Protests over the killing of a Minnesota man by police erupted in San Jose Friday, with demonstrators shutting down Highway 101 for a brief period and police lobbing canisters of tear gas at crowds downtown.
The protests, which began midafternoon in downtown San Jose, did not dissipate until after 11 p.m. At one point, a deputy fired at an SUV that struck protesters demonstrating at Sixth and Santa Clara streets.
The vehicle incident was captured on video around 9:05 p.m. after the car drove toward a group of protesters and then backed into the crowd, hitting at least two people before it sped away.
“The vehicle was coming my way and I ran to the side,” said Saul Duarte, a protester who filmed the incident. “The whole crowd started chasing the car but it got away. After that, everyone surrounded the two injured people and tried helping but the cops started tear-gassing us.”
It was one of several chaotic confrontations that took place across the country Friday, as protesters came out to the streets by the thousands to denounce the killing of George Floyd, an African-American man, by police officers in Minneapolis earlier this week.
A large demonstration at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland Friday also culminated in chaos and looting, with demonstrators breaking the windows of businesses and making off with armloads of merchandise. Meanwhile, yet another group of protesters also shut down traffic on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge for a portion of the evening.
In San Jose, demonstrators from across the Bay Area stopped traffic in both directions on Highway 101 and on city streets Friday afternoon to show their solidarity with Floyd. While some vented their frustration by lighting small fires and cracking windows in the city’s downtown core, the majority of the protesters were peaceful.
Crowds of several hundred people first gathered outside city hall around 2 p.m., before fanning out through downtown San Jose. More than 200 marched along Santa Clara Street, weaving around cars and delivery trucks that were honking in support; a car circled downtown with the words of Martin Luther King Jr. — “sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression” — ringing out from the speakers.
As police officers began shooting gas canisters to disperse crowds downtown, the protest then spilled onto Highway 101.
After marching through downtown San Jose, demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd stopped traffic on Highway 101. The protestors have been peaceful and have moved on toward city hall. Video: Maya Ayoubi pic.twitter.com/xdizzSJLX2
— Mercury News (@mercnews) May 29, 2020
Activist James Manke, 22, attended the demonstration with plans to hand out water to the marcher. When he arrived in San Jose at 4 p.m., he said, the demonstration was calm and organizers still planned to lead the group back to City Hall for a rally and speeches.
When they encountered a line of police officers and sheriff’s deputies, however, “emotions changed,” Manke said.
A line of police formed that blocked off people at the front and back of the demonstration, according to Manke.
As police shouted at the crowd to move back, officers began jabbing protesters with batons, before quickly escalating to tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades. Demonstrators threw water bottles and other objects toward the line of officers, striking at least one police officer, according to a law-enforcement source.
Police detained several people, forcing at least two down onto the ground before taking them into custody. One man’s face bled onto the sidewalk as he was handcuffed. Another punched a police officer in the face, knocking him to the ground, after the officer snatched a cell phone from the man’s hand and tossed it aside.
“I’ve never been to anything where this has happened before,” Manke said about the police reaction to the protests. “It was shocking.”
The officer was carried away from the area and later helped to his feet SJPD spokesperson Officer Gina Tepoorten confirmed an officer had been taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
As the protest continued into the evening, police officers steadily pushed demonstrators back toward city hall. There, they knelt down in rows three-deep and chanted, “What’s his name? George Floyd.”
As police closed in on the intersection of 6th and Santa Clara streets, they formed a line, snaking around the building to separate a ballooning group of demonstrators. “We need to cut them off,” one officer shouted. Minutes later, police had donned gas masks and prepared to hose the crowd in the chemical. “Gas is coming again, guys,” a man in the crowd yelled to those behind him.
Just after 9 p.m., a large crowd blocked the same intersection, cutting off an SUV as it tried to make its way through the group. When some protesters began rushing at the vehicle, the driver attempted to make a U-turn — running over at least two people in reverse.
WARNING: Disturbing images.
We were covering the protest in San Jose when this SUV sped up toward crowd then reversed, hitting at least two people.
Video courtesy: Julian Romero pic.twitter.com/0MeoapW0VD
— Maria Cid Medina (@Maria_MedinaTV) May 30, 2020
A Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputy fired at the fleeing SUV, police confirmed, and a law-enforcement source said it appears the vehicle was hit.
Police did not say whether the SUV and its driver were still at large, and would not give the condition of the two people hit by the SUV. The San Jose Police Department is investigating the incident, as is the District Attorney’s Office.
As the night wound down, a smaller group of protesters — including a number of San Jose State University students — gathered downtown until around 11 p.m. Little fires consisting of rubbish and fallen branches could be seen on the sides of the streets, but it was unclear what started them.
In a statement released amid the protests Friday, Mayor Sam Liccardo expressed support for the demonstrating against Floyd’s killing, but warned that police would not tolerate violence.
“Anger and peaceful protest will always be appropriate responses to injustice; violence will never be,” Liccardo said. “San Jose is united in outrage over the atrocious crime committed in Minneapolis and in sadness over George Floyd’s horrible death. SJPD will take a measured approach in facilitating peaceful protest, but there will be no tolerance of violence to our people or damage to our city.”
Jane Marin and her daughter Deja Richard, 12, of East San Jose, heard about the protest on Facebook and arrived Friday afternoon to march.
“I feel like this is a sad way to introduce my daughter into reality,” Marin said, adding that her daughter’s father is black. Richard said she wasn’t quite sure how she was feeling about the protest yet. Behind her, streams of people walked away from the intersection where protestors and police cars had faced each other minutes earlier.
Fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was taken into custody Friday by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of Floyd, according to an announcement from Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.
In a viral video this week, Chauvin drove his knee into Floyd’s neck while Floyd shouted, “I can’t breathe.” After minutes — as other officers watched on — Floyd eventually went limp and was later declared dead.
“The ongoing killings of non-violent black men in America is more than just tragic — it’s part of the culture of the country,” longtime San Jose civil rights leader Walter Wilson said. “The fact that even though we have video cameras and it’s still ongoing makes it even more disturbing.”
Wilson, the CEO at the Silicon Valley Minority Business Consortium, cited President Trump’s rhetoric as a catalyst for violence against the black community in the United States.
“Our lives really don’t matter, black people, particularly black men, our lives have no value in this country or very little,” Wilson said. “The whole opportunity for this stuff to exist and proliferate under this current administration, this president gives air and oxygen to what’s happening toward black people.”
Staff writer Linda Zavoral contributed to this story.
