By Ezra Lloyd
The protests seem to finally have an effect on the system, just not the one that was originally intended.
Instead of announcing a wave of criminal justice reforms, or creating any kind of meaningful change to numerous flawed policies that have plagued Denver’s social and economic system for ages, Mayor Michael Hancock has placed a curfew on the city and county of Denver.
The curfew is effective from 8 p.m. through 5 a.m. each night, through Monday morning.
“Once 8 p.m. hits, our message is very simple: Go home,” Hancock said in an address from the boarded up City and County building during another peaceful demonstration Saturday afternoon.
“In short, we have seen enough. We are not going to wait for these incidents to escalate any further … before we take action.” — Mayor Hancock
Hancock said Gov. Polis had signed an order deploying the Colorado National Guard to aid and activated Denver’s Emergency Operations Center in response to the protests over the last two days.
The protestors message is clear: they are demanding justice for the death of George Floyd, who was killed in Minneapolis police custody earlier this week.
Hancock, who has been open and vocal about peoples’ right to protest in the past few days as these protests have formed, but asked demonstrators to do so peacefully. Hancock and Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen pointed towards the “agitators with selfish motives and reckless intentions” as being responsible for the violence.
“Whose life are you honoring when you loot businesses in our city?”— Mayor Hancock
Over the past two nights Denver Police have used tear gas, pepper balls and other non-lethal weapons as means of crowd control as protests escalated, often as we have seen, quite overzealously to put it mildly.
This Saturday morning, just before the announced came of the city-and county-wide curfew, Denver police estimate 10,000 demonstrators for tonights protests.
Those who defy the curfew could be fined up to $999 or face jail time. Exemptions for the curfew include emergency personnel, people who need to travel to and from work, the media, those who are homeless and people who are seeking medical care, city officials said.
We will be streaming the protests tonight on our Facebook and Twitter — you can also follow along live via this post which we will be updating throughout the evening.
