Thousands of peaceful protesters gathered in Washington, D.C., and other cities over the weekend for demonstrations demanding justice-system overhauls after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis police custody, reports the Wall Street Journal. In Washington, many protesters streamed to the newly named Black Lives Matter Plaza, where the city has painted the phrase in giant yellow letters on the street. President Donald Trump, inside a White House surrounded by newly installed barricades, tweeted “LAW & ORDER” on Saturday night. The group was so large that it took more than 30 minutes for people to fully clear out of the space. Protests took place in New York City, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Boston and Raeford, N.C., the small town where Floyd was born. In Los Angeles Sunday, where thousands of demonstrators marched through Hollywood, Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was defaced with graffiti, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In New York City, officials lifted an 8 pm curfew Sunday night. Some cities have announced changes in response to the protests. In Minneapolis, the city council said it would ban police chokeholds and require officers to immediately report and intervene in any such unauthorized use of force. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for state police to stop using strangleholds.