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Chicago Limits Downtown Access After Night of Violent Protests

Associated Press

   CHICAGO - Chicago officials took extraordinary steps Sunday to patrol
   and restrict access to the city's downtown in the hopes of preventing
   further chaos after a night of tense protests over the death of George
   Floyd that included violent clashes, hundreds of arrests and smashed
   windows at stores and banks.

   Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had already ordered an indefinite nightly 9
   p.m. curfew, said the Illinois National Guard had been requested to
   help keep order. She said only essential workers would be allowed into
   the central business district, city trains and bus service would be
   suspended, major streets would be blocked with city sanitation trucks
   and Chicago River drawbridges allowing pedestrians and vehicles into
   downtown would remain lifted.

   "Seeing the murder of George Floyd sickened me and it still does,"
   Lightfoot said at a news conference, taking several breaks to compose
   herself. "But rather than respond to his death as we should and focus
   our energy toward doing the hard work to create the change that we
   need, we have instead been forced to turn our focus and energy toward
   preventing wanton violence and destruction"

   She called for a 5 p.m. moment of silence for Floyd, a handcuffed black
   man who died last Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer
   pressed his knee into Floyd's neck for several minutes as he pleaded
   for air and eventually stopped moving. That officer, Derek Chauvin, and
   the three others who were arresting Floyd have been fired, but only
   Chauvin has been charged -- he faces counts of third-degree murder and
   manslaughter.

   Floyd's death and the broader issue of the treatment of black people by
   police inspired protests in dozens of cities throughout the country,
   including other Illinois communities such as Peoria and Rockford.

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