2 Jun 2020

Black Lives Matter protests: What happened overnight

From Morning Report, 6:43 am on 2 June 2020

A man was shot and killed in Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday night after police officers and National Guard troops began firing into a crowd. - but a tense confrontation in the middle of a crowded street was partially defused when a black woman stepped forward and offered a policeman in riot gear a hug.

They embraced for nearly a minute.

In Birmingham, Alabama protesters started to tear down a Confederate monument that the city had previously covered with a tarp amid a lawsuit between the state attorney general and the city.

In Boston, a police SUV was set ablaze near the State House. In Philadelphia, police officers in riot gear and an armored vehicle used pepper spray to try to repel rioters and looters.

A wall of officers blocked an entrance ramp to Interstate 676 in the city, where the mass transit system suspended service starting at 6pm as part of a citywide curfew.

In New York, demonstrators marched across the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, snarling traffic.

The Manhattan Bridge was briefly shut down to car traffic.

Chaos erupted in Union Square at around 10 pm, with flames leaping up two stories from trash cans and piles of street debris.

The night before in Union Square, the mayor's daughter, Chiara de Blasio, 25, was among the protesters arrested, according to a police official.

In Chicago, the police superintendent, David Brown, excoriated the looters on Sunday as Governor JB Pritzker activated the National Guard at the city's request.