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George Floyds death was the icing on the cake that nobody wants to eat.

Before I get into my experiences these past few days, its important you all know how I feel as a Black woman leading Technical.ly DCs editorial coverage in the District: Black Lives Matter. My life matters and so did the lives of the Black Americans lost to police brutality. Im physically and emotionally exhausted but the work has just begun.

My people have spent countless years protesting the injustice of Black Americans being killed at the hands of many different individuals. Its sad to say that Im beginning to lose count of the deaths at this point but I distinctly remember the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was brutally murdered by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. The way this case unfolded, and Zimmerman ultimately being set free, took a toll on this nation in a tremendous way. This senseless killing was the first case of its kind that I really tuned in to as an adult since I was a freshman at Michigan State University at the time, and what it showed me is that as a Black American, my life is not valued as much as my white peers.

A trend of killing Black Americans has sadly continued since then. I know youve heard them before, say their names:

Eric Garner.

Michael Brown.

Tamir Rice.

Sandra Bland.

Philando Castile.

Stephon Clark.

What these six Black Americans above have in common is the fact that they were all murdered by police officers who were otherwise sworn to protect them. Rest in peace to all of them and the many more who have lost their lives in similar cases.

Were experiencing civil unrest now due to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25. But dont forget, were still asking for answers surrounding the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. My community is suffering but alongside hundreds of District residents, Ive spent the last three days and nights out at protests here.

I attended these protests as a resident of the nations capital, not as a journalist so I thought. As I was out there, I often found myself documenting moments via pictures and videos to keep as memory but in every part of my being, I am a storyteller at heart.

My experiences each day differed. I witnessed some peaceful protests and demonstrations, Ive seen cars and buildings get set on fire. and Ive seen how differently the events of each days changed from sun up to sun down. Above all, the aggressive treatment of protesters by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has been disgusting and disheartening to witness and be a part of.

Black Lives Matter DCs car caravan moving protest on May 30. (Photo by Michelai Graham)

On Friday, I was too emotionally drained to protest, so I instead drowned myself in news about the surrounding events beginning to ensue. This motivated me to come up with a plan of action to do my part. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) DC collective organized a moving protests from our cars, which not only allowed us to socially distance, but we were able to move the protest through different parts of the District. After meeting up at a Safeway in Northeast D.C. around 4 p.m., the protest was routed westbound on Benning Road NE with an overwhelming amount of cars. BLM made sure we all followed in place and MPD was helping direct traffic as well. It was a peaceful start to a tumultuous day.

Participants in the protest hung out of their cars with protest signs; some played music while others took photos. Often, cars would join right into the protest off the street. Ultimately, BLM led us to the White House, where another collective, Freedom Fighters DC, was also protesting. At this point, we were left to stay and protest at the White House at our own expense, and I did just that.

The event stayed peaceful for the most part, until the sun went down. Then, anyone standing on the frontlines could see protestors throwing water bottles, rocks and even e-scooters over the gates toward law enforcement. At the same time, left and right, officers were pepper spraying protesters for minuscule reasons.

One instance that stuck with me the most was an interaction I witnessed between an Asian protester and a white police officer. This officer was visibly taunting protesters, while other officers stood still like robots. He would often say snide remarks like, Would you like some of my riot gear? when water bottles aimed at officers would incidentally hit protesters from behind. But when the Asian protester spit on the officer, we saw more officers line up behind one another, and before we knew it, MPD was pushing us back with their riot shields and shortly after, MPD started throwing mini bombs that exploded with a substance similar to pepper spray.

All hell broke loose after this.

Protesters became angered. Bricks were being thrown. More officers arrived with guns loaded with rubber bullets. Heres one found rolling on the ground for context of what MPD is using:

A rubber bullet used by MPD. (Photo by Michelai Graham)

Ouch, right? Since Saturday, Ive acquired four wounds on my legs due to these rubber bullets. I have not thrown one rock, nor one water bottle. I havent vandalized anyones property, yet Im being treated this way. Thats the issue. I understand MPD is trying to disperse these protests and demonstrations, but 1.) What was the reason? 2.) How do you decide they to harm? and 3.) What about freedom of speech?

