Day of peaceful Florida protests ends in barrage of water bottles, rubber bullets, tear gas

Conflict erupted again Sunday between South Florida police and demonstrators participating in nationwide protests over the death of a black man at the hands of officers in Minneapolis, with officers firing tear gas into crowds gathered in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

The confrontations — which may have been sparked by an officer’s call for help — marred a day of mostly peaceful local protests over George Floyd’s death last week in Minneapolis.

In Miami, where squad cars were set ablaze and shops were looted Saturday night, hundreds of demonstrators avoided clashes with police even as they crowded onto major highways and officers gathered in riot gear. But in Fort Lauderdale — where windows were blown out at the county government center and a few shops on Las Olas Boulevard were looted — some protesters said they were fired upon outside the Broward County library without warning, while police and politicians blamed the flare-ups on “agitators” unaffiliated with organized marches.

“The people who really want to see change and are pushing for it are not the ones throwing the stones and breaking the windows,” Broward County Mayor Dale Holness told CBS4 Sunday night as live video rolled of tear gas billowing over Las Olas. “What I’m hearing from different sources is there are people embedded in these demonstrations to cause a lot of misery on people to make the demonstrators who were there early look bad and to really not benefit the cause of moving our country forward.”

Tensions continued into the evening, leading Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry to issue a 9 p.m. curfew as the sun descended and crowds lingered, collecting and dispersing in a cat-and-mouse game with officers in riot gear. The city of Fort Lauderdale declared a state of emergency, and police warned crowds to leave or face “less-lethal munitions.”

The confrontation was not altogether unexpected. Protests have broken out in dozens of cities since Floyd’s death May 25 at the hands of Minneapolis police, and some demonstrations have been marked by vandalism and violence.

Floyd died after officers called to a convenience store about a counterfeit $20 bill arrested him, cuffed him and then knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes with his hand behind his back as he lay face down on the street. His killing was caught on video, and the footage sparked outrage. The officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, Derek Chauvin was fired, arrested Friday and charged with third-degree murder. But outrage quickly spread across the country in a movement against the treatment of black people by the criminal justice system.

In Miami, a city with its own troubled history of race relations and policing, dozens were arrested Saturday night after people began burning police cars. On Sunday, Muslim organizations, including the ICNA Council for Social Justice, helped organize a second day of demonstrations, beginning outside Bayside Marketplace — where a few stores were looted the previous night.

“We are here because we are angry. We are here because we are mourning,” one organizer said through a portable speaker. “Keep in mind police are not our friends... So what we’re going to do is we’re going to march.”

A mixed crowd of hundreds marched past the federal detention center downtown, where inmates shouted to be heard from thin, rectangular windows. There were several tense moments with police, with Miami-Dade officers stationed on Port Boulevard in riot gear warning crowds to disperse over a loud speaker when it appeared they were blocking the entrance to Port Miami. The protest headed west, and hundreds collected on the westbound lanes of the Interstate-395 over downtown, forcing the Florida Highway Patrol to block the highway.

But unlike Saturday, there were no confrontations Sunday night, and crowds thinned as a city of Miami 8 p.m. curfew kicked in ahead of a 9 p.m. countywide curfew that included the shutdown of public transportation. Police, though, remained stationed in riot gear and in armored vehicles in the city as officials blamed out-of-town instigators for creating conflict the previous night, when 57 were arrested.

“It’s becoming very evident that there are some very dangerous actors with ulterior motives within these just protests,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez wrote on Twitter. “We ask our community and its leaders to not allow these negative influences to discredit this just cause.”

Also on Twitter, Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the newly installed chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, said professional “agitators” were sowing chaos amid otherwise peaceful protests. He posted a picture of two masked, gloved men — who appeared to be white — whom Rubio blamed for initiating the clash between police and protesters in Fort Lauderdale.

