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Thousands of people flooded streets across the Bay Area Wednesday for another night of protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, packing city blocks, staging sit-ins at urban intersections and calling on police to take a knee against police brutality.
While the biggest crowds showed up in San Francisco and Oakland, smaller groups also rallied in San Jose, Richmond and San Mateo — joining a national movement of protests against police killings of black men and women, and structural racism that has made the black community more vulnerable not just to police brutality, but also to the health, environmental, and economic issues brought on by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
San Francisco
A pulsing crowd of at least 10,000 people — mostly black, white and brown young people — poured into San Francisco Wednesday for the city’s biggest and most vibrant protest so far.
Starting at a rally outside San Francisco’s Mission High School, hundreds of volunteers worked speakers and microphones while others organized stacks of snacks and face masks. Traditional Mexica dancers lined up along 18th Street to start the day, flanked by balloons spelling out “Black Lives Matter.”
“This is community looking out for community and that’s all we need,” protest organizer Simone Jacques told the crowd, which quickly ballooned all the way to the top of Dolores Park.
hard to overstate how massive and how well organized this protest is. they got a flatbed truck with a PA system and drummers and dozens of volunteers passing out massive stacks of snacks and water bottles pic.twitter.com/C69fFd8L5T
— Leonardo Castañeda (@LeoMCastaneda) June 4, 2020
But while police kept their distance from protesters for most of the evening, a small group of protesters was detained late in the evening near the police department’s Mission Station, after encountering a line of cops in riot gear who forced the group to the ground before arresting them for curfew violations, according to media reports.
Earlier, marchers had snaked their way in a giant loop around Market, Guerrero and 16th streets, following a flatbed truck decked out with drummers and a PA system for social distancing reminders. A handful of organizers burned American flag atop a school bus while protesters cheered on, fists raised.
As the city’s 8 p.m. curfew came and went, hundreds lingered in different pockets around the city, listening to speakers recall prior San Francisco police killings and push for defunding law enforcement in the city.
Swaying together at the Hall of Justice, protesters held up their cell phones in a silent vigil before they trickled home in the dark.
Oakland
A larger protest in defiance of the city’s curfew was planned for 8:05 p.m.
In one of the largest — and most tranquil — protests the city has seen this week, several thousand people gathered at to sit or kneel in the intersection of 14th and Broadway Wednesday evening, coming together for a protest in defiance of a curfew order in place across Alameda County, and many other parts of the Bay Area.
For nearly four hours, the crowd held the intersection, as speakers and organizers took turns addressing the demonstration from the back of a U-Haul truck. In one marked moment, big cheers erupted as a speaker urged the defunding of the Oakland Police Department, followed by a call-and-response, naming black men and women killed by police, including Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, a Louisville woman who was shot in her own home as police there executed a “no-knock” warrant.
As demonstrators began to disperse late in the evening, the mood was celebratory, with music blaring from speakers as protestors danced together.
“One more song, one more song,” #Oakland demonstrators have peacefully held the intersection of 14th and Broadway for more than four hours pic.twitter.com/Xt2djaZgbJ
— David DeBolt (@daviddebolt) June 4, 2020
San Jose
Police appeared to take a hands-off approach on Wednesday night as protesters marched around the San Jose State University campus and ended near City Hall, with just one chopper overhead.
SJPD has faced mounting questions from city leaders after videos of aggressive police behavior surfaced amid the protests, including one showing an officer shouting “Let’s get this motherf—er” and “Shut up, bitch” at demonstrators Friday, and another that shows a police motorcycle hitting a fleeing man in downtown San Jose Sunday.
A growing crowd of 100 marchers gathered at City Hall starting in the late afternoon, waving signs and eating popsicles in the rising heat.
“We don’t have health care, our jobs don’t pay much and the state itself is killing us and not supporting us in this crisis,” said Nnanna Nkele, a 33-year-old black man who lost his sales job to the coronavirus lockdown. “I’m here to fight for the America we were promised. We want a place we can feel safe and we can be prosperous.”
“If police brutality is what we’re protesting, showing up in riot gear is fanning the flames and expecting there to be no fire,” he added.
Richmond
The scene in Richmond Wednesday afternoon presented a marked contrast from protests earlier this week in the East Bay, as police officers — including Interim Police Chief Bisa French — joined a rally in a city park with several hundred people Wednesday, many nodding and clapping along to activists and community members.
“As a black and Latina woman, I’ve felt a range of emotions this week, just like all of you,” French told the group. “I have to reconcile the fact that I wear this uniform that I know has oppressed people and communities I have grown up in, that I live in and that I serve.”
But even as she commended the officers who showed up to participate in the rally, French acknowledged that police departments — including her own — must do more to address systemic racism in law enforcement.
“I’m tired. Everybody’s tired. But as the leader of the police department, it’s my obligation to continue to lead and to make the changes that I want to see and that you want to see,” she said, adding, “My promise to you is that I’m going to continue to do the work.”
San Mateo
On the Peninsula, several thousand masked marchers headed down El Camino, chanting. Healthcare workers at the corner of 20th Avenue came out bearing signs to show support for the largely peaceful protests, with police remaining to the side of the protests.
The rally ended outside the San Mateo police station, with marchers calling on officers to “take a knee” while around half the crowd broke off to head down Hillsdale Avenue.
“There are stories I could tell you that would make your hair curl,” former San Mateo mayor Claire Mack, a black woman, told protesters of growing up in the city.
“This is homegrown,” she said of the gathering. “Keep going.”
Check back for updates.