Regardless, if these wounds are what I have to suffer to see my people liberated, Ill continue to march in the streets until my last days.

Words on a wall near the White House: Why do we have to keep telling you Black Lives Matter? (Photo by Michelai Graham)

As us protesters tried to stand our ground, we were tear gassed. A brave woman standing near me picked the canister up and threw it back toward police. An uproar of joy rang through the protest crowd, but within seconds we all were suffering from the lingering gas. This is a pain I never felt before as my breathing was stifled and I couldnt open my eyes for more than a second. Someone yelled to me to just breathe and stop panicking so I did just that. I almost went into my meditation state and then my eyes opened again. I headed home around 11 p.m. after this.

This is America.

Protest at the White House on May 31. (Photo by Michelai Graham)

Sunday was pure chaos.

I arrived at the protest a little after 10 p.m., which was late considering this is the first night Mayor Muriel Bowser imposed a curfew of 11 p.m. for the District. The majority of protesters came with rage, as they should. A Black man is choked to death in Minneapolis as people watched, yet we have to go to bed early? It still doesnt make sense to me. No matter how much looting ensues, there has to be a better resolution.

There was a large fire brewing in front of the barricades separating protesters from the police officers with several folks throwing anything and everything within reach into the pit.

As this fire continued to burn, a shed nearby went up in flames. Enraged protesters knocked down street signs and lights and tore flags off of nearby buildings. Still, no police officers interfered much yet.

They didnt interact with protesters much until the curfew grew closer. As it did, officers split the protest crowd, with about 75% of people on one side, and 25% on the other. I was a part of the smaller group, which was quickly moved out of the area even though we were peacefully kneeling where we soon connected and met with the larger group. This group was consistently pushed back and hit with pepper spray bombs. When I got closer to the frontline, police officers began releasing bombs that ejected small pellets. These, too, hurt and left wounds.

As I was walking back to my car near midnight as the protest dispersed, one phrase stuck with me: Lead with love. Imagine: If police officers didnt come to these protests equipped in riot gear, would a riot break out? If these officers were able to speak back and hold a dialogue, would that make these events any better?

If you come to me on the offense, I feel the need to defend myself.

Protesters marching on past curfew in D.C. on June 1. (Photo by Michelai Graham)

I reached the White House around 4 p.m. and I marched for more than 15 miles and for nearly five hours past the 7 p.m. curfew. This was the most peaceful day of protesting, outside of MPD pushing protesters back at the same time Donald Trump walked to St. John Church to take a photo after it suffered from a basement fire the night before. Very weird.

Around 6:30 p.m., the pepper spray bombs began to fly. This was the earliest MPD attempted to disperse protesters, but were stronger together. As protesters began to find each other, we began to march throughout the streets of D.C., touching many roads from the monuments, through U Street, Chinatown and others. We were surrounded by MPD the entire time, who didnt have a clue where we were headed outside of following our lead how ironic is that? Shoutout to the church near M Street NW that stayed open for protesters to stop for bathroom breaks, water and snacks. Those were the only breaks we took besides taking a knee a few times to catch our breath.

As we moved through Chinatown, we were met by two military helicopters that hovered over us for some time at the intersection of 5th St and E St NW. They left and came back at least twice before the march was moved up E Street toward the White House and dispersed in many different directions.

This is where I broke off and headed home a little after midnight. But my experience from this night isnt the only one. As I was peacefully protesting for most of the night, some peaceful protesters were kettled on Swann St NW Logan Circle around 9 p.m., and some brave residents opened their homes to shelter them from police overnight. Ultimately, some folks also still got arrested.

###

Between Floyd, Taylor and Arbery, these deaths have been haunting me more than usual. The continuous execution of Black people has ignited a conversation we thought we shouldnt be having in 2020: Racism is alive and thriving in the worst ways possible. These Black Americans getting murdered look like me. If you find yourself questioning why we are in the streets protesting, or why we continue to knock on the gates of the White House, check your privilege. Realize that we all bleed the same blood, we cry the same tears, we breathe the same air, yet some people think Black Americans dont have the right to do so. All lives wont matter until Black Lives Matter. Its been a movement, but it needs to become a reality.

