Live updates: Marchers take to South County streets to protest police brutality
Two protests occurred in SLO County today over the death of George Floyd while in police custody:
- Hundreds marched in San Luis Obispo for the sixth straight day. Find coverage here.
Update, 6:40 p.m.:
Around 6 p.m., protesters held a final moment of silence for Breonna Taylor while some people yelled angrily from a nearby Burger King parking lot.
Police arrived to defuse the tense situation.
As of 6:30 p.m., the intersection had reopened and the protest was officially over. But several dozen participants still remained chanting on street corners.
Grover Beach Police Chief John Peters told protesters to stay as long as they wanted but to stay safe and keep on the sidewalk. He also encouraged them to ask for help if needed.
Update, 6 p.m.:
About 200 protesters gathered Friday afternoon for a rally at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Oak Park Boulevard in Grover Beach.
After about an hour, the demonstrators moved from the sidewalks into into the street, where they sang “Happy Birthday” to Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was fatally shot in her home by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers. She would have turned 27 Friday.
They then observed a moment of silence lasting eight minutes and 46 seconds in honor of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for that amount of time.
Before the moment of silence began, a speaker said that police brutality is “going to keep happening unless we do this. Unless we make the change. Unless we let our voices be heard.”
The moment of silence was briefly interrupted by people standing on the sidewalk singing the national anthem in front of a line of trucks with American flags mounted in their beds. Some vehicles also sported flags for Jerk Pirates off-road group.
Chanting “No justice, no peace, no racist police” and “Black lives matter,” the protesters then began marching — heading up Grand Avenue, turning onto Elm Street and Ash Street before returning to the intersection of Oak Park Boulevard and Grand Avenue.
Original story:
Some businesses along Grand Avenue in Grover Beach boarded up their windows ahead of a planned peaceful protest in Grover Beach on Friday afternoon.
The rally was scheduled to start at 4 p.m. at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Oak Park Boulevard.
According to a Grover Beach city statement sent out Friday morning, the organizers of the planned peaceful protest had been in contact with police ahead of the event.
Police from multiple agencies will be present “to ensure that the event is peaceful and safe for everybody involved,” the city said.
An email sent out to Five Cities businesses earlier this week by the South County Chambers of Commerce noted Grover Beach’s history of peaceful protest, but also urged business owners to take some precautions “in case civil unrest does occur.”
Those included removing debris from outside businesses, taking home or locking up valuables and potentially boarding up windows if necessary.
The protest is expected to march a short distance down Grand Avenue along the sidewalks before returning to the intersection of Oak Park and Grand and dispersing.
It’s expected to last between two to three hours.
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 2:21 PM.
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