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Majority of Minneapolis City Council Pledges to Dismantle Police Department

Some cities are starting to to heed calls to “defund the police,” as lawmakers push proposals for greater police accountability. National Guard troops are being sent home from Washington, D.C.

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Minneapolis City Council Pledges to Disband Police Dept.

On Sunday, a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council announced plans to dismantle the city’s Police Department.

Our commitment is to do what’s necessary to keep every single member of our community safe. And to tell the truth that the Minneapolis police are not doing that. Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department to end the policing as we know it, and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.

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On Sunday, a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council announced plans to dismantle the city’s Police Department.CreditCredit...Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for The New York Times

Nine members — a veto-proof majority — of the Minneapolis City Council pledged on Sunday to dismantle the city’s Police Department, promising to create a new system of public safety in a city where law enforcement has long been accused of racism.

Saying that the city’s current policing system could not be reformed, the council members stood before hundreds of people who gathered late in the day on a grassy hill, and signed a pledge to begin the process of taking apart the Police Department as it now exists.

For activists who have been pushing for years for drastic changes to policing, the move represented a turning point that they hoped would lead to a complete transformation of public safety in the city.

“It shouldn’t have taken so much death to get us here,” Kandace Montgomery, the director of Black Vision, said from the stage at the rally. “We’re safer without armed, unaccountable patrols supported by the state hunting black people.”

The pledge in Minneapolis, where George Floyd died 13 days ago after being pinned to the ground by a white police officer’s knee, reflected calls across America to completely rethink what policing looks like. Protesters have taken to the streets with demands to shrink or abolish police departments, and “defund the police” has become a frequent rallying cry.

Officials in other cities, including New York, have begun to talk of diverting some money and responsibilities from police forces to social services agencies, but no other major city has yet gone as far as the Minneapolis officials promised to do.

Council members said in interviews on Sunday that they did not have specific plans to announce for what a new public safety system for the city would look like. They promised to develop plans by working with the community, and said they would draw on past studies, consent decrees and reforms to policing across the nation and the world.

Protesters who gathered at the rally, with a view of Powderhorn Lake, said what mattered most was that elected officials had finally committed to a sweeping overhaul of policing, even if they had yet to offer specifics for how such a dismantling would work.

[Read more on the life of George Floyd.]

“There needs to be change,” said Paola Lehman, a 23-year-old actor and educator in Minneapolis.

Though the City Council controls the police budget, the department answers to Mayor Jacob Frey, who can veto the council’s actions. Council members said they had enough votes to override a veto by Mr. Frey, who was booed out of a rally by hundreds of people on Saturday after he said he did not believe in abolishing the Police Department.

The pledge “signals a strong and clear direction about where this is going,” said Councilwoman Alondra Cano, the chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee.

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The driver of a car in Seattle brandished a gun after driving into a protest on Sunday.Credit...Lindsey Wasson/Reuters

One person was shot and another person was arrested Sunday night in Seattle after a man carrying a pistol drove his vehicle through a crowd of protesters, the authorities said.

The Seattle Fire Department said a 27-year-old man injured in a shooting and was taken to the hospital. He is in stable condition.

Videos from the scene show a black vehicle driving down a crowded street toward an intersection where protesters were gathered near a Seattle Police Department station house in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

After the vehicle came to a stop, a gunshot appeared to go off, sending people running from the vehicle.

In a video posted by a photojournalist, Alex Garland, the man who was shot appeared to be treated by street medics.

The victim said he saw the car coming down the street and pursued it to try and protect the crowd.

The man said he punched the driver before being shot.

The Seattle Police Department said the driver was in custody and a gun was recovered. The authorities said they do not believe there were other victims beyond the man who was shot.

Elsewhere across the country demonstrations have become less pitched, but protesters continue to clash with the police in Seattle. On Saturday, chaos broke out near the same police stations and officers used flash grenades and pepper spray to disperse the crowds.

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National Guard troops patrolling near the White House on Saturday.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

President Trump said on Sunday that he had ordered National Guard troops to begin withdrawing from the nation’s capital, retreating after a week of relentless criticism over his threat to militarize the government’s response to nationwide protests — including criticism from within the military establishment.

Three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff harshly condemned Mr. Trump on Sunday for sending troops to deal with domestic protests, and warned that the military risked losing credibility with the American people.

