4 officers hospitalized as protesters march in Sacramento over national killings by police
A group of demonstrators protesting police killings in Minneapolis and Chicago gathered Saturday night at the California State Capitol and marched through Sacramento.
The Sacramento Police Department said four of its officers were sent to a hospital by the night’s end after being sprayed with an unknown irritant. The protest was declared an unlawful assembly by officers as the protesters made their way into the midtown area.
Protesters gathered outside the Capitol around 8 p.m. in response to two recent police killings in Minnesota and Illinois. Daunte Wright, 20, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, on April 11 by an officer who said she had mistaken her taser for her service pistol. A similar protest sprung up in Sacramento on Tuesday following Wright’s death. That demonstration was also declared an unlawful assembly.
Protesters also invoked the name of Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old boy who was shot in Chicago after dropping a gun and putting his hands up. Police bodycam footage released this week showed the boy had nothing in his hands when the officer opened fire.
The killings sparked protests in their respective cities and elsewhere in the nation. Protesters in Sacramento were heard demanding greater police accountability in use-of-force scenarios.
Sacramento police estimated that about 50 protesters showed up Saturday night and said there were two reports of vandalism.
Officer Ryan Woo, a spokesman for the department, said one of those involved property damage to a business, but could not confirm the details of the other report of vandalism.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said that one of its deputies found a bag full of rocks outside a government building. Some officers were pelted with rocks thrown by some in the crowd as they marched through the city, according to police.
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By 9:40 p.m., the march was declared an unlawful assembly by police. By that time, the protest had moved into the Lavender Heights area, where it eventually began to wind down. By 11 p.m., police said the group had dispersed. No arrests were made.
The four officers who were hit with irritant were released from the hospital as of Sunday morning, according to Woo.
This story was originally published April 18, 2021 at 11:05 AM.
