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LIVE UPDATES: Downtown Orlando streets closed for demonstration in response to George Floyd’s death

Floyd pleaded for air as white police officer pressed knee on his neck

ORLANDO, Fla. – Here’s the latest on the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck:

DELAND -- A march through the downtown of DeLand brought both community members and law enforcement to walk side by side.

The city said there were about 1,000 people who came out for the march, which was peaceful.

The march lasted about two hours in the downtown area.

ORLANDO -- South Street and Orange Avenue were closed due to protests in response to George Floyd’s death. About 2,000 people gathered downtown where a peaceful demonstration is taking place in front of Orlando City Hall.

Police said the demonstrations impacted State Road 408 and drivers were asked to avoid the toll road through downtown Orlando.

The demonstration began around 3 p.m. but hundreds of people have been joining the event for several hours.

As of 4:30 p.m., the Orlando Police Department said the crowd of protesters had grown to include more than 2,000 people.

“We appreciate everyone that participated peacefully. Unfortunately, a few remaining participants threw rocks and bottles at officers, so we had to deploy smoke and eventually tear gas after continued aggression,” Orlando Police said in a statement.

Police said one officer was struck, but he will be OK.

TALLAHASSEE --Despite businesses being damages in Orange County and around the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis said there are “no reports of widespread property damage” in his latest statement.

“I appreciate all the hard work being done by our local officials, the Florida National Guard, the Florida Highway Patrol and our law enforcement to help ensure the safety of residents and visitors, as well as those who are engaging in peaceful First Amendment activity," DeSantis said in a statement. “Over the past 24 hours, demonstrations have remained largely peaceful thanks to these collaborative efforts. We will remain vigilant and stand ready in the event something changes. Florida will not tolerate rioting, looting or violence. We encourage all residents and visitors to continue abiding by local curfews and directives and thank everyone for their cooperation.”

The governor has yet to make an in person public address since demonstrations began in response to George Floyd’s death. The statement sent by his office Tuesday was the second comment he has made since Florida demonstrations started over the weekend.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam rejected a request from Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to send between 3,000 to 5,000 of the state’s national guard to Washington D.C. as part of a massive show of force organized by the Trump administration in response to violent protests, according to Northam’s chief of staff, Clark Mercer.

Mercer said Trump’s comments to governors in a phone call Monday, in which the president said most governors were “weak” and needed to “dominate” the streets, played a role in the decision.

“The president’s remarks to the governors heightened our concerns about how the guard would be used,” he said.

NEW YORK -- New York’s mayor extended an 8 p.m. curfew all week in hopes of stopping destruction that continued overnight despite the city’s efforts to stop protests over George Floyd’s death from devolving into lawless mayhem.

“We’re going to have a tough few days. We’re going to beat it back,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Tuesday as he announced that an 8 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew would hold through Sunday.

The plan came after a night when chaos broke out in midtown Manhattan and the Bronx.

On Monday, an 11 p.m. curfew -- the city’s first in decades -- failed to prevent destruction as groups of people smashed their way into shops, including Macy’s flagship Manhattan store.

Police said nearly 700 people were arrested and several officers were injured during the chaos Monday night and early Tuesday.

LAS VEGAS -- Separate shootings in Las Vegas during continuing protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis have left one man dead and a police officer gravely wounded.

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Tuesday that the officer was on life support after being shot as police tried to disperse a crowd of protesters outside a Las Vegas strip hotel and casino.

Lombardo says the other shooting happened outside a federal building. He says a man was shot by officers several times after he reached for a weapon. The identities of the wounded officer and the fatally shot man have not been made public.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Authorities say at least one police officer in St. Petersburg suffered a minor injury during a late-night protest outside of the agency’s headquarters.

St. Petersburg police said in a Facebook post that a group of about 200 protesters were outside the headquarters around 11 p.m. Monday when some in the crowd tore the covers off parking meters and threw them at officers.

Several protesters then threw rocks and bottles at officers. Police say they deployed smoke and the crowd dispersed.

Also Monday night, police stopped a vehicle with potential projectile objects inside. Three people were arrested.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota’s attorney general says prosecutors are working as fast as they can to determine whether more charges will be filed against officers involved in the death of George Floyd, but they also have to work carefully and methodically.

Attorney General Keith Ellison was appointed lead prosecutor in the case Sunday. He told “Good Morning America” on Tuesday that those who have culpability will be held accountable.

Floyd, who was black, died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck as Floyd said he couldn’t breathe and became motionless. Derek Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. But members of Floyd’s family and many others are calling for more serious charges, as well as charges against the three other officers who were there.