Announcing his order on Twitter, Mr. Trump said the National Guard soldiers would withdraw “now that everything is under perfect control.”

“They will be going home, but can quickly return, if needed,” he wrote. “Far fewer protesters showed up last night than anticipated!”

(In fact, the daylong protests in Washington on Saturday appeared to draw larger crowds than earlier rallies.)

The announcement capped a tumultuous week in which federal authorities violently cleared away peaceful protesters outside the White House to make way for a photo opportunity by Mr. Trump; National Guard helicopters flew low over demonstrators to scatter them; and active-duty troops were summoned to positions just outside the capital.

Those actions and a threat by the president to send the military into states to control protests over the death of a black man in police custody prompted unusually public dissent from former military leaders, and discord even in Mr. Trump’s administration.

On Sunday, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser of Washington called the Trump administration’s deployment of troops to the capital area “an invasion.” And the retired military commanders said the troops should never have been there in the first place.

“We have a military to fight our enemies, not our own people,” retired Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, who was the top military adviser to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, told “Fox News Sunday.”

He said putting troops into domestic demonstrations risked the trust the Pentagon had worked to regain with the American people after the upheaval of the Vietnam War.

“In very short order, should we get into conflict in our own streets, there’s a very significant chance we could lose that trust that it’s taken us 50-plus years to restore,” Mr. Mullen said.

In a telephone call with reporters on Sunday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said about 5,000 National Guard troops in Washington would withdraw over the next three days because the protests had “become peaceful in nature.” About 1,200 troops from the District of Columbia National Guard will remain on duty “in the coming days,” he said, supporting civilian law enforcement.

On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Mr. McCarthy and other top Pentagon officials had ordered National Guard helicopters to use what they called “persistent presence” to disperse protests in the capital. The loosely worded order prompted a series of low-altitude maneuvers that human rights organizations quickly criticized as a show of force usually reserved for combat zones.

Officials said the Army had opened an investigation into the episode.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the California National Guard would depart the city on Sunday evening.

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De Blasio Pledges to Cut N.Y.P.D. Funds and to Increase Social Services

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said for the first time that he would divert city funds from the New York Police Department to youth and social services.

I said in our State of the City speech, quote, ‘Our young people don’t need to be policed. They need to be reached.’ And that is the spirit of the reforms we’re going to talk about today and beyond. We will be moving funding from the N.Y.P.D. to youth initiatives and social services. The details will be worked out in the budget process in the weeks ahead. But I want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people. And I also will affirm, while doing that we will only do it in a way that we are certain continues to ensure that this city will be safe.

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Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said for the first time that he would divert city funds from the New York Police Department to youth and social services.CreditCredit...Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times

Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged on Sunday to cut the budget for the New York Police Department and spend more on social services in the city, following 10 nights of mass protests against police violence and mounting demands that he overhaul a department whose tactics have drawn widespread criticism.

It was the first time Mr. de Blasio has promised to cut the force’s budget, and it came as calls have intensified across the country to “defund the police,” a broad term that has included similar proposals to trim police budgets and redistribute the money to social programs.

The move was a reversal for Mr. de Blasio, who expressed skepticism about cutting police funding as recently as Friday. He did not specify which social services he wanted to spend more on.

He also declined to say precisely how much money he planned to divert from the Police Department, which has an annual budget of $6 billion, representing more than 6 percent of Mr. de Blasio’s proposed $90 billion city budget.

“We’re committed to seeing a shift of funding to youth services, to social services, that will happen literally in the course of the next three weeks, but I’m not going to go into detail because it is subject to negotiation, and we want to figure out what makes sense,” Mr. de Blasio said.

Many protesters and observers have accused the police of using unnecessarily violent tactics to enforce the city’s curfew, which began last Monday and was lifted Sunday.

The mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, said in a televised interview on Sunday that his city should consider a similar reallocation of money now budgeted for policing.

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Protesters have embraced “defund the police” as a rallying cry, with some activists painting the phrase alongside the new yellow “Black Lives Matter” message on a street in Washington.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Democrats in Congress are preparing sweeping legislation that would make it easier to prosecute police misconduct and recover damages from officers found to have violated civil rights. But some architects of the bill are stopping short of explicitly embracing what many protesters across the country are demanding: to “defund the police.”

