City supports exercise of First Amendment rights
On day nine of the national protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, Minn., Gallup activists demonstrated their concerns about police brutality and support of equal rights in a protest that began at 4 pm June 3 on the north side of the city, on U.S. Highway 491, near the front of the Denny’s restaurant.
Photographer Cable Hoover said the protesters stayed in that location for about an hour and then marched across the Muñoz Bridge to the south side. He said it seemed like the group that numbered about 120 people, many of them Caucasian and Native, with a few African Americans in the crowd, meandered, traveling in a sort of circle. They eventually settled at Courthouse Square.
In so doing, they managed to avoid both police and a group of about half a dozen people who called themselves citizen peacekeepers. The peacekeepers were carrying weapons and wearing body armor. They didn’t offer their names.
Hoover said the people at Courthouse Square were peaceful, friendly and energetic. They displayed signs, similar to many seen in other protests around the nation, including, “Black Lives Matter,” “I can’t breathe,” “George Floyd,” “No justice, no peace,’ and the names of other victims of similar, though not always police-related violence, such as Trayvon Martin, who was shot in 2012.
By Beth Blakeman
Associate Editor
