Shouting "Shut it down!" a group of protesters organized by local social justice activists wound their way from downtown Buffalo through the East Side, past three police districts Monday afternoon.
Mercedes Overstreet, who heads a group called Young Visionaries and promoted the demonstration via Facebook, wanted Monday's protest to be peaceful and focused on local instances of deadly and violent encounters with police, including a violent arrest now under investigation by Buffalo police of Quentin Suttles on May 10 that was captured on video.
Overstreet urged the crowd that gathered in Niagara Square, which had been the scene of violent protests the past weekend, to walk with her to Main and Tupper streets, near the entrance to the Kensington Expressway to shut down rush hour traffic.
Protesters make their way down Tupper Street in Buffalo. pic.twitter.com/w2T9kGtDX7
— Harry Scull Jr (@hsjrphoto) June 1, 2020
They marched toward the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center first, then a few blocks away, protesters soon discovered a line of State Police in riot gear waiting for them at Oak and Tupper streets. Other police in camouflage formed another line. Protesters did not succeed in blocking an on-ramp to the Kensington Expressway.
#Buffaloprotest met by police on Tupper before attempts to block entrance to route 33 pic.twitter.com/ohEq1eGg36
— Sharon Cantillon (@SharonCantillon) June 1, 2020
But they kept going.
For the next two hours the protesters energetically yet peacefully marched along the East Side thoroughfares of Genesee Street and Fillmore and Bailey avenues, with short stops in front of the Central, Ferry-Fillmore and Northeast District police stations, each of which were heavily guarded by dozens of police.
As protesters headed east on Genesee Street, the march remained calm. They walked in the middle of the street as a patrol car moved slowly ahead of the group.
The diverse group of mostly young protesters chanted, "I love black people," as they walked along the middle of Genesee.
Many in the march chanted, “I can’t breathe,” the last words of George Floyd before he died a week ago after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes. The fatal arrest sparked protests not only in Minneapolis but across the nation, including Buffalo.
During the march, police officers and protesters kept their cool, only interacting a few times. In the beginning of the march, large groups of police in riot gear blocked access to some roads but as the march progressed east, police cars moved ahead of and behind the marchers, providing protection from traffic. Many of the protesters walked their bicycles. When the bicyclists rang their bells, the other protesters raised their fists.
As marchers approached the Buffalo Police Department's C District station, at the intersection of East Ferry Street and Fillmore, with some officers watching from the roof, they chanted, "Hands up, don't shoot."
Police officers stood in front of the entrance of the police station. Protesters stopped for a minute then kept marching.
Protesters walk on Genesee Street near Hickory on Monday, June 1, 2020. (Derek Gee/Buffalo News)
In front of the Northeast District police station on Bailey Avenue, Overstreet, standing on a car and speaking into a bullhorn, urged the crowd to come back to City Hall every day at 4 p.m. to march along the streets of Buffalo. She urged people to not be violent and to make change through peaceful protest and legislation.
The marchers knelt and raised their fists in front of the police station, closing down Bailey Avenue, and then an organizer told the crowd the time had come to go home. They chanted: “Go in peace, not in pieces."
Later Monday night, Buffalo police deployed pepper balls in dealing with protesters gathered outside the department's Northeast District station, Capt. Jeff Rinaldo said.
Just before 9 p.m. Monday, police used loudspeakers to ask the crowd to leave the area around the station on Bailey Avenue, a WIVB-TV reporter posted on Twitter. Some people started to throw rocks and water bottles in the direction of the police and officers started making arrests, the reporter posted on Twitter.
A short time after 9 p.m., an ambulance was dispatched to treat a police officer who suffered minor injuries during the exchange, Rinaldo said. Protesters also broke a window of a police vehicle, he reported.
The protest against police brutality started shortly after Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz had talked about the area's protesters. He said he hoped Monday's demonstration would be peaceful, noting Sunday did not bring the kind of damage that resulted from some people on Saturday night.
“I think that has a lot to do with our community standing up and saying we’re not going to be defined by violence," Poloncarz said. "We’re going to be defined by the individuals who helped clean up the mess that had resulted after Saturday night’s incidents in Buffalo.
“And I think that’s really what the spirit of this region is – the City of Good Neighbors, the County of Good Neighbors, as we come together to stand up to violence in all its forms, to talk about how we need to solve the issues of racial injustice.”
Protestors march outside Buffalo Police C District to focus on local people who have died or have been the center of police brutality on Monday, June 1, 2020. (Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News)
Ezekiel Brunson, 19, who lives in the city's Fruit Belt neighborhood, said he marched because “an injustice somewhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The young black man said he has been profiled for the color of his skin. He said he recently went shopping in Amherst. While driving home with a friend, police pulled him over, he said. He said he was told to get out of his car and then placed in handcuffs. He said he had done nothing wrong.
“Right now, this is no better time for change,” he said.
India Walton, a community activist and organizer, said she was impressed as the number of marchers grew to at least 150 people.
“It was peaceful. It grew," Walton said. "There was every kind of people, from clergy to bikers to nurses to small kids.”
She likes the idea of repeating the protests.
“I hope we do this every single day," she said. "It’s been a long time coming. People say, 'This is Buffalo, we don’t have those problems.' But we know we do.”
News Staff Reporter Aaron Besecker contributed to this report.
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