SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
As protesters all over the world band together to fight police brutality against Black people, demonstrators were met with curfews and increased surveillance from local police departments and the National Guard.
The city of Sacramento implemented a curfew and deployed 500 National Guard troops on June 1 in response to property damage, vandalism and theft following protests of Black men and women who were recently killed at the hands of police, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade. This was the first time the city has had a curfew. On Saturday, June 6, the city lifted its curfew.
While Mayor Darrell Steinberg called the curfew “necessary,” others worried that the increased law enforcement and military presence would disproportionately affect certain demographics.
“This curfew is ultimately going to impact Black and Brown communities the most because it’s not affluent or middle class white people who are targeted by law enforcement agencies the most. It’s people of color,” Keyan Bliss, a community organizer with Anti-Police Terror Project of Sacramento, said.
In 2016, Black Americans comprised 27% of all individuals arrested, which is double their share of the total population, according to a report by the Sentencing Project. When it comes to traffic stops, police are more likely to stop Black and Hispanic drivers for “investigatory stops” than “traffic-safety stops,” according to the report.
Although the Sacramento City Council voted to lift the curfew Saturday afternoon, the tactic has historical roots, according to U.S. History professor Keith Heningburg.
“It has been used with ... African-American slaves. There were laws that said Black people couldn’t be out after dark. Black people couldn’t be out after a certain period of time,” Heningburg said.
Heningburg remembers at one point during his adolescence in Michigan there being a statewide curfew during the 1967 Detroit Riots. Then Detroit Mayor Jerome P. Cavanaugh asked then Gov. George Romney to call in state police and eventually the National Guard was deployed to the city, according to History.com.
Heningburg said like those who fought for their rights during the Civil Rights Movement and even Reconstruction, protesters today are marching for their “constitutional rights.”
“Black men were organizing and agitating for voting rights, working rights, proper wages, and those individuals were most often taken out and lynched,” Heningburg said. “I don’t know what’s happening to those protesting [today] other than what I see on TV -- people being beaten, hit, shot with rubber bullets and the way they’re being manhandled by the police. I’m not surprised... I’ve seen this in history over and over again.”
On the first night of Sacramento’s curfew, 48 people were arrested for curfew violations, according to the Sacramento Police Department. Violators of the curfew faced “administrative penalties, arrest... misdemeanor penalties of up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both" according to the city’s website.
Bliss said until the city grapples with systemic racism and oppression and makes way for transformation, police brutality will continue and lead to more protests.
“I knew installing a curfew wasn’t going to stop anything. It may tepid the instances of looting, but it’s not actually going to scare people from going on to the streets. People have been out there since Friday even with the threat of a curfew and National Guard,” Bliss said.
In a press release Saturday, Mayor Steinberg said the city council “did not want to keep a curfew in place of the guard on our streets a minute longer than necessary.”
“The peaceful and powerful demonstrations of the past five days have given me confidence that these measures, which we imposed reluctantly, are no longer needed,” Steinberg said.
The curfew may be gone for now, but Mayor Steinberg, the city council, and city manager could reinstate the curfew or re-active the National Guard at any time.
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