Police swarmed Richmond last night, forcefully enforcing an 8 p.m. curfew using tear gas and armored vehicles. They arrested dozens of protestors. It was the latest in a long weekend of anger and frustration over the killing of black men and women by the police.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency, and Richmond's curfew is in place through the middle of this week. Here's a look at how a weekend of demonstrations across the state unfolded.
In Eastern Virginia, protestors shut down the Hampton Roads Bridge tunnel. In Roanoke, they marched to the police station. And in Richmond peaceful demonstrations turned violent night after night.
Protestors set fire to dumpsters and buildings. Richmond police say they blocked firefighters from responding Saturday night. And under still-unclear circumstances a man was shot and wounded.
Police used chemical agents on marchers.
Saturday night Richmonder Alex Young was blocking a street on his bike when police cars came swerving around the corner. As Young scrambled to get out of the way an officer leaned out the window and sprayed him with something.
“I guess this is what happens when you want to stand up for other people’s rights. You’re going to take a hit every once in a while,” he said shortly after having his face and eyes flushed with water by a fellow protestor.
The sun rose Sunday morning on the burned out headquarters of the Daughters of the Confederacy, and the graffitied Confederate statues of Monument Avenue, including Robert E. Lee.
The statue was tagged with “BLM” “No more White Supremacy” and in huge bold letters across the bottom “Freedom.”
A couple blocks away, business owners spent the morning cleaning broken glass and boarding up windows.
And downtown, advocates got back to work. Just around the corner from the historic site where human beings were once sold into slavery, hundreds gathered for a rally.
Grassroots organizers, like Assaddique Abdul-Rahman, have pushed for more police accountability in Richmond for years. Peacefully.
Abdul-Rahman recalls two years ago, when the young black teacher Marcus David Peters was shot and killed by a Richmond officer. He, and others, had immediate demands that they say still haven’t been addressed.
“Every building damaged. Every fire set. Should be blamed on those who opposed peaceful change,” said Abdul-Rahman before rallying the crowd.
Later, in a scene so unlike the tense stand-offs of the night before, a police officer nearby knelt to talk to a four year old black girl who was holding a black lives matter sign.
He gave her a police badge sticker that she wore proudly.
“Because I want to be a police officer when I grow up,” she told me.
Her mother, Anika Carter, brought her to Sunday’s rally to show her that she matters.
“She has a right to breathe. She has a right to state her opinion and she has a right to live in peace,” Carter said. “And be anything that she wants to be. And be treated fairly.”
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