“I don’t believe that you should disband police departments,” Karen Bass, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Sunday on the CNN program “State of the Union.” “But I do think that in cities and states, we need to look at how we are spending resources and invest more in our communities.”

The legislation, which is scheduled for formal release on Monday, would significantly change federal law and require states and municipalities to make modifications of their own, such as instituting mandatory bias training to qualify for federal funds, according to a draft summary obtained by The New York Times.

The bill would also create a national registry to track police misconduct, and it would ban certain chokeholds and other tactics that police officers have used in confrontations that left black Americans dead.

Protesters have embraced “defund the police” as a rallying cry, with some activists painting the phrase alongside the new yellow “Black Lives Matter” message on a street near the White House in the center of downtown Washington.

But what the cry means has not always been clear, with the term seeming to sweep in everything from trimming police budgets and redistributing the money to social programs, to completely abolishing police departments.

Alicia Garza, one of the activists who helped found the Black Lives Matter movement, explained the slogan as a call to examine how “we reorganize our priorities, so people don’t have to be in the streets during a national pandemic, a global pandemic.”

“I understand clearly the sentiment and substance behind the slogan,” said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, though he added that “it’s not a slogan I will use.” Still, he warned against dismissing it outright.

Speaking on the NBC program “Meet the Press,” he reflected on his time as mayor of Newark, when police officers questioned why they were being used to deal with the “fragility and vulnerability of our society.”

“We are overpoliced as a society,” Mr. Booker said. “We are investing in police, which is not solving problems, but making them worse. We should be a more compassionate country, a more loving country.”

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‘It’s Unbelievable That We Have to Keep Doing This’: Protesters March to the White House

Thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to protest George Floyd’s death, racism and police brutality. From speeches to line dances, here’s what we saw and whom we met.

“What do you want?” “Justice!” “When do you want it?” “Now!” “What do you want?” “Justice!” “When do you want it?” “Now!” “No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace! No racist police!” “For the mothers! For the mothers! For the mothers.” ”My son wasn’t given a chance to live. I have a chance to live, so I will risk whatever it takes to say his name. Marquis Brown! Say my son’s name: Marquis Brown! Say my son’s name: Marquis Brown! I don’t know all of their names, but what I do tell you is, I stand for all the mothers out here who lost their sons to police brutality.” “How do you spell racist? How do you spell racist?” “Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter!” “Justice! Now! Justice! Now! Justice! It’s unbelievable that we have to keep doing this. It’s embarrassing for our nation. And if we have to be violent, we have to be violent, but I definitely roll with peace. Because they say a Covid virus, you know, is supposed to keep us in the house — that’s not going to keep anyone in the house when people are being killed, when people are being slaughtered.” “Don’t shoot!” “Don’t shoot!” “We appreciate you all, man. We appreciate you all. Get us some water. DJ [unclear], back to action!” “Take your knee off our necks!” “Take your knee off our necks!” “Take your knee off our necks!” “Take your knee off our necks!” “Take your knee off our necks!” “Justice. Systemic racism is really like a knee on the back of your neck.” “Hands up!” “Don’t shoot!” “Hands up!” “Don’t shoot!” “Somebody could steal my car, take my money — I won’t be calling the police. I never have, I never will. Even with my son as a police officer, I need to fix my problems. And my biggest problem now is racism in this country, so that’s why I’m out here trying to fix it.” “Does your son know that you’re here today?” “Umm — I think he does. As a father and a black man, I know that when he’s driving in a car and he’s not in uniform, he will be treated as a black man before he’s treated as the police. Pulling out his badge could be the end of his life because they think it’s a gun, so — and I think he’s aware of that, but I hope he knows. It’s so good to see so many white people here. I’m glad I came.” “If we don’t get it —” “Shut it down!” “If we don’t get it —” “Shut it down!” “If you don’t get it —” “Shut it down!” “Veterans for —” “Black lives matter!” “Veterans for —” “Black lives matter!” “As a group of veterans, we served our country — we will not stop serving our country even after our duties are done. I did serve in the Air Force, and I feel that the world needs to know that veterans are here to support black lives as well. It doesn’t matter to me what else is going on in my life. This is what’s going on in my life.” “Me and my best friend were walking after protesting and then I heard drums. I’m from Zambia. I’m African. I’m a dancer. So once I hear drums, that’s my call. It’s an outlet for me. I still have to hold it together in the workplace and pretend like — not pretend, but not be able to show it, that it’s hurting me and affecting me and my family and those around me.” “Hands up!” “Don’t shoot!” “Don’t shoot!” “Hands up! Don’t shoot! Hands up! Don’t shoot! Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

