NOTE: This story stopped being updated Sunday evening. For the latest on what happened at the Capitol, including perhaps a dozen arrests, read this more recent story.
About 1,500 people who gathered for a large protest at the Capitol in St. Paul on Sunday began marching later in the afternoon and walked onto Interstate 94. They headed westbound for about an hour before they exited.
Police described the group as organized and peaceful. After leaving the Capitol, the group used the St. Anthony Avenue ramp to enter Interstate 94 West shortly after 4 p.m. They exited at Lexington Parkway about 5 p.m. to University Avenue, headed east and returned to the Capitol.
The protest began at 1 p.m., with people calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed in the case of George Floyd, who died on Monday after a Minneapolis police officer was seen on video kneeling on his neck.
Derek Chauvin, who was fired from the police department, was charged Friday with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death.
People at Sunday’s protest were also calling for three other officers who were present, and who have also been terminated from the Minneapolis police department, to be arrested and charged.
Michelle Gross said Communities United Against Police Brutality, of which she is president, has worked for 20 years on attempting to approve police accountability.
“We need to get the framing back where it belongs — it’s not about burned buildings and smashed windows,” Gross said before Sunday’s protest. “… This is about the murder of an innocent man who was unarmed. … It’s about the decades of murders by police in this state and across this country that have brought us to this moment.”
During the protest at the Capitol, the city closed University Avenue from Rice to Jackson streets, which remains closed.
