Dozens of people stood in the middle of a downtown Marquette intersection again on Tuesday, blocking traffic and screaming their opposition to police brutality and racial injustice in response to last week’s death of a black Minnesota man, George Floyd.
A man with a bullhorn on the sidewalk in front of the Marquette County Courthouse repeatedly screamed “My Brothers And Sisters Can’t Breathe”, to which the crowd standing in the middle of Third and Washington Streets screamed back “I Can’t Breathe”.
That’s a reference to Floyd’s last words as a police officer had him pinned to the ground eight days ago during the Minneapolis incident.
The protest also took a political turn, as others urged people to get registered to vote, and to “Throw Trump Out of Office”.
Protesters also repeatedly yelled George Floyd’s name, and chanted “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police”.
Marquette City Police were in the vicinity, and were trying to direct traffic away from that intersection, but several cars were already waiting to cross the intersection when the protest began shortly after 4:00 Tuesday afternoon.
Traffic was blocked in all four directions at that intersection.
One man approached the protestors and yelled at them, saying that they should be supporting the gay community with their demonstrations.
It was the fourth straight day of protests in Marquette. There has been no violence, with no injuries and no property damage. Marquette Police have avoided confrontations by monitoring the demonstrations, but have not gone into the middle of them.
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