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Thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to protest George Floyd’s death, racism and police brutality. From speeches to line dances, here’s what we saw and whom we met.CreditCredit...Emily Rhyne/The New York Times

Attorney General William P. Barr said on Sunday that he believed racism is not a systemic problem in policing, though there is racism more generally in the United States.

“I don’t think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist,” Mr. Barr said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “I think we have to recognize that for most of our history, our institutions were explicitly racist.”

Mr. Barr said that he understood why black people in the United States distrust law enforcement, given “the history in this country,” but said that he believed that work done since the 1960s to reform institutions more broadly to make sure they are in sync with laws that ban inequities “is working, and progress has been made.”

While Mr. Barr flatly denied there was systemic racism in policing, he later compared law enforcement to the military, which he said “used to be an explicitly racist institution.”

“Now I think it’s in the vanguard of bringing the races together and providing equal opportunity,” Mr. Barr said. “I think law enforcement has been going through the same process.

Mr. Barr’s comments mirrored those made on Sunday by Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Wolf said on the ABC program “This Week” that he did not believe “systemic racism” was an issue in American law enforcement, and that tragedies like the death of George Floyd were caused by individual officers abusing their power.

“I think painting law enforcement with the broad brush of systematic racism is really a disservice to the men and women who put on a badge, the uniform, every day — risk their lives every day to protect the American people,” Mr. Wolf said.

Mr. Barr said that he did not support any measures that would reduce the legal immunity police officers are given when someone dies in their custody, because that would “result certainly in police pulling back.”

Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, marched with protesters in Washington toward the White House on Sunday, appearing to be the first Republican senator to join the thousands across the country protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police.

Mr. Romney told a Washington Post reporter that he had joined the march to show that “we need to end violence and brutality, and to make sure that people understand that black lives matter.”

On Capitol Hill and on Twitter, Mr. Romney has been vocal in condemning the circumstances surrounding Mr. Floyd’s death, saying earlier in the week that “the George Floyd murder is abhorrent.”

He had also reflected how his father, George Romney, participated in a Civil Rights march in the 1960s when he was governor of Michigan, quoting him on Twitter and sharing a photo of him at the protest.

Several Republicans have been vocal in condemning the police officers who have ben charged in connection with Mr. Floyd’s death, but few have publicly joined protesters marching across the county.

Earlier in the week, Representative Will Hurd of Texas, the lone black Republican in the House, joined a peaceful protest, marching alongside his constituents and Mr. Floyd’s family.

“What we are showing you today in Houston is that we can be outraged by a black man getting murdered in police custody,” Mr. Hurd, who is retiring, said in a video on Twitter. “We can be united for change in our society, and we can be thankful that law enforcement is enabling our first amendment rights.”

Protests in the district on Sunday were smaller and overwhelmingly peaceful through the evening, in contrast to events from earlier in the week.

Though members of the National Guard continued to block off streets leading to the White House, there was less law enforcement near the White House late into the evening, as protesters demonstrated and barbecued in front of St. John’s church.

Makeda Jahnesta Marley, Bob Marley’s daughter, sang “Redemption Song” to a crowd near 16th Street, where protesters had painted “Defund the Police” alongside the city commissioned “Black Lives Matter” mural.

Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and an icon of the civil rights movement, joined protesters and Mayor Muriel Bowser on Sunday.

Mr. Lewis paused atop the “Black Lives Matter” mural that spans blocks.

Dwayne Haskins Jr., quarterback for the Washington Redskins, also joined in the afternoon on Sunday and tweeted about the “peaceful protest.”

“It’s about time to take a risk and make the change,” said Les Alma, who came to protest for the first time on Sunday, of President Trump and legislators. “Today’s a good start.”

Lafayette Square, where demonstrators were cleared out by the National Guard on Monday, remained fenced off. The view of the White House through the fence was obscured by a large Black Lives Matter banner, as well as hundreds of smaller signs taped to the fence, which called for unity and justice for victims of police brutality.

