Police in North Carolina pepper-sprayed dozens of protesters Saturday, including several children, after they knelt on a road to honor George Floyd.
About 200 people participated in a “march to the polls” in Graham, N.C., about 50 miles northwest of Raleigh, the Burlington Times-News reported. Protesters said that cops escorted them throughout the march to the county courthouse.
Once demonstrators arrived at the courthouse, they knelt in silence in the street for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to honor Floyd, according to local NBC affiliate WRAL. Floyd was suffocated by a cop’s knee when he was killed in Minneapolis in May.
Police in Graham, however, were upset that the demonstration backed up traffic around the courthouse and pepper sprayed the protesters toward the end of their silence, the Raleigh News & Observer reported. Among those impacted by the chemical weapons were 11- and 5-year-old children and a woman on a motor wheelchair.
“My 11-year-old was terrified,” one of the demonstrators, Melanie Mitchell told the News & Observer. “She doesn’t want to come down to Graham anymore.”
Police said they had approved part of the protest, but not the blocking of traffic around the courthouse. They said they gave several orders to disperse before firing the pepper spray, but protesters told WRAL and the News & Observer that they never heard any orders.
After the minutes of silence and chemical attack by police, marchers moved closer to the courthouse to hear speeches from protest leaders, according to the News & Observer. But before the speeches could conclude, cops started dismantling the speakers and audio equipment.
That led to another confrontation, filmed by the News & Observer, with both sides pushing and shoving before the two groups were separated and police once again fired pepper spray.
The Graham Police Department, which was on scene along with Alamance County sheriff’s officers, said that eight people were arrested. Protest leader Rev. Greg Drumwright was among those arrested, along with a reporter, according to the News & Observer.
“The actions of these officers represent completely unwarranted police hostility and voter suppression,” North Carolina Democratic Party chair Wayne Goodwin said in a statement. “This group of North Carolinians was fully within their First Amendment rights to hold their protest and march to the polls.”