Though Ive been marching and protesting, Im just one person doing my part. I am a vessel and this is what I was charged to do.

Whether youre on the frontlines, coordinating supplies behind the scenes for protesters, donating funds from afar, or whatever it may be, please do your part. Therere many ways to participate in this revolution, and that goes for my fellow Black brothers and sisters, as well as allies. Do your part. As much as we need ourselves, the Black community needs you.

And to anyone continuously feeling down or unmotivated, take care of yourself but keep fighting in whatever way seems fit. Our work wont go unnoticed this time. We cannot allow it to.

Finally, if you dont know where to start, here are some resources:

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I've been on the frontlines. How have you been doing your part? - Technical.ly DC

By Charles AbdulAlim Chear

Some of the biggest cases of extrajudicial killing of Black men involve a convenience store.

Michael Brown was arrested at a liquor store before being killed by police in Ferguson. Alton Sterling was selling CDs outside of a convenience store where he was killed. Travyon Martin was returning from a 7-11 when he was killed by George Zimmerman Skittles bought from the store became symbolic of Trayvons innocence.

And now, George Floyd was killed by police in front of Cup Food, a convenience store in Minneapolis.

The list of killings, unfortunately, can go on.

Some say Cup Food bears some responsibility for Floyds killing since an employee was the one who called police. Others have commended the response by Cup Food, which permitted a mural be painted of Floyd on a wall outside of the store.

What should we expect from small businesses when an injustice happens like the killing of George Floyd?

Convenience stores in urban neighborhoods are typically run by Asian, Middle Eastern and Hispanic immigrant families. There is usually a good relationship with customers, many of whom are Black and non-immigrants. Occasionally, there is conflict and in the worst cases, killings of a store worker or customer. Depending on who was killed, concerns about anti-Black racism may arise.

Seldom, however, do we get the full story from store owners. While the owner of Cup Food spoke out against the killing of George Floyd, many store owners stay silent when something like this happens. As a result, suspicions arise that owners are uncooperative and may be hiding something.

I personally know about this. A decade ago, an armed robber was killed by a police officer in my aunts corner store in Philadelphia. Both the robber and police officer were Black. My aunt is Cambodian. A community group asked her to publicly talk about what had happened, but she declined. As a result, a boycott led by the community group ensued.

I asked her why she declined. She said it was because of trauma and fear of saying the wrong thing. She also did not understand what speaking out would achieve. As a refugee and survivor of domestic violence, being anonymous became a survival tool for my aunt. In the United States, remaining anonymous can have the opposite effect.

A beloved restaurant, Gandhi Mahal, was burned down during protests in Minneapolis. When the owner, an immigrant from Bangladesh, was asked about it, he spoke not on behalf of his wellbeing but the need for justice for George Floyd. His compelling response, as a result, has led to an outpouring of support from people around the country.

Some are comparing the current protests to the Los Angeles Riots. When the Los Angeles Riots occurred, it was framed partly as a Black-Asian conflict. Fast forward to today: surveillance footage that shows George Floyd did not resist arrest came from Dragon Wok, a restaurant owned by a Black and Asian couple. This hints at positive changes in race relations since the Los Angeles Riots, although more is clearly needed to unify communities against injustice.

The history of businesses in urban neighborhoods, especially convenience stores, has not always been good. But the responses by the owners of Cup Food, Gandhi Mahal, and Dragon Wok are certainly ones we can learn from. Rather than staying silent, they spoke out and chose to engage with communities. However, if a business owner does not speak out, it does not necessarily mean that they do not care about injustice.

During the extrajudicial killing of Black men, convenience stores and other small businesses have been part of the narrative; either where it happened, or the backdrop of protests and riots which is what we are witnessing today. Some small business owners have a double anger: wanting justice for George Floyd, and against the destruction of their businesses by people exploiting an otherwise righteous protest.

Small business owners have always been an integral part of urban communities and capable of being part of the solution. It is now, however, that many are learning how to speak out against injustice.

Charles AbdulAlim Chear is a Ph.D. student at Rutgers University studying children and families working in immigrant small businesses.

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Elijah Johnson, now 21, speaks at a youth summit at Milwaukee's City Hall in 2017. The summit was part of his ethnic studies class, which included programming on Black Lives Matter, a course he called the most powerful of his educational care.(Photo: Submitted photo)

In her Tuesday Zoom class, Milwaukee teacher Angela Harris set aside the lesson she'd planned to help her first graders process the protests and unrest that had erupted in their neighborhoods and across their city in recent days.

They had so many questions. They asked about George Floyd, the black man whose killing by a Minnesota police officer sparked the protests a familiar story for children who already know the names of Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice. They asked ifshe could hear the shouting,the sirens and the helicopters,the bangs that sounded like gunfire.

Harris answered them all. But first, she shareda video she'd taken of them reciting their scholar's declaration, from the days beforea global pandemic sent them home. In it, they see themselves, all black and brown children, chanting:

I will not die young.

I matter.

I'm worth it.

My future has a purpose.

"I told them, 'I want you to remember the things we say about our lives in our morning meeting, and how that's importantto what isgoing on in our community," said Harris, who teaches at Milwaukee's Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary Schooland sits on the national steering committee for Black Lives Matter at Schools Week.

"We talk about how black lives matter in our classroom from the first day of school to the last," she said. "At the very least, I want to show them they matter in a society that makes them feel like they don't."

School districts across the country, most of them large urban districts,have worked in recent years to develop and implement Black Lives Matter programming in their schools, courses that explore the histories and present day experiences of black Americans through a social justice lens.

Milwaukee Public Schools, with almost 75,000 students, mostly low-income students of color, has struggled to create a comprehensive curriculum and scale it district-wide. But it's hoping to restart those efforts next year.

Last week, just hours before demonstrators spilled onto Milwaukee streets to protest the killing of George Floyd, school board members voted to add five new ethnic studies teachers and fund the development of a curriculum that would include programming around Black Lives Matter.

"The nation is crying out," said District 3 board member Sequanna Taylor, a former MPS teacher's aide who put forth the budget amendment to fund the additions.

"It would include the study of all types of ethnicities. ... But it has to include Black Lives Matter," she said. "It's 2020, and we're in the same place we were 50 and 60 years ago."

The Black Lives Matter atSchoolsmovement is a national coalition of educators thatgrew out of the protests following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida the year before.

Itoffers free resources and lessons for teachers who want to incorporate tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement into their lesson plans. And it promotes a number of demands, including the hiring of more black teachers, mandating black history and ethnic studies courses, ending zero-tolerance disciplinary policies and investment in school counselors rather than policing.

"It's about centering the black experience in the classroom, and acknowledging the struggles and contributions black people made to this country and the world," said Jesse Hagopian, a Seattle high school teacher and co-author of "Teaching for Black Lives,"published by Milwaukee-based Rethinking Schools in 2018.

"For too long, the corporate mainstream curriculum has reduced the black experience to slavery," he said.

Philadelphia high school teacher Nick Bernardini, who sits on the social justice committee that launched the first Black Lives Matter week in education, called it "bottom-up history."

"We focus on the actors in the historical context that don'tget agency in the traditional text," he said. "The goal is to really connect the past to the present ... to show how the struggles of the past are connected to the struggles of today, and that the Civil Rights Movement never ends.

"And it has to include teaching on anti-racism. In order to combat racism, you have to be anti-racist. It's not enough to just be neutral."

MPS adopted a Black Lives Matter resolution in 2015thatincluded the creation of a curriculum, though it never really got off the ground.

Many MPS teachers have embraced Black Lives Matter and incorporate its tenets into their lessons. And the district has offered professional development in culturally responsive teaching practices. But there's no comprehensive district-wide programming.

