George Floyd protest briefly closes Interstate 5 in downtown Sacramento. Traffic still slow
A small band of demonstrators spilled onto northbound Interstate 5 in downtown Sacramento briefly stalling traffic through downtown.
California Highway Patrol representatives said officers forced the group off the freeway at the J Street on-ramp at about 1:45 p.m. Traffic is flowing again, but slowly, with heavy congestion still at 2:15 p.m.
CHP said it did not make any arrests of demonstrators among the group that got onto the freeway.
The marchers were part of a splinter group from a massive daylong protest focused at the state Capitol building, where as many as 1,000 people gathered Saturday morning to condemn the police killing of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man, earlier this week.
The protesters had attempted at several spots to get onto a freeway before briefly succeeding. An earlier attempt by a group to get onto Highway 50 in West Sacramento was met by a phalanx of California Highway Patrol officers, some of whom hit protesters with batons as they pushed the group back down the ramp.
This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 2:16 PM.