Ellison says despite the widely viewed bystander video of Floyd’s final moments, cases against police are hard. He pointed to the deaths of Freddie Gray and Philando Castile, and the beating of Rodney King, as examples of cases where striking video of an incident did not lead to convictions of officers.

Ellison did not give a timeline for any new charges. All four officers have been fired.

TOPEKA, Kan. -- Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly says that bringing the military “into this contentious moment” would do more harm than good.

Kelly on Monday expressed sympathy for George Floyd’s family, families of other people killed by police and people outraged by Floyd’s “tragic murder.” She promised to work to address systemic racism.

“We need our leaders -- myself included -- to listen to those who felt their only means of being heard was to take to the street in protest,” Kelly said after President Donald Trump threatened to deploy the military to states if they did not stamp out violent protests.

“We need action to change the systemic inequalities we have ignored for far too long. We need to stop with the divisive language and instead, come together and do what’s right for our state,” Kelly added.

She noted that Kansas protests have been peaceful and promised to work closely with local officials to ensure public safety.

ORLANDO -- Four St. Louis police officers and a Las Vegas officer were shot overnight during protests, but demonstrations in Orlando have been mostly peaceful.

Local leaders said Monday they’re working to review law enforcement policies and help in peaceful demonstrations.

Orange County Sheriff John Mina said he works with the Sheriff’s Office Citizens Advisory Committee on policy changes and he regularly looks to the independent group for recommendations.

“One of the things that I will be doing in the future is to once again, (give) a whole overview to my Citizen Advisory Committee on the use of force, our statistics and go over the policy once again as we have done in the past and get their input related to even recent events,” Mina said.

Mina and Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon were standing outside of Orlando Police Department headquarters as demonstrators lined up in front of the building when Mina said they had productive dialogue with an organizer.

“We want to hear his concerns, and we are open to listening to him and he told me about a police shooting here, one of his friends, and we said ‘We understand we’ve, we’ve had friends killed in the line of duty, we understand where your pain is and we know the community is hurting,’ and they asked us to take a knee,” Mina said of the moment, adding, “We’re all in this together and we should work together to solve our issues.”

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, the former Orange County sheriff, said the county has been planning a candid conversation in a town hall-style format as part of its MLK initiative. He hopes to release details on the forum later this week.

WASHINGTON -- The streets around the White House complex were shut Tuesday morning, guarded by a mix of Secret Service officers and FBI agents.

Overnight, a fence was constructed around Lafayette Park and along 17th St at Pennsylvania Ave, two areas that have been focal points for protests.

Work crews were still at work boarding up businesses in the area and attempting to remove graffiti from federal buildings.

WASHINGTON -- A man in the nation’s capital said he sheltered about 70 protesters in his home all night after they got caught between police lines after curfew.

Rahul Dubey told WJLA-TV he was sitting on his porch around 8:30 p.m. last night when law enforcement officers began corralling protesters on his street. He let some sit with him, and helped others out through his back alley, but the situation then escalated when officers started pushing protesters to the ground and releasing pepper spray, creating a “human tsunami” into his home.

“I was hanging on my railing yelling, ‘Get in the house! Get in the house!”’ he told The Washington Post.

Officers also released pepper-spray through the window after he closed the door, Dubey told WJLA-TV. The protesters inside the home screamed, and started pouring water and milk into their eyes in a scene he described as “pure mayhem.”

One officer came to the door to ask for a piece of the pizza that was delivered to the house overnight as Dubey was on the phone with the TV station, WJLA reported. The protesters left the home after 6 a.m. Tuesday when the district’s curfew ended.

ST. LOUIS -- Police in St. Louis say officers in a marked police car were fired on early Tuesday from a car occupied by suspected looters.

The incident led to a chase that ended in the suburb of Jennings, where one of the suspects was shot. Police said the incident was separate from a shooting around midnight Monday in which four St. Louis officers were shot and injured.

The Jennings shooting began when officers in a marked police car on the north side of St. Louis who were searching for looting suspects were fired on from men inside a car, police said. That led to a chase that ended in Jennings, just north of St. Louis, when the three suspects bailed out of the car, and one was shot by a St. Louis County officer, police said.

One man, identified only as 21 years old, was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. Police said another man who had been in the car was arrested, and a third escaped.

No officers were injured in the Jennings shooting.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Family members of George Floyd are expected to attend a memorial service in his honor Thursday in Minneapolis.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is to deliver the eulogy at the service on the campus of North Central University.

The civil rights organization Sharpton founded, National Action Network, organized the memorial. The family’s attorney, Ben Crump, is also expected to make remarks at the service from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

A Minneapolis police officer was charged last week with third-degree murder in Floyd’s death May 25, and three other officers were fired. Bystander video showed the white officer, Derek Chauvin, holding his knee on the neck of the black man while he pleaded for air with his hands handcuffed behind him.

