Danbury Black Lives Matter Marchers Brave Rain, I-84 Traffic

DANBURY, CT — A protest march to express outrage and sorrow over the death of George Floyd consumed downtown city streets in the early afternoon Wednesday, and later spilled over onto Interstate 84.

Floyd was a black man who was killed while in the custody of the Minneapolis police on Memorial Day. His death has triggered protests across the U.S. and Europe, and rekindled a nationwide conversation about modern race relations.

Marchers for the Black Lives Matter protest began assembling at the Danbury Library over an hour before the event's scheduled noon kick-off. Surveying the crowd from an impromptu dais on the library steps, protest organizer and Danbury High School senior Serenity Schreiber told Patch she estimated the march to number about 300 people.

But that crowd easily doubled, or more, as the protesters began their trek to City Hall, gathering boots and signage on their way to the first formal rally of the day. By day's end estimates placed the number of protesters north of 1,000.

There, the Black Lives Matters rally seemed at times in danger of getting hijacked by transgender and Native American rights causes, as enthusiastic speakers played to the sympathetic assembly of mostly young people. When Mayor Mark Boughton eventually took the mic, he re-focused attention back on the plight of communities of color.

"People need to be heard," Boughton told Patch, advocating for policy changes that can do a "whole host of things on the local, state and federal level that need to be done so that we don't have any more George Floyds."

"This is not a one-off situation, this is a systemic problem throughout the United States of America," Boughton said, "and this is an opportunity — in a peaceful way — to share frustrations, concerns, but ultimately to provide hope for a change for the future. It can't just end here. This is just the beginning."

While Boughton spoke, the rain began, not enough to scatter the crowd, but a steady spritz that would continue to slowly soak the marchers as they continued along the second leg of the march to police headquarters.

Organizer Solomon James said Tuesday he expected from 600 to a thousand marchers for the event, and by the time the protesters crowded atop the police HQ plaza and surrounding street, it appeared his prediction may have even been conservative.

Blame it on the rain, maybe, but the chants, and the chanters, took on a decided edge as the protest approached the police station. Calls to "Say his name: George Floyd," "Black Lives Matter," and "Don't shoot, hands up!" morphed to "No justice, no peace, no racist police" and "Defund the police" as the protest piled onto local law enforcement's home turf.

Police Chief Ridenhour made a patient attempt to field questions from the assembly, but was shouted down, as the chants devolved into obscenities, and the shared microphones and megaphones proved insufficient for the task.

Ridenhour told Patch that the anger and disillusionment shown by the protesters in Danbury on Wednesday was nothing more or less than the current American zeitgeist.

"I think it's the nation that feels disenfranchised because of George Floyd's death," Ridenhour said. "It was just a flash point of a lot of other issues that are affecting out communities. Here in Danbury, we always try to listen, and we try to do better, nobody's perfect, but there's always room for improvement. We're here to listen to the voices and try to work later on to see if there are changes that need to be made and find where the problems exist. As you know, Mayor Boughton and I are only responsible for what goes on within the 44 square miles of the city of Danbury, and if there's things we can do better, we will."

The march proceeded back to the library, where, on paper at least, it was over. But about 500 protesters continued onward and onto Interstate 84, at the eastbound Exit 5 off-ramp and crossed the median to the westbound side. State Police from Troop A shut the highway down for about an hour, until the protesters could be dispersed a little after 2:30. There were no arrests, no damage to any property, and no injuries, police reported.

While law enforcement in Connecticut was clearing protesters off one of its highways, the attorney general in Minnesota was busy elevating the charges against George Floyd's killer to second-degree murder and manslaughter. The other three officers who were on scene were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter.