Marchers who defied Denver’s emergency curfew Sunday following a day of peaceful demonstrations were again met with clouds of stinging tear gas, though police on this fourth night of protests against law enforcement waited longer to deploy chemical agents against the public.
As days of protest raged across the country, Denver demonstrators massed at the state Capitol and in Civic Center Park on Sunday afternoon to rally for justice in the name of George Floyd, the black man whose killing by police in Minneapolis has sparked a conflagration.
Esther Okanlawon said she brought her 6-year-old daughter to Sunday’s protest to show her how to make change. As a black woman, she’s talked to her daughter about racism several times.
“We tell her that unfortunately people are going to treat her differently because of the color of her skin,” Okanlawon said.
Denver police kept their distance well into the evening, as city leaders pleaded for peace, and continued to blame the violence and vandalism that marred previous nights on a handful of unspecified outside agitators. Some of the protesters countered that Denver’s officer had been too aggressive in using so-called “less lethal” munitions on marchers.
The demonstrators left the state Capitol after the 8 p.m. curfew went into effect with no action by police, marching east on Colfax Avenue, past boarded-up businesses and watchful officers, including some on rooftops. Around 8:30 p.m., police began firing tear gas at demonstrators in the area of Colfax and Washington Street.
People scream and scatter and all you can see on Colfax is gas, and then this police vehicle emerges. pic.twitter.com/BzgrBQvOxh
— Alex Burness (@alex_burness) June 1, 2020
With eye-burning gas coming from both sides, marchers on Colfax hacked and coughed. A man lied on the ground bleeding heavily; he appeared seriously hurt, but was talking as blood pooled on the pavement. Bystanders said he had been shot in the head with either a tear-gas canister or some other kind of projectile.
Earlier Sunday, the protest swelled to at least 1,000 people, with groups at times standing outside the Capitol building chanting “Don’t shoot!” and “I can’t breathe!” — echoing the words of both Floyd and Eric Garner, who died after a New York City police officer put him in a choke hold in 2014.
Officers stayed largely out-of-sight during the daytime protest and marches. Some stood on a balcony at the Capitol and others stopped traffic for the marchers as they moved through Denver.
At 8 p.m., when Denver’s emergency curfew went into effect, hundreds of people remained outside the Capitol. Denver police sent loud alerts to residents’ cellphones across the city, and tweeted that people needed to go home or risk arrest. But by 8:15 p.m., they had taken no action to disperse the crowd — in stark contrast to Saturday evening, when officers had begun deploying tear gas several hours before curfew.
Shortly after that, masses of protesters began marching away from the Capitol east on Colfax Avenue.
Outside agitators blamed
Earlier in the afternoon Sunday, demonstrators gathered in Civic Center Park, chanting and rallying. Some shouted obscenities at Mayor Michael Hancock and police Chief Paul Pazen, who were holding a news conference nearby. The city officials ignored the jeers.
Pazen and Hancock urged calm, continuing to suggest that the violence that broke out over the previous three nights can be blamed on a small number of agitators.
Police arrested 83 people on charges they violated Saturday’s curfew, which was in effect again from 8 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. Those arrested were not publicly identified, and city officials have not provided specific evidence to support their allegation that outsiders are inciting violence.
A protester who was hit with tear gas says he saw a man knocked unconsious. I saw a limp person being carried away from police by two other people.
— Shelly Bradbury (@ShellyBradbury) June 1, 2020
Officers on Sunday also arrested a person who is accused of smashing their car into a Denver police vehicle the night before, injuring three officers — including one who remained hospitalized — and a person they were in the process of taking into custody. Police have not yet publicly identified that suspect.
Hancock, in an appearance on CNN on Sunday morning, said police have “intercepted, quite frankly, groups that are coming into Denver. We have confiscated weapons including assault weapons that were headed to the demonstrations.”
Later Sunday, Denver police tweeted they’d arrested six people that day on weapons charges, and shared photos of a knife, machete, handgun, hammer and a baseball bat affixed with metal spikes.
“You don’t show up at peaceful demonstrations with assault weapons, handguns, baseball bats, golf (clubs) and flash-bang bottles with the intent of being peaceful,” Hancock said during the interview.
The mayor said some of the peaceful demonstrators who’d gathered earlier in the day Saturday stuck around and were “caught up in the crossfire, the provocation of law enforcement” after night fell.
Jason Dunn, the U.S. attorney for Colorado, announced Sunday that, at the direction of U.S. Attorney General William Barr, his office will work with the Federal Joint Terrorism Task Force to investigate any potential violations of the law connected to the protest activity in Denver.
“The last few days have seen protests in Denver hijacked by criminal elements, who have turned these protests into violent riots in our own communities,” Dunn said in a prepared statement.
Pointing fingers at police
Denver’s police chief on Sunday again defended his officers’ use of tear gas, pepper balls and other “less lethal” forms of ammunition on demonstrators.
“Active aggression is that threshold to use tear gas,” Pazen said, citing the department’s use-of-force guidelines. “And somebody throwing rocks, a few agitators throwing rocks, individuals that hide under the veil of peaceful protest and create criminal and assaultive behavior, must be addressed.”
But many of the demonstrators, including Emily Graham, have been sharply critical of Denver police, saying officers’ use of chemical agents often has been unprovoked. Graham said she’s been out with the marchers for several days and has been shot by projectiles and gassed. She said the worst she’s seen protesters do is throw plastic water bottles at officers.
“I think there’s a big difference between harming bodies and harming property,” she said of the vandalism at the Capitol and downtown. “I think that the police presence in full riot gear and throwing tear gas is more violent than a little spray paint.
“This is peaceful protesting and it’s met all around the country with violence. Unprovoked violence from the police. That’s exactly why we’re here.”
8 p.m. howl. Someone shouts, "Protect your eyes!" pic.twitter.com/KeR7AMkg5J
— Shelly Bradbury (@ShellyBradbury) June 1, 2020
Maya Johnson, who said she knew Elijah McClain, the 23-year-old who died after a struggle with Aurora police last year, echoed Graham’s perspective, saying events on Saturday escalated due to the police, not the demonstrators.
“It was a peaceful rally until the other side became the aggressor towards the protesters,” she said. “It started as something peaceful and no one was fighting.”
On Saturday night, Denver police officers in riot gear fired tear gas, flash-bangs, pepper balls and sponge bullets at hundreds of protesters who ignored the city’s 8 p.m. emergency curfew, announced by the mayor earlier in the day after two prior nights of protest and violence.
Gov. Jared Polis called in the Colorado National Guard to help enforce the curfew. National Guard officials said about 100 troops had been requested at nine sites in Denver.
“For those who helped us maintain peace, protect lives and preserve property here in our city, let me state loud and clear that the Denver Police Department values the lives of our residents and are working hard to maintain the peace and safety for all,” Pazen said. “And when I say all, I mean every community member and every police officer.”
Marching and cleaning up
As the mayor’s news conference ended around 3 p.m., a large crowd marched out to Speer Boulevard to the call-and-response chant of “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” Once they reached the Denver Center for Performing Arts, many protesters got down on their stomachs with their hands behind their backs and chanted “I can’t breathe!” for nine minutes in honor of Floyd.
Shawn Gladys, 23, said he turned out to Denver’s rally on Sunday because he is of mixed race, a “white black man and a black white man.”
“I can’t have mixed grandkids and tell them I sat around on Facebook,” he said.
Crowd plans to chant "I can't breathe" for nine minutes to honor George Floyd. pic.twitter.com/YYCcWJCfjC
— Shelly Bradbury (@ShellyBradbury) May 31, 2020
Chauncey Session, 30, said she has never been to a protest before, but wanted to be a part of this one.
“It’s history,” she said. “Kids get shot for no reason by the police and it’s been going on for years.”
Throughout the day, some people around the Capitol picked up trash from earlier protests while city crews and volunteers tried to scrub off graffiti. Profane spray-painted messages were still visible on the outer walls of many city buildings. One bit of graffiti said, “All pigs go to hell.”
Amanda Sendero and Garrett Teal were among the volunteers helping with the cleanup. They participated in the protest Saturday night and came back Sunday wearing masks and latex gloves as they put trash into bags, saying it was a way to show they care about the city where they live.
“I do not want people to see all this destruction and junk and think this is the way,” said Teal, who recently moved to Denver from Florida.
Another woman who scrubbed graffiti off the Capitol building, Reilley Bray, said she’d marched with the protesters for two days but on Sunday decided to remove graffiti instead. She scrubbed away spray paint that read “Kill them all.”
“The violent aggression that comes in the evenings is destroying the Capitol and the city I love,” she said, adding that there is a marked difference between the peaceful daytime protests and the violence that happens after dark.
As elsewhere around the country, the protests in Denver were spurred by the death of Floyd on Memorial Day after a Minneapolis police officer placed his knee on Floyd’s neck and pinned him to the ground for nearly nine minutes while the man pleaded that he could not breathe.
That officer has been charged with third-degree murder.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.