ZCZC
BFF-29
US-POLITICS-RACE-UNREST
New York mayor lifts curfew ahead of pandemic ‘reopening’
NEW YORK, June 7, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – New York Mayor Bill de Blasio
early Sunday lifted a curfew he had imposed on the city for nearly a
week as anti-racism protests raged there and nationwide.
“Yesterday and last night we saw the very best of our city,” de
Blasio tweeted in announcing that the curfew was over “effective
immediately.”
The 8:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew — the city’s first in 75 years —
ends a day early on the eve of the city’s “reopening” on Monday after
more than two months of sheltering-at-home due to the coronavirus
pandemic.
This week New York will enter phase one of the state’s plan to
reboot economic activities shuttered due to COVID-19, which caused
more than 21,000 confirmed and probable deaths in America’s most
populous city.
The initial stage of reopening will allow construction and
manufacturing to resume. Retail stores will be allowed limited
in-store and curbside pickup.
The mayor had extended the controversial curfew June 2 and moved it
up to start more than 20 minutes before sunset, after a number of
luxury stores in Manhattan were looted on the heels of mass protests
over police brutality.
The second weekend of protests, triggered by the police killing of
an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis, drew out marchers
by the thousands but were largely peaceful.
Many protesters defied the curfew on Saturday but they were largely
ignored by police, who in nights prior had clamped down aggressively
on demonstrations that violated the nighttime order.
Over the past week, social media has been deluged with images
showing police arresting, cornering and at times beating demonstrators
with batons.
Beyond the general call to dismantle systemic racism, the New York
protests aim to change a law that shields police discipline records
from the public, and cut the 36,000-member police force’s $6 billion
annual budget.
BSS/AFP/MRU/1852hrs