Progress at Columbia I Can’t Breathe Protest
June 2, 2020
The temperature seems to be cooling slightly in Columbia.
For the first time since protests started locally, no law enforcement in riot gear were needed, at least where I was. And no ‘less lethal’ rounds were fired. And no tear gas was used.
Mayor Stephen Benjamin sat and spoke with protestors for nearly an hour before the a 9-minute ‘die-in’.
There were, to my knowledge, five people ‘detained’ during today’s protest at the State House. Several of their friends have said they have not been charged with a crime as of writing this.
During the entire protest, members of the Columbia Police Department had monitored the situation from across the street. As the afternoon wore on, several protestors made their way over to them and openly, calmly, aired their grievances. Fists were bumped. Hands were shook. Hugs were given. Progress, hopefully, was made.
Protestors chanted for the officers to ‘stand with us’, but the officers would not cross the street. I can’t confirm it, but I overheard a CPD officer saying they were instructed to stay off the grounds of the State House and to just observe from their vantage point.
At 5:27 p.m., word was passed around that a curfew had been set for 5:30 p.m., which sent many people away. Yesterday riot police had used tear gas to disperse a crowd caught minutes after curfew. As it turns out, there was no curfew set… until 7:45 p.m. The alert for that curfew didn’t reach phones until 7:56 p.m. Again, the crowd disbanded quickly.
Hopefully things can continue in a peaceful direction and we can head toward a new, less volatile, normal.
