(Reuters) – Armed police supporters and anti-racist protesters clashed Saturday near the famous Kentucky Derby horse race as police and pro-racial justice protests continued in U.S. cities.
As the afternoon progressed, a giant organization of protesters marched toward the Churchill Downs circuit chanting “No Justice, No Derby,” a nod to an earlier call from activists for the cancellation of the historic race in Louisville, Kentucky.viewers to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Meanwhile, an organization of some two hundred NFAC members, a black defense force that protested the killings through the black police, had accumulated in a park outside Churchill Downs and were examining their weapons, with the preliminaries underway inside.
Louisville emerged as a flashpoint in a summer of riots due to the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman who died when local police broke into her apartment with an “un called” warrant in March.
Earlier on Saturday, some of the outdoor countermanifestants at Churchill Downs, brandishing pistols and long guns, clashed with an organization of Black Lives Matter protesters and engaged in mockery fights.People on both sides shouted, they faced each other.About forty-five minutes, police evicted others from the park, but outdoor protests at Churchill Downs continued.
The counter-demonstrators included about 250 protesters in favor of the police, as well as Dylan Stevens, the leader of an organization known as “The Angry Viking.”According to his website, Stevens supports Republican President Donald Trump, the police, the army and the right to arms..
Protests against racism and police brutality have spread across the United States since May 25, when George Floyd, a black man, died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for about nine minutes.
In Portland, Oregon, the focal point of the protest, police arrested 27 other people overnight, most commonly for interference with law enforcement or disorderly conduct.
“Officers began to make targeted arrests and, in some cases, pushed back crowds and prevented them from leaving the streets,” police said in a press release Saturday.
A protester was arrested injured by a “bleeding abrasion” on the head, police said.
Portland has become the epicentre of the protests, with demonstrations every night for more than 3 months calling for police and social justice reforms, which have turned into clashes between protesters and officers, as well as between right and left.Groups.
Police shot and killed a self-proclaimed anti-phascist activist in Washington state on Thursday as they moved to arrest him on suspicion of fatally shooting a right-wing counter-defender last weekend in Portland.
The Trump administration sent federal agents to Portland in July to quell the protests.Trump signed a memorandum Wednesday that threatens to cut federal investment in “lawless” cities, Portland.
His Democratic rival in November’s presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden, accused Trump of stoking violence with his rhetoric.
On Friday night in Rochester, New York, nearly 1,000 protesters marched downtown to protest the death in March of black man Daniel Prude in police custody.
This week, Trump and Biden visited Kenosha, Wisconsin, a Midwest city, the scene of clashes between protesters, policemen and militiamen after a white policeman shot Jacob Blake in the back several times, who was paralyzed from the waist down.
Biden met Blake’s family circle and spoke to Blake on the phone and expressed sympathy for those protesting police violence.
Trump has visited broken businesses, criticized those he calls “lawless” protesters, and defended police as advocates of “law and order,” while refusing to convict right-wing armed paramilitaries accused of attacking protesters in Kenosha.
An organization called RefuseFascism.org said she held protests in 23 cities on Saturday, calling Trump’s movements a form of fascism that would worsen if she were elected to a four-year term.
(The story corrects the sixth paragraph to show that “Angry Viking” is a man’s nickname, a group’s call)
Reporting through Rich McKay in Atlanta, Jonathan Allen in New York, Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, and Bryan Woolston and Jim Urquhart in Louisville, Kentucky; Editing via Aurora Ellis, Alistair Bell, and Jonathan Oatis
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