WASHINGTON -- Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser said on CNN on Tuesday it’s inappropriate for the military to be used for police work on U.S. streets.

“We don’t think that the active duty military should be used on American streets against Americans,” he said.

“It’s an inappropriate use of our military. And we have police in Washington, D.C. We have federal police in Washington, D.C., to focus on the federal properties, and that is an appropriate use. Police have policing power, and bringing in the military to do police work is inappropriate in any state in the United States of America without the consent of the governor, and it would be inappropriate in Washington, D.C.”

LAS VEGAS — An officer has been shot in Las Vegas and authorities are responding to another shooting as people protest the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, authorities said.

The officer was shot in the area of the Las Vegas Strip and an officer was involved in a shooting in the downtown area, according to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department

Protesters have been rallying for days across the country over the death of George Floyd, a black man seen on video pleading that he couldn’t breathe while a white police officer pressing his knee into his neck for several minutes before he stopped moving.

Police in Las Vegas said Monday that 338 people were arrested during three nights of protests. Police said suspects were jailed despite a local court policy calling for most people accused of misdemeanors to receive court summons to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump’s warning that he will deploy the United States military to any state that refuses to take aggressive action against rioting rests on a longstanding presidential power that gives wide latitude to the White House.

That’s according to legal experts, who say the president does indeed have the authority under the Insurrection Act of 1807 to dispatch the military in states that are unable to put down an insurrection or are defying federal law.

Even so, the president’s comments set up an immediate conflict with officials in some states, who disputed that the president had unilateral authority to send in troops against their will.

BERLIN -- Germany’s foreign minister says the peaceful protests in the United States following the death of George Floyd are “understandable and more than legitimate.”

Heiko Maas said in Berlin on Tuesday that his thoughts are with the friends and family of Floyd, who “lost his life in a truly terrible and shocking way, or one should say it was taken from him.”

Maas said that peaceful protests must always be allowed. He added that “the peaceful protest we are seeing in the United States -- with many very moving gestures including by American police officers -- this protest is understandable and more than legitimate.”

He added: “I can only express my hope that the peaceful protests do not continue to lead to violence, but even more express the hope that these protests have an effect in the United States.”

Maas also stressed that journalists must be able to do their jobs without risking their safety and criticized violence against them.

SEOUL — South Korea’s Foreign Ministry says it has far confirmed 79 cases of property damage at stores run by Korean Americans amid U.S. protests over the death of George Floyd.

The ministry, which held a teleconferencing meeting with diplomats based in the United States to review the demonstrations’ impact on Korean Americans and South Korean citizens, said Tuesday it has yet to confirm any injuries or deaths.

The ministry says 50 cases of property damage were reported from Philadelphia, 10 from Minneapolis, five form Raleigh and four from Atlanta.

BRUSSELS -- The European Union’s top diplomat said Tuesday the death of George Floyd was the result of an abuse of power and that the 27-nation bloc is “shocked and appalled” by it.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters that “like the people of the United States, we are shocked and appalled by the death of George Floyd.”

Floyd died last week after he was pinned to the pavement by a white police officer in Minneapolis who put his knee on the handcuffed black man’s neck until he stopped breathing. His death set off protests that spread across America.

Borrell says law enforcement officials must not be “using their capacities in the way that has been used in this very, very unhappy death of George Floyd. This is an abuse of power and this has to be denounced.”

He underlined that Europeans “support the right to peaceful protest, and also we condemn violence and racism of any kind, and for sure, we call for a de-escalation of tensions.”

Borrell says “we trust in the ability of the Americans to come together, to heal as a nation and to address these important issues during these difficult times.”

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- The Hungarian soccer federation has issued a written reprimand to a player of African origin who showed his undershirt with the words “Justice for George Floyd” after scoring for Ferencvaros in its 1-1 draw with Puskas Akademia on Sunday.

Tokmac Nguen was born in a refugee camp in Kenya to parents from South Sudan and grew up in Norway.

The federation’s disciplinary committee said in its ruling issued Monday that any similar actions by Nguen in the future would result in “actual penalties” on each occasion.

Just hours after Nguen’s reprimand, FIFA, the world soccer’s governing body urged soccer competition organizers to apply “common sense” and consider not sanctioning players demanding justice for Floyd during matches.

The German soccer federation is investigating similar actions by four players in the Bundesliga, including American midfielder Weston McKennie, who wore an armband over his Schalke jersey with the handwritten message “Justice for George.”