In dozens of cities, people came out to protest racism and police brutality. Here’s what Times photographers saw:

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St. Louis.Credit...Whitney Curtis for The New York Times
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Seattle.Credit...Chloe Collyer for The New York Times
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Detroit.Credit...Erin Trieb for The New York Times
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Minneapolis.Credit...Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for The New York Times

The march in Hollywood, starting in the shadow of the iconic Capitol Records building, had been promoted widely leading up to Sunday afternoon.

Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, along with BLD PWR, organized the protest along with the rapper YG.

So at around 4 p.m., thousands and thousands of Angelenos, of all ages and ethnicities, most walking, but some on bikes, in Mercedes and some in the beds of old trucks, filled the streets lined by the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

At the Hollywood and Vine Los Angeles Metro station, a Red Line train heading north was crowded at around 4 p.m. There was a coiled, quiet energy in one of the cars, and when the train stopped, protesters poured out into the bright Hollywood sunshine.

Outside, thousands of people marched down Vine Street. The atmosphere felt a little like a street festival.

Music blasted and people with megaphones chanted “No justice, no peace,” and people in an open-sided food truck tossed snacks into the crowd.

“That’s Machine Gun Kelly,” someone shouted to a friend, as the truck blasted N.W.A. The crowd cheered and sang along. Signs called for defunding the L.AP.D. They showed the names of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as Tamir Rice.

Many expressed solidarity with black Americans from other marginalized groups: “Latinx for Black Lives,” several signs said. “Asians for BLM” read another.

A police presence was hard to spot, except for a helicopter that circled overhead. Tatianna Marin, 23, and Jarrion Harris, 32, stood by the train station waiting for a friend.

They said it was their first day out protesting — the fear of getting sick, and the knowledge that the coronavirus was disproportionately hitting people of color like themselves, made them wary. But in the end, Mr. Harris said, “I felt like I just had to be here.”

Mr. Harris said that as a black man, the protests felt personal but also bigger than himself. “I’m definitely not out here because I think Covid-19 has gone into the shadows,” he said. “It’s worth the risk. People fought for me before I was even born. They faced bullets.”

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Protesters marched through Times Square in Manhattan on Sunday.Credit...Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times

“All loud voices come to the front!”

That call from a woman leading the demonstration set thousands of protesters in motion on Sunday, marching through Manhattan from their assembly point in Union Square to protest police violence.

As they headed west on 14th Street, the protesters invoked the names of black people killed by police officers in Louisville and Minneapolis: “Breonna Taylor, say her name!” “Say his name, George Floyd!”

It was one of several marches and protests that are taking place across New York City on Sunday. Earlier, Mayor Bill de Blasio had announced that he was canceling the curfew that he imposed on Monday.

As of 7 p.m. on Sunday, there were no reports of major confrontations or mass arrests as the protests continued peacefully.

For Divya Gunasekaran, 31, who works in the technology division at a New York City hospital, the Union Square march was her sixth protest since Mr. Floyd was killed.

“The curfew never should have been put in place,” Ms. Gunasekaran said. “He’s patting himself on the back, but never acknowledged that the police have contributed to the violence we’ve seen during the protests.”

Ms. Gunasekaran said she had been calling and emailing members of the City Council, asking them to redirect money from policing to youth, health and homeless services.

“A lot of those programs have been completely slashed while the N.Y.P.D. has been untouched,” she said. “We need social services more than ever.”

Natasha Campbell, a medical assistant from East Flatbush, Brooklyn, emerged from an urgent care clinic on 14th Street wearing a white hazmat suit and an N95 mask. When she raised her fist in solidarity with the protesters, they erupted in cheers and applause.

Ms. Campbell, who is black, recalled being in the streets of her neighborhood in 2013 to protest the killing by police officers of a black teenager, Kimani Gray. Back then, the protesters were overwhelmingly black, she said. On Sunday, she marveled at the diversity of the marching crowd.

“Before, I was was so angry, seeing the video” of Mr. Floyd’s killing, she said. “But seeing everyone taking a stand — it’s not just black people. I feel warmth. I feel love. I feel unity.”

The protest reached Columbus Circle just before 4 p.m. As the demonstrators approached the Trump International Hotel and Tower there, they turned their anger to the president, yelling, “Vote him out!” The protesters collectively took a knee and raised their fists, observing a minute of silence before rising and marching up Central Park West.