MPS has struggled to hire and keep ethnic studies teachers, and seven of the eight current positions have gone unfilled. Its lone ethnic studiesteacher LucasWierer at Obama School of Career and Technical Education includes a unit on Black Lives Matter in his class, which draws a diverse group of students via teleconference from Obama and Washington high schools and Milwaukee School of Languages.

A few weeks into the class last year, Wierertook his students to the Sherman Phoenix, a popular gathering place that rose, literally, from the ashes of the unrest that erupted in Sherman Park Neighborhood in the summer of 2016.

It was really just an ice-breaker, to give the kids a chance to meet and hang out.

But they would talk in the weeks before and after about the genesis of the Phoenix and the context in which it emerged.

They talked about Sylville Smith, the black man whose fatal shooting by a Milwaukee police officer sparked the unrest that many, including Wierer, call the "uprising." They talked about racism, disinvestment and police brutality;thepower of political action and civil disobedience; the difficult community conversations that followed and how the Phoenix grew out of those.

"It's really about tackling the some of the most serious issues that exist in society today," said Wierer.

Elijah Johnson, a 2017 MPS graduate who took a similar class when it was offered at the James Madison Academic Campus, called it "the most phenomenal experience" of his academic career. It culminated with his sharing what he learned at a student summit at Milwaukee's city hall.

"That class helped me to evolve," said Johnson, 21, who now works at Silver Spring Neighborhood House and took part in peaceful protests this week in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Appleton.

"I became more of a people person, more of a leader, more mature.And I definitely feel like I'm making a difference," he said.

The 12 ethnic studies positions in next year's budget if the district can find and hire the teachers to fill them would allow MPS to expand the courses to every high school and one middle school. The idea is for them to develop a curriculum, parts of which could then be shared with teachers across the district.

And that can be difficult, too, said Wierer, in a district like Milwaukee where the majority of teachers, including him, are white.

White teachers, he said, may be interested and comfortable with the content but struggle to connect with the students. Others may struggle with content around white privilege and bias and find it difficult to accept that their longstanding methods of teaching may not be pedagogically sound.

But getting the curriculum into the younger grades is crucial, said Wierer and Harris.

"Most racial ideas are formed between the ages of 2 and 12," said Wierer. "By the time I get them in ethnic studies, they're pretty much firmly in place."

Contact Annysa Johnson at anjohnson@jrn.com or 414-224-2061. Follow her on Twitter at @JSEdbeat. And join the Journal Sentinel conversation about education issues at http://www.facebook.com/groups/WisconsinEducation.

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As unrest grips the nation, MPS hopes to bolster its ethnic studies and Black Lives Matter programming - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Will the outcomes prove similar as well?

News Analysis

As the preliminary hearing gets underway in Georgia for Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and William Bryan in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, it has not gone unnoticed that the fatal shooting of Arbery, an unarmed Black jogger in February by two White men, bears a striking resemblance to another slaying eight years agothat of Trayvon Martin.

Both the 17-year-old Martin and the 25-year-old Arbery were accosted by self-appointed White vigilantes who shot them at point-blank range after a scuffle. In both cases, prosecutors initially declined to prosecute and charges were filed only after weeks of sustained pressure from the Black communities in both Deep South states.

In the Arbery case, charges were brought against the McMichaels only following protests and the release of a gruesome cellphone video that depicts a clearly unarmed Arbery merely jogging down a neighborhood street in the city of Brunswick in the southeastern part of the state.

No attorney wouldve called the States case against George Zimmerman for murdering an unarmed teenager airtight. But prosecutors were so ineffective in the 2013 trial that it left more than a few trial lawyers and legal scholars wondering aloud whether the prosecution didnt intentionally lose the case.

In a 2016 law review article, Boston College law professor Mark Brodin wrote that prosecutors in Florida bungled the Trayvon Martin case by committing the most inexplicable strategic and evidentiary blunders of a type that experienced prosecutors would very likely not commit in a more earnest effort to convict.

