Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney Requests National Guard, Curfew, Says "Enough Is Enough...This Must Stop"

[lowkell]

https://bluevirginia.us/2020/05/video-richmond-mayor-levar-stoney-requests-national-guard-curfew-says-enough-is-enough-this-must-stop

"..as we stand here that the violence and the destruction and the images we’ve seen across this city is not the Richmond we know…We saw local businesses, some black-owned businesses, that have served Richmond for decades, vandalized and looted. We’ve seen people’s homes on fire. Bricks have flown through the windows of synagogues. We’ve seen buildings vandalized throught the city…Ladies and gentlemen, I think it’s time to say that enough is enough, and this must stop, this must end. We cannot sit here idly and agree and tell everyone here that these actions are productive, because they’re not. When you block law enforcement from allowing fire services to get to a home…that’s caught on fire, you are not inspiring change. When you knock out windows in businesses that had nothing to do with this, you are not inspiring change. That’s an insult to the cause…We all know what happened in Minneapolis. Those actions are an insult to the cause. It’s an insult to black men, black women who suffer every day…at the hands of structural racism in this nation.

At this point, these bad actors are hijacking the cause…peaceful protests in solidarity against the injustices…hijacked by bad actors. As soon as you loot a store or set a public bus on fire, you’ve…stopped protesting. You’re not demonstrating, you’ve made it about you, when it should be about us. Taking advantage of our pain, making a mockery of George Floyd’s death, using our frustration, our anger and our heartbreak to create chaos….Bottom line, it’s wrong. It’s wrong..."