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The Black Lives Matter rally in the Lilac Bowl at Riverfront Park in Spokane, Wa., on Sunday.Credit...Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review, via Associated Press

In Spokane, the second largest city in the state of Washington, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Riverfront Park, the site of the 1974 World’s Fair.

Unlike a similar demonstration last week which resulted in violence, looting and arrests in Spokane, the Sunday gathering was largely peaceful. Uniformed police weren’t visible in the crowd, but a contingent of riot-equipped officers guarded the Spokane County Courthouse and adjoining Public Safety Building which serves as headquarters for both the Spokane Police Department and Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

Most of the demonstrators appeared to be young and the majority were wearing masks.

An ad hoc group called “Spokane Street Medics,” composed of volunteer physicians, nurses and emergency aid workers, handed out free masks.

Marcus Shadwick, a 23-year-old African-American, said he considers it unfortunate that the pandemic lurks in the background of the Black Lives Matter movement, which he supports. He wasn’t wearing a mask, saying he left his at home. “I do feel though that people should be wearing masks.” He hoped to get a giveaway mask.

“I think these protests are bigger than any virus,” Mr. Shadwick said. “These protests are a cure for a virus that’s been going on for 400 years,” he said, referring to systemic racism.

His twin brother, Marquis Shadwick, standing nearby, said he showed up also without a mask “just to get my voice heard” and to speak out against “a corrupt police system and people not understanding that racism exists.”

Jshanelle Brown said she showed up because she has 10 siblings, including four brothers who are young black men who, she said, fear police.

“I have watched their interaction with police here in Spokane,” she said, explaining that she believes law enforcement officers frequently target young black men.

“They go straight to someone if the pigment of their skin is dark,” she said. “I guess they see people of color as being aggressive, the threat, the harm, and that’s unacceptable to me,” the 24-year-old social worker said.

John Parks, a 55-year-old public-school teacher, said racism and the coronavirus are “both threats to our society.”

“This is the most important pandemic to fight right now, and that’s why I’m here,” he said of the anti-racism rally.

As the crowd gathered for a march across the city’s landmark Monroe Street Bridge, the demonstrators chanted, “No justice. No peace. Defund the police.”

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Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke at Delaware State University in Dover on Friday.Credit...Hannah Yoon for The New York Times

Joseph R. Biden Jr. plans to travel on Monday to Houston to meet with the family of George Floyd and offer his condolences.

Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, will also record a video message for Mr. Floyd’s funeral service on Tuesday, according to an aide. Mr. Biden is not expected to attend the service; given his Secret Service protection, there were concerns about the disruption his presence might create, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Biden’s trip to Texas is his first beyond his home state of Delaware and nearby Philadelphia in almost three months. It comes as Mr. Biden seeks to draw a sharp contrast with President Trump over race, leadership and character at a moment of extraordinary national unrest.

Mr. Biden, the former vice president, has spoken out passionately about the need to heal racial divisions in the country, and he has pushed for several measures to overhaul policing.

He has also been sharply critical of Mr. Trump, who has tried to paint himself as a “law and order” president. Mr. Trump has called demonstrators “thugs” and “terrorists,” and threatened last week to deploy the military to overpower them.

On the ground, the passion and determination driving thousands to take to the streets day after day are palpable. When viewed from above, the individual fades as the crowd comes into focus. Images from the 12th day of national protests offer a bird’s-eye view of the expressions of solidarity.

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The statue of a Confederate general, Williams Carter Wickham, was knocked off of its pedestal in Richmond, Va., and the pedestal was tagged with graffiti.CreditCredit...Alexa Welch Edlund/Richmond Times-Dispatch, via Associated Press

A statue of a Confederate general was pulled down from its pedestal Saturday night during demonstrations in Richmond, Va., as monuments to the Confederacy continue to draw the ire of protesters who see them as enduring symbols of white supremacy.

The statue of William Carter Wickham, a cavalry commander, was erected in Monroe Park in 1891. Videos taken on Saturday night showed the statue, with ropes attached, lying on the ground near its pedestal, which was marked with graffiti.

