New York: Police moved barricades Sunday so protesters could approach the Trump International Hotel and Tower in midtown Manhattan as thousands continued to march against police brutality — this time without a curfew looming in the night.
Mayor Bill de Blasio lifted the city’s 8 pm curfew ahead of schedule Sunday after a peaceful night Saturday, free of the clashes or ransacking of stores that rocked the city days earlier.
I want to thank everybody who has expressed their views peacefully, de Blasio said Sunday morning.
“I made the decision to end the curfew. And honestly, I hope it’s the last time we will ever need a curfew in New York City.”
The curfew, New York’s first in decades, had been set to remain in effect through at least Sunday, with officials planning to lift it at the same time the city enters the first phase of reopening after nearly three months of shutdowns because of the coronavirus.
The Mayor said a decision hadn’t been made yet on whether to lift a ban on vehicles in Manhattan south of 96th Street after 8 pm.
The move followed New York City police pulling back on enforcing the curfew Saturday as thousands took to the streets for another day of marches and rallies sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Peaceful protests continued Sunday with thousands of protesters, most of them wearing masks, walking through Manhattan chanting Black Lives Matter and George Floyd.
Brandon Watts, a black pastor at Epiphany Church in Brooklyn, mandated that participants wear a mask at a Pray & Protest march he organized Sunday with several other churches. Attendees were offered free coronavirus testing at one of the participating churches. COVID-19 hit the inner city harder than anybody else, Watts said.
And so we have to be very careful. We’re the only ones in a pandemic within a pandemic.
Catherine Corien, a 60-year-old dental hygienist in Brooklyn, held off attending protests all week because she was afraid of catching the virus, but she stood near the back of a protest in Bed-Stuy on Sunday wearing a mask and keeping some distance from other protesters.
“I’m very concerned, but at the same time, a lot of people, if they are like me and decided to stay home, nothing would have happened,” she said.