Despite the calls for calm from all sides, at least 312 people have been arrested over the weekend at protests from NY to Chicago, and in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where two black men, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, were shot to death by police.
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Gov. John Bel Edwards held a press conference Sunday addressing safety and security issues after days of protests in the city.
The suspect in the deadly attack on Dallas police taunted authorities during two hours of negotiations, laughing at them, singing and at one point asking how many officers he had shot, the police chief said Sunday. “I think at the end of this, and I’m very pleased that a lot of this has come from the law enforcement community directly, is that we’re going to have to reevaluate where we are in the way we recruit and train officers”.
Tensions flared up in Minnesota as throngs took to the streets nationwide in another night of protests against the police shootings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.
At a spontaneous march in Dallas on Thursday, a USA military veteran shot and killed five police officers, sending a chill through law enforcement as well as those involved in the mostly peaceful demonstrations.
DeRay Mckesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter campaigner, said: “I remain disappointed in the Baton Rouge police, who continue to provoke protesters for peacefully protesting”.
Late Sunday and into Monday morning, nearly fifty protesters were bundled into the back of police vans in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while a handful in Atlanta, Georgia were also arrested.
Protesters demonstrate in a residential neighborhood in Baton Rouge, La. on Sunday, July 10, 2016. The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation. In Minnesota, police arrested about 100 people in the capital of St. Paul during protests.
News reports he was released this afternoon, after Mckesson, who was on the cover of The Advocate earlier this year and is one of the most well known faces in the movement, sparked an online firestorm.
In Louisiana, Saturday’s demonstration began at the convenience store where 37-year-old Alton Sterling was killed by police, then fanned out through the state Capitol.
Obama, in his remarks, urged protesters to recognize that police officers have a hard job. “The protesters have not”, he said.
Louisiana state officials said about a dozen people were arrested after throwing chunks of concrete at cops.
In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a large group of Black Lives Matter supporters walked to the Broward County Courthouse and then the county jail, where prisoners heard their shouts and tapped on windows in response, WPLG reported. “They are not operating as human beings. I promise that we will not rest until justice prevails”, she said.
The man who killed one person and wounded three others including an officer in Tennessee apparently told investigators he was motivated by the recent killings of black men by police.
The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office released a list of 30 people arrested in the demonstrations – most for obstructing a highway, but three for inciting to riot.
Police said those arrested had ignored repeated orders to stay out of the street, while demonstrators said officers charged into the crowds seemingly without any obvious provocation. “She told me that they jumped all on her and her cousin on the grass”, Bowers said. They hope that the race war can bring about the communist revolution that would enable them to take over America. Police in squad cars tried to stop them, but several hundred had already made their way up the ramp, and the crowd swelled to more than 1,000.
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President Obama will meet privately with relatives of the slain officers at an event that will also be attended by Vice President Joe Biden, and by George W Bush and his wife Laura.