It was not immediately clear whether the people who toppled the statue were protesters. Demonstrations at the park and throughout the city were otherwise peaceful, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Confederate statues and monuments in Norfolk, Va., Raleigh, N.C., and Birmingham, Ala., among other places, have also been targeted. Some have been defaced, and protesters have tried to topple others.

Tensions over the monuments have run particularly high in Richmond, which was the capital of the Confederacy. Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia said last week that the city’s Robert E. Lee statue would be removed, and Mayor Levar Stoney said he would propose an ordinance to remove several other monuments.

A Confederate statue in Alexandria, Va., that had been scheduled for removal next month was taken down last week.

Monuments to white supremacists have also attracted ire overseas. A statue of Edward Colson, a 17th century slave trader and politician, was toppled on Sunday by protesters in Bristol, England.

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‘George Floyd Is Here’: Rome Protesters Denounce Racism

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Rome to oppose racism in the United States and Italy, as global protests persist in response to George Floyd’s killing.

“No justice! No peace!” “No justice! No peace!” “When I say black lives, you say matter!” “Black lives!” “Matter!” “Black lives!” “Matter!”

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Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Rome to oppose racism in the United States and Italy, as global protests persist in response to George Floyd’s killing.CreditCredit...Fabio Frustaci/EPA, via Shutterstock

The global protests denouncing racism and police brutality showed no sign of slowing down this weekend, with crowds gathering on Sunday in Rome, London, Madrid, Barcelona and other cities.

Chanting “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace,” thousands of people swelled the Piazza del Popolo in Rome to protest racism in the United States and in Italy.

“As many of you know, there is a very serious problem with state-condoned violence” in the United States, Fatimah Provillon, a New Jersey native who has lived in Rome for 13 years, told the crowd of mostly young Italians. “But it’s not just a U.S. problem — it’s happening all over the world.”

Thousands of people filled the streets outside the U.S. Embassy in London on Sunday, chanting George Floyd’s name and “Black lives matter,” “Let us live” and “No justice, no peace.” And when the protesters took to their knees, a protest gesture often seen in anti-racism campaigns, cries were heard of “The U.K. is not innocent.”

“We came to protest the injustice of the justice system and the deaths and killings of black people everywhere,” said Iyanah Gordon, one of a group of 18-year-old friends from South London who were at the protest. “Injustices like George Floyd’s death happen here.”

Jamal Marcano, 23, from West London, said he had been stopped by the police recently because of racial profiling. “In the U.S. the racism is more blatant, in the U.K. it is more subtle,” he said.

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, also offered support to the weekend’s demonstrations, writing on Twitter on Sunday: “Londoners of all ages, races and backgrounds joined millions of people around the world yesterday to come together peacefully. I stand with you.”

A few thousand protesters gathered on Sunday in Spain’s two largest cities — Madrid and Barcelona — chanting “I can’t breathe” and calling for an end to police racism. Those who gathered in Madrid did so in defiance of an order from the authorities, who have permitted gatherings only if they are limited to 200 participants because of the coronavirus.

The Madrid protest started near the U.S. embassy but soon spread, and turned instead into a march that ended at the Puerta del Sol, a main square in the heart of the Spanish capital. In Barcelona, about 3,000 demonstrators took over Sant Jaume square, home to the regional government and the city administration. Many held up photos of Mr. Floyd, as well as signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “Black is Beautiful.”

In Rome, Karima 2G, an Italian singer of Liberian descent who hosted the protest, spoke of “solidarity with African-Americans” even as migrants from Africa struggle to get a footing in Italy and across Europe.

She said in an interview later that she was pleased to see a big turnout in Italy, where children of residents of African descent are often not considered Italian.

“That’s a form of racism, too,” she said.

Reporting was contributed by Mike Baker, Katie Benner, Bill Morlin, Audra D.S. Burch, Helene Cooper, Kimiko de Freytas-Kamura, Tess Felder, Thomas M. Gibbons-Neff, Russell Goldman, Jill Cowan, Emily Cochrane, Isabella Grullon Paz, Lara Jakes, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Michael Levenson, Raphael Minder, Elisabetta Povoledo, Monika Pronczuk, Neil Reisner, Marc Santora, Anna Schaverien, Eric Schmitt, Dionne Searcey, Sabrina Tavernise, Marc Tracy, Anjali Tsui and Mihir Zaveri.

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