Of the prosecutions many missteps, Brodin wrote that the most damning mightve been the failure to to convey to the trial jury this simple narrative of racial profiling and stalking by a vigilante not acting under color of law.

Calling the trial an homage to racial vigilantism, Mark K. Spencer, a former deputy states attorney in the Washington D.C. suburbs, concurred with Brodins assessment of the prosecutions failure. The Trayvon Martin case represented one of the gravest miscarriages of justice Ive ever seen, he said.

The default position of the criminal justice system, according to Brodin and many other attorneys, is to reflexively protect the killers of Black males, particularly if they are law enforcement officers or their surrogates. This raises a profound question as the state of Georgia prepares to try the McMichaels: Are prosecutors in it to win?

In an email to the Spokesman-Recorder, Brodin wrote: This playing to lose strategy is a theme that runs through many prosecutions of White police or vigilantes who have killed Black men. As you know, there are structural and institutional barriers that interfere when police officers commit crimes, as they are viewed as part of the law enforcement team by prosecutors.

And then systemic racism (tainting judge and jurors) often raises its ugly face at the trial when its a White cop and Black victim. Thankfully we have a few progressive prosecutors (Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn) who are starting to fight the influence of race and class in our criminal justice system, but they are clearly the exceptions.

The result has been a greenlighting of gross police misconduct across the nation.

Zimmerman was, of course, only a police wannabe although he was friendly with patrol officers in the community. The elder McMichael, on the other hand, was a retired officer who had worked as an investigator with the local prosecutors office.

The Thin Blue Line

The video of the assault on Arbery is damning but it is not, in and of itself, enough to win a conviction, explained Spencer, who presently serves as inspector general for the Prince Georges County Sheriffs Department. The often cozy relationship between prosecutors and police tilts the playing field in favor of law enforcement, he said.

During his early days as a prosecutor nearly 30 years ago, he saidit was not uncommon for the prosecutors to encourage defendants to sign a waiver absolving police officers of any liability for the use of excessive force or other misconduct.

The challenges with accountability for potential acts of police misconduct were, are, and will always be problematic because of the structure of our justice system, Spencer said. In my experience most prosecutors avoid being assigned police accountability cases becausethere has been little reward in pursuing them. The cases are always difficult to assess and present because each of the working parts involves many sometimes interlocking relationships.

He continued, Imagine prosecuting a case where the police are the principle or only source of evidence. The police were the first responders to a crime scene or complaint. The police control the crime scene and the quality and quantity of evidence that is collected.

And the police are potentially the principal witnesses or sole witnesses to an event that may have included police misconduct. Trying to pierce the Thin Blue Line is mostly a daunting task.

The Martin case is by no means unique. When the Bronx district attorney in 2000 failed to procure a conviction against four New York City police officers for the fusillade of gunfire that killed an unarmed African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, some immediately questioned whether the State intentionally undermined its case to shore up support for the Citys aggressive police tactics.

One African American juror, Lavette Freeman, told reporters at the time that she understood the protests that followed the verdict, but jurors felt they had no choice but to acquit. I have to take it back to the district attorneys office. They didnt give me anything. Nothing.

Another complication in the case against the McMichaels will undoubtedly be the states Stand Your Ground statute, which was cited by the original prosecutor in the case, George Barnhill, in declining to pursue charges.

Stand Your Ground effectively overturns a legal principle dating back to 17th century British common law requiring that a claimant demonstrate a defensive posture before using lethal force. The Castle Doctrine, however a mans home is his castle provides an exemption in the case of an intruder or burglar.

Stand Your Ground laws expand the legal justification for lethal self-defense and give prosecutors broad discretion to apply the law. While Zimmermans lawyers did not rely on Floridas Stand Your Ground law in their defense, jurors in Martins murder trial were instructed to consider the law in their deliberations. Trayvon Martin was betrayed by the entire American legal community, decried Spencer.

Jon Jeter welcomes reader responses to jjeter@spokesman-recorder.com.

