

Brian Lucier found a large stone used to smash the front windows of his shop, King’s Lead Cigar Lounge.

“All this just adds insult to injury,” Lucier told The Post and Courier. “We’ve been bleeding for three months now and then this happens.”

Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds said 10 people had been arrested in relation to the protests. He said there were no serious injuries.

However, diners and restaurant staff at the Stars Rooftop & Grill Room were rattled at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday when protesters started throwing chairs at the front window, said Heather Green, one of the restaurant’s operators. She said staff locked the front door and evacuated customers through a back entrance before protesters smashed their way inside and ransacked the manager’s office.

“It started to feel like everything was going to be OK, and that we were finally getting back to normal,” Greene said. “And now this happens.”

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PHOENIX — Volunteers are using shovels and brooms to clean up broken glass outside at least five stores at an upscale mall in a Phoenix suburb.

The stores were damaged after a day of peaceful marches turned into a night of sometimes violent protests that included vandalism and an attack on a police station.

Late Saturday, people knelt with their hands up in the streets outside Phoenix police and municipal buildings, chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot” and “Black lives matter.”

Officers used flash-bang grenades and dispersed the crowd shortly after 10 p.m., telling people it was an unlawful assembly.

In Scottsdale, some people smashed windows at stores including Neiman Marcus and Urban Outfitters, grabbing goods and damaging buildings.

On Sunday morning, TV station video showed large holes punched in some store windows with the glass completely shattered in the front windows of other stores.

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PORTLAND, Ore. — The mayor of Portland, Oregon, says the city will again have an 8 p.m. curfew following another night of raucous protests over the killing of George Floyd.

Police in the Northwest city arrested 48 people Saturday and early Sunday on charges like disorderly conduct and violating Saturday’s curfew. Authorities say demonstrators vandalized buildings downtown, looted stores and set blazes downtown.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Officials in Minnesota say a more aggressive approach helped prevent another night of dangerous and damaging violence in Minneapolis from protests over the death of George Floyd.

The state poured thousands more National Guard soldiers into a response that came after repeated days of arson, property damage and looting on the city’s south side.

Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington says law enforcement tried to move quickly to break up groups of protesters who ignored an 8 p.m. curfew that was in place for the first time.

Gov. Tim Walz called restoring order the first step toward addressing the systemic problems that contributed to the death of Floyd, who died after a police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Walz said the curfew will remain in place for at least one more day.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says state authorities were hit by cyber attackers before law enforcement launched operations Saturday to clear protests.

Walz described the incident as a “a very sophisticated denial of service attack” and said it was executed on “all computers.” He did not offer additional details.

Walz pointed to the hack as evidence that unrest in his state in recent days has been stoked by coordinated, outside groups trying to sow mayhem.

“That’s not somebody sitting in their basement,” he told reporters. “That’s pretty sophisticated.”

Minnesota authorities say 20% of those arrested had out-of-state addresses.

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INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis police say a second person has died after several shootings happened during downtown violence that started Saturday and extended into early Sunday.

One of the deadly shootings happened late Saturday and the second about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, but city police say no officers were involved.

What led up to those deaths wasn’t immediately clear, said Patrolman Michael Hewitt, a police spokesman.

“We don’t have any way to link them, at this time, to any type of protest or anything,” Hewitt said Sunday. “We don’t know if they are separate incidents or really what they are.”

Protests became dangerous for a second straight night in Indianapolis as windows of numerous buildings were broken, people entered some stores and stole items and officers deployed tear gas. Fire badly damaged a pharmacy and fires burned in several large dumpsters pushed into streets.

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NEW YORK — New York City officials are looking for a peaceful way forward after three days of protests against police brutality that left police cars burned and led to the arrest of hundreds of people.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he wasn’t considering a curfew after largely peaceful protests around the city Saturday gave way to scattered clashes between police and protesters later in the evening.

Demonstrators smashed shop windows, threw objects at officers, torched and battered police vehicles and blocked roads.

New York City police said 345 people were arrested, 33 officers were injured and 27 police vehicles were damaged.

Cleanup was under way Sunday morning in New York City, which is still under a lockdown enacted two months ago when it became the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

On the Brooklyn block where two police cruisers lurched into a crowd of demonstrators Saturday, knocking several to the ground, the only sign of the previous night’s disturbance was a small pile of glass shards in the street.

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Businesses in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh began to clean up Sunday after peaceful protests over George Floyd’s death turned into a night of destruction in the two cities and others throughout the country.

In Philadelphia, business owners, workers and volunteers were sweeping up broken glass and boarding up smashed windows in blocks near Philadelphia’s City Hall even as people could still be seen emerging from broken-into stores carrying bags.

Crews were also cleaning up anti-police and other graffiti scrawled on the walls of Philadelphia’s City Hall.

Both cities implemented citywide curfews that were to be in effect Sunday night as well. Gov. Tom Wolf signed a disaster emergency declaration authorizing the adjutant general of the state National Guard and the Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner to activate personnel to help cities.

In Philadelphia, police said 100 people had been arrested as of early Sunday, including 43 for burglary and one for assault on a police officer. Police said 13 officers were injured, including a bike officer whose leg was broken when he was run over by suspect fleeing in a vehicle with stolen items from a business.

In Pittsburgh, the public safety department said 43 adults and one juvenile were arrested during the Saturday mayhem. Four police officers were injured but all had been discharged from local hospitals.

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WASHINGTON — Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms says she doesn’t have confidence in the U.S. Justice Department to fully investigate the recent killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia as a civil rights crime.

Bottoms tells CBS’ “Face the Nation” she is hopeful that appropriate charges will be brought and prosecuted if not by the Justice Department then the state of Georgia.

Arbery was killed Feb. 23 when a white father and son armed themselves and pursued the 25-year-old black man after spotting him running in their neighborhood. More than two months passed before Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault.

Bottoms said Sunday: “I don’t have faith in this Justice Department, but if this Justice Department does what it was created to do, then justice will be served. But we also have the backstop of the state of Georgia.”

By The Associated Press 01 June 2020, 12:00AM

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