Brooklyn Coronavirus Update and Open Thread: Deaths, Fireworks, George Floyd Memorial (6/4/20)
De Blasio was booed at the memorial for George Floyd in Downtown Brooklyn and elected officials are organizing a Sunset Park march and vigil calling for justice for inmate Jamel Floyd, who died after being pepper sprayed at the Sunset Park federal jail.
The George Floyd memorial service at Cadman Plaza in Downtown Brooklyn today. Photo by Susan De Vries
We’re in the twelfth week of sheltering in place and the 51st day of home schooling for New York City schools.
Large and peaceful protests continue, despite scattered troubling violent incidents Wednesday. Jamel Floyd, a prisoner in the Sunset Park federal jail, died after being pepper sprayed, the New York Post reported. City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez, and State Senator Zellnor Myrie are organizing a 5 p.m. march and vigil in Sunset Park tonight to “demand justice for Jamel Floyd.”
The march goes from the parking lot at St. Michael’s church on 43rd Street between 3rd and 4th avenues to the Metropolitan Detention Center, where the vigil will take place.
As we write this, de Blasio is being booed as he attempts to speak at the memorial for George Floyd taking place at Cadman Plaza now. Wednesday 236 current and former staffers released a letter highly critical of the mayor’s performance.
An officer was stabbed in Flatbush, and another man was shot dead by police in Crown Heights.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former cop, issued a statement condemning violence on both sides and called for “meaningful reform.” His wish list includes: “repealing Civil Rights Law Section 50-A, significantly boosting de-escalation and implicit bias trainings for police officers, and robustly cutting unnecessary NYPD sending in the upcoming budget in order to reinvest in Black and Brown communities and close historical racial inequities.”
An enormous display of fireworks in Bed Stuy in Stuyvesant Heights at Lewis and MacDonough caught the attention of locals — and police copters — who were chattering about it on Facebook and Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CA_y3yJnqeR/
No word yet whether Wednesday night’s Black Lives Matter vigil at Maria Hernandez Park will be repeated.
Other George Floyd related events scheduled to take place in Brooklyn today include a Let Us Breathe Press Conference at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza at 3 p.m. The nightly vigil in McCarren Park is on for 7 p.m.
More than 2 million people filed unemployment claims last week, according to the U.S. Labor Department. It’s an improvement, according to the New York Times.
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