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Killings of Arbery and Martin tragically similar - MSR News Online

IOWA CITY Hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Iowa City Saturday in solidarity for a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pinned his knee on the mans neck, resulting in his death.

Rally organizers as well as a number of black elected officials from Johnson County and Iowa City raised their voices condemning police brutality and calling on their white peers to do more in support of people of color.

Eighteen-year-old Lujayn Hamad and her sister, 20-year-old Raneem Hamad, organized Saturdays rally. Both sisters grew up in Iowa City but now attend college at New York University in New York City.

Even with the risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus, organizers estimated at least 750 protesters filled the Pentacrest lawn and on Clinton Street and Iowa Avenue, which were blocked off by city officials in anticipation of large crowds.

Throughout the event, the crowds chants of black lives matter and hands up, dont shoot echoed throughout downtown.

On Monday, George Floyd died in police custody after officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee to Floyds neck for at least eight minutes, despite the mans pleas of I cant breathe. Chauvin was arrested this week and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Despite the arrest, the violent unrest in Minneapolis continued for a fourth night Friday and into Saturday as rioters continued to loot and vandalize businesses and set fires throughout the city.

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Throughout the speeches at the Iowa City rally, a common thread was the belief that sometimes violence is needed to inspire change.

Im not encouraging the violence, but Im not necessarily discouraging it, either, Lujayn Hamad told The Gazette.

She recounted hearing about the death of Trayvon Martin while a student in Iowa City. Despite his death happening more than a decade ago, nothing has changed, Lujayn Hamad said.

Martin, a black, 17-year-old high school student, was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, who is white, in Sanford, Fla., in 2012. Zimmerman later was acquitted of all charges.

You cannot place blame on the protesters, she said. You cannot blame others for the way they grieve because its been years of silence and years of peace.

Johnson County Supervisor Royceann Porter, the first black county elected official, said the rioters in Minneapolis got to that point because theyre tired.

People are not being heard, she told reporters after the rally. It should not have to move to lead to looting and rioting and go on and on, but if thats the way that the people are going to hear us, thats the only way that people know to do it. Thats why they do it, so that we can get the message across.

She added, We had a murderer at home free, and he needed to be arrested. And if thats what they had to do to get the attention of the people, so then thats what they did.

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On Friday, a peaceful protest in Des Moines attended by hundreds escalated into a violent melee, with the crowd throwing items and jumping on patrol cars. Officers in riot gear responded, using pepper spray on the crowd and arresting more than a dozen protesters, according to reports.

Gov. Kim Reynolds released a statement Saturday afternoon condemning the protest, saying it is never right to react with violence.

The violence that happened last night in Des Moines undermines the message of change and hope that so many seek, Reynolds wrote. A thousand people gathered to exercise their right to protest and to speak their mind. It was a powerful message. But the lawless actions of a few drowned out that message.

But many who attended Saturdays rally in Iowa City seemed to disagree. The first speaker at Iowa Citys rally, who stated individuals should not answer violence with violence during his speech, was met with a chorus of boos and chants from the crowd.

At the same time, Porter said the rally was not calling for similar events to take place in Iowa City.

We dont want it to be violent, were not trying to be violent, she said. We can get our message our without being violent, so thats what (this rally) was all about.

Instead, Porter said she and others are having conversations with other Iowa City leaders to address issues facing people of color in the community, including about affordable housing and meeting the needs of students in local schools.

Lujayn and Raneem Hamad, along with 13 other individuals, left immediately after the rally for Minneapolis, where they plan to join the protests there.

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A GoFundMe page created by the pair for water bottles, masks, gloves and other items they plan to take to protesters reached more than $3,000 by Saturday afternoon. Lujayn Hamad said they plan to donate excess funds to George Floyds family and to the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

Other rallies were scheduled over the weekend for Cedar Rapids and Waterloo. Another rally is planned for 4 to 7 p.m., June 6 at 450 Fifth Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids.

Comments: (319) 398-8469; michaela.ramm@thegazette.com

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Iowa City rally in response to George Floyd death draws hundreds to downtown Iowa City - The Gazette