SYDNEY — More than 1,000 protesters marched through downtown Sydney on Tuesday in solidarity with Americans demonstrating against the death of George Floyd half a world away.

Police escorted a crowd carrying banners that said: “Black Lives Matter,” “Aboriginal Lives Matter,” “White Silence is Violence” and “We See You, We Hear You, We Stand With You.”

The group marched from Hyde Park to New South Wales state Parliament with plans to continue to the U.S. Consulate.

The protest proceeded despite some organizers canceling it Monday for fear of conflict with counter protesters. But no counter protest emerged.

Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered in Australia’s west coast city of Perth on Monday night to peacefully protest Floyd’s death, and rallies are planned for other Australian cities this week.

Referring to the violence in U.S. streets, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said “there’s no need to import things ... happening in other countries here to Australia.”

ST. LOUIS — Police say four officers were hit by gunfire after protests in St. Louis that started peacefully Monday became violent overnight, with demonstrators smashing windows and stealing items from businesses and fires burning in the downtown area.

The police department tweeted early Tuesday that the officers were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening. It was unclear who had fired the shots.

The chaos in St. Louis followed continued protests Monday in Missouri over the death of George Floyd and police treatment of African Americans, with gatherings also held in Kansas City and Jefferson City.

On Monday afternoon, several hundred people rallied peacefully outside the justice center in downtown St. Louis, including Mayor Lyda Krewson and St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards. Protestors later walked to the Gateway Arch National Park and then onto nearby Interstate 64.

But later Monday, protesters gathered in front of police headquarters, where officers fired tear gas. Some protesters smashed windows at a downtown 7-11 store and stole items from inside before the building was set on fire.

NEW YORK — New York City imposed a late-night curfew Monday that failed to prevent another night of destruction, including arrests after a break-in at the iconic Macy’s store on 34th Street, following protests over George Floyd’s death.

As the 11 p.m. deadline to get off the streets approached, bands of protesters marched peacefully through Manhattan and Brooklyn, but police simultaneously responded to numerous reports of roving groups of people smashing their way into shops and emptying them of merchandise.

The doors of Macy’s flagship Manhattan store were breached. Police pulled two handcuffed men out and put them in a van.

People rushed into a Nike store and carried out armloads of clothing. Near Rockefeller Center, storefront windows were smashed and multiple people arrested. Bank windows were smashed. Wreckage littered the inside of an AT&T store.

Video posted on social media showed some protesters arguing with people breaking windows, urging them to stop, but instances of vandalism and smash-and-grab thefts mounted as the night deepened.

New York joined other cities around the country in imposing a curfew after days of unrest. It comes on top of months of restrictions on public gatherings already imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Enough mayhem happened before the curfew took effect that Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted that it would move up to 8 p.m. Tuesday. The curfew lifts at 5 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Workers in Alabama’s largest city began removing a Confederate monument Monday night after demonstrators failed to knock down the obelisk the night before.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin sent workers with heavy equipment to take down the more than 50-foot-tall Confederate monument made of stone. Late on Monday, after a 7 p.m. curfew took effect and streets were mostly clear, crews began their work.

Live video showed workers attaching straps to the peak of the obelisk so it could be lifted away with a crane. Within a few hours they had removed the top of the monument.

Woodfin said the city would see if the memorial could be given to a museum or another group.

Woodfin said the fine the city may face for violating a state law banning the removal of Confederate and other long-standing monuments is more affordable than the cost of continued unrest in the city.

Attorney General Steve Marshall, in a statement, said the city would face an assessment of $25,000 if it removed the monument, which has been the subject of a court fight between the mostly black city and Republican-controlled state.

CICERO, Ill. — Two people have been killed during unrest in the Chicago suburb of Cicero as protests continued over the death of George Floyd, according to a town official.

Spokesman Ray Hanania says 60 people were arrested in the town of about 84,000 located west of Chicago. Hanania didn’t provide additional information about those killed or the circumstances of their deaths.

The Illinois State Police and Cook County Sheriff’s Office were called in to help local police Monday as people broke into a liquor store and other businesses and stole items.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A vehicle plowed through a group of law enforcement officers at a George Floyd demonstration Monday night in Buffalo, injuring at least two.

Video from the scene shows the vehicle accelerating through an intersection shortly after officers apparently tackle a protester on the street and handcuff him. Officers are seen scattering to avoid the SUV as it drives off on Buffalo’s east side. Apparent gunshots are heard.

The officers were taken to Erie County Medical Center. Authorities said they were in sta


About the Author
Daniel Dahm headshot

Daniel started with WKMG-TV in 2000 and became the digital content manager in 2009. When he's not working on ClickOrlando.com, Daniel likes to head to the beach or find a sporting event nearby.

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