“Agitators in Ft. Lauderdale have goggles, some have gas masks. They throw rocks at police then raise their hands in air. Then after a few minutes do it again,” Rubio tweeted. “And trust me these agitators aren’t members of [the Black Lives Matter protest movement.]”

In the evening, after crowds dispersed, a parking garage outside the library was littered with rocks, empty tear gas canisters and 40mm foam baton rounds.

In a press conference Sunday evening, Police Chief Rick Maglione told reporters that the melee may have been sparked by an officer’s call for help. “There was an officer in need of assistance. Several officers responded to provide that assistance. That officer was in fear.”

Video outside the library appeared to show that protesters began throwing water bottles at police after an officer shoved a woman from behind while walking back toward the Broward County Public Library and away from the crowd. Maglione said the officer has been suspended and the incident is under investigation.

“This just happened a little while ago. We are doing a full investigation,” Maglione said, explaining that he was limited in what he could say about the incident. “This is one of the officers who responded to that scene to provide aid to the officer in need of assistance. This confrontation occurred shortly thereafter.”

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said that the protesters with whom police clashed had only just arrived downtown following a three-hour event in which more than 1,000 people gathered peacefully and marched up and down Broward Boulevard to the police headquarters and back.

“All of a sudden, a whole new throng of individuals appeared on the scene. We don’t know where they came from. They certainly weren’t part of the peaceful” event prior, Trantalis said. “These demonstrators that came afterwards were agitators. They intended to come to our city. They came with concrete blocks. They came with gas masks. They came with cartons of milk… They were ready for something. They knew something was going to happen. They knew it because they were going to create it. They were going to provoke it.”

Trantalis and Maglione said windows were smashed out at the Broward County government center, and at storefronts on Las Olas, a high-end shopping district. Trantalis said at least two people had been arrested after officers responded to calls of looting.

Trantalis said the city’s 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew — ordered Sunday night — will continue to be in place until the city believes the threat posed by “agitators” is gone.

Some officers appeared to try to tell the crowd to disperse. But a dozen protesters who spoke to the Miami Herald said they received no warning before police began firing tear gas.

A crush of people still at the park rushed toward the garage. Some protesters lobbed canisters of tear gas back at police. Others sat peacefully as gas and smoke bombs exploded around them. One woman appeared to be meditating. Most ran when at least three armored vehicles and dozens more riot police descended on the scene.

Video captured by WPLG showed people throw water bottles at officers outside the library when one officer appeared to shove a woman from behind while walking past her. But everyone who spoke to the Miami Herald was confused about what happened, how the confrontation began, and why police engaged protesters in a parking garage.

“They trapped us in the garage in our car,” said Bishop Collins, 25, as he stood on a nearby street an hour later. “We were trying to leave. It was a peaceful protest the whole day.”

Sabrina Javellana, the vice mayor of Hallandale Beach, wrote on Twitter that she was stuck in her car in the parking garage outside the library when the volley began.

“I almost got hit by a tear gas device and the explosions keep getting louder and louder,” she wrote.

The crowds that gathered in Fort Lauderdale were initially supposed to gather in Lauderhill. But a protest organized by the Black Lives Matter Alliance of Broward with the assistance of Lauderhill’s municipal government grew so large it was forced to move from Las Olas Boulevard, where the event began with calls for peace and non-engagement with police.

“This action is being led by black women,” Tifanny Burks, a co-organizer and activist with Black Lives Matter Alliance of Broward, told a crowd of more than a thousand people that gathered at Huizenga Plaza on Las Olas. “Trust our leadership...we know how to get results. You all need to fall in line with that.”

The crowd cheered so loudly she had to pause for nearly a minute before continuing her speech. Kristen Herisse, 20, of Pompano Beach, was among them. She said so many people showed up Sunday because “we are tired of sitting and talking.”

“Being Black is a crime in America,” Herisse said. “Enough is enough.”

The demonstration walked west, heading down Broward Boulevard to the Fort Lauderdale police headquarters. Before returning to downtown, they took down a flag and replaced it with a banner that read: “Justice for some.”