March for George Floyd turns tense at sunset. Police order crowds to disperse.
Like emotional clockwork, a large and peaceful crowd that marched through uptown Charlotte on Tuesday to protest the death of George Floyd turned confrontational at nightfall, throwing water bottles at police and blocking light rail train tracks.
Police responded with pepper spray and “flashbang” grenades, ordering the remaining crowds of several hundred to leave or be arrested. The riot squad was called in, and police later said they fired chemical agents into the crowd to protect themselves and the public.
Unlike other nights, by 10 p.m., police reported only one arrest.
What had been a multi-racial and multi-generational crowd of thousands grew smaller, younger and more confrontational as the night deepened, jeering the police who had earlier helped the bigger crowd move through some of Charlotte’s busiest urban streets.
At one point, a crowd of 20 or so white demonstrators created a line near Tryon and Trade streets between the crowd and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.
“They won’t kill us,” a white woman in the line yelled.
A short time later, when the crowds came nearer to officers and water bottles began flying from the crowd, the police pulled back. Demonstrators began blocking moving traffic. “I ain’t afraid of any cops,” one yelled out.
Just before 9 p.m., police pushed back. At 5th and McDowell, they fired pepper spray and flashbangs into the crowd before announcing by loudspeaker that anyone who did not disperse would be arrested. Police on bikes established a front blocking demonstrators from taking the protest onto Interstate 277.
At 10 p.m., police said they gave multiple dispersal orders after being “assaulted with bottles, rocks and chemical agents.” The statement said they gave demonstrators “multiple avenues” to leave, then fired chemical agents when they did not.
The crowds dispersed, but not totally. At 10:15, a group of about 100 walked down Church Street. When a police car passed, a water bottle came flying out the crowd.
As the night wore on, the police tactics seemed to grow more aggressive. Officers on bikes chased protesters across Romare Bearden Park and around BB&T Ballpark.
At 11 p.m., about a dozen protesters linked hands and walked into Tryon Street near Third Street, facing police and shouting, “Hands up. Don’t shoot!”
Police, holding batons, approached, and for a time the two sides stood nose to nose on Charlotte’s signature street. Then the lines broke, police gave chase, a chemical cloud hovering over Tryon.
Tuesday marked the fifth day of Charlotte demonstrations in memory of Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis last week after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes. Floyd’s plea — “I can’t breathe” — has become a worldwide mantra in public protests of police treatment of African Americans.
As with the others days of protests in Charlotte and across the country, the demonstrations ran cool or hot depending on the daylight. Unlike other cities, including Raleigh, Charlotte has not put a curfew in place despite the escalating tensions and violence that have come out after dark since Friday.
On Tuesday afternoon, a crowd of thousands — by far the city’s largest Floyd demonstration to date — marched through uptown, first massing at the city’s center of political power, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center, to call for change.
They later stood before the police department and chanted Floyd’s name.
They slowed their walk into uptown by taking a knee at East Trade and North Davidson streets, then sitting on the pavement as police held back traffic and a police helicopter circled overhead.
At times, the protesters took part in a walking call and response. “Tell me what democracy looks like,” some shouted. “This is what democracy looks like,” came the reply.
On Tuesday, Khalil Rhodes, chairman of the city’s Black Political Caucus, called Floyd’s death, which was captured on video, a “public lynching.”
“We support the right to protest and to express disappointment and outrage at a system that seems to not value nor respect us and our lives,” Rhodes said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
Earlier in the day, Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, who is African American, called on the state’s residents to understand the underpinnings of the statewide demonstrations.
“These protests are a resounding, national chorus of voices whose lived experiences reinforce the notion that Black people are ostracized, cast out, and dehumanized. Communities are crying out for justice and demanding real, meaningful change,” Beasley said during a press conference.
In Charlotte, the protests followed same night-day script on Monday. After peaceful demonstrations and marches in SouthPark and Freedom Park on Monday, police say they were confronted by protesters armed with guns, clubs, baseball bats, poles, machetes, a taser and high-powered fireworks, among other weapons Monday night.
CMPD says three officers were injured during the confrontations, which began at 10:30 p.m. Monday at North Davidson and East Trade — the same location where marchers took a knee later in the day. One cop was hit in the head by a brick, a police statement said. The department’s riot-control squad was called in.
Twenty-seven people were arrested. Several were juveniles. Four were armed, police said. While police described those taken into custody as “rioters,” the list of charges included relatively minor offenses such as possession of marijuana and failure to disperse.
Police say they have made almost 100 arrests since Friday when the protests over the death of Floyd began. More than 70 of those taken into custody are from the Charlotte area, CMPD says.
Tuesday afternoon, hundreds began gathering at the Government Center for a rally sponsored by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP and Kidz Fed Up, a youth group.
The crowd continued to grow, eventually spilling out of the Government Center’s plaza across 4th Street. Several carried yellow flags bearing Floyd’s likeness. Most wore masks in deference to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The system must be broken and we must break it,” Corine Mack, the city’s NAACP president, told the crowd.
Onlookers began chanting: “The people united can never be defeated.”
Once the march began, the throng streamed by the Spectrum Center, the scheduled home for the Republican National Convention in August to renominate President Donald Trump. Trump, who has threatened to use the U.S. military to stop violence protests surrounding Floyd’s death, has given the state and the city until Wednesday to promise him a full convention despite the pandemic sweeping the country.
In the end, the president didn’t wait, tweeting Tuesday night that he will “seek another state” because Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper did not meet his demands.
Some of the marchers carried a political message. “Vote like your life depended on it,” one sign read.
Writers Mark Price, Fred Clasen-Kelly and Gavin Off contributed
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 5:03 PM.
