In Strange Twist, Protests May Have Had Positive Effect On Social Distancing As Others Avoided Them

CNN: Black Lives Matter Protests Have Not Led To A Spike In Coronavirus Cases, Research Says
Despite warnings from public health officials, new research suggests Black Lives Matter protests across the country have not led to a jump in coronavirus cases. A new study, published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, used data on protests from more than 300 of the largest US cities, and found no evidence that coronavirus cases grew in the weeks following the beginning of the protests. (Asmelash, 6/24)

Boston Globe: Fewer Than 3 Percent Of Protesters Who Sought Tests Were Positive For Coronavirus, Baker Says
Fewer than 3 percent of the thousands of demonstrators who visited a series of free state testing sites last week tested positive for the novel coronavirus, offering what officials called a hopeful sign that the waves of protests against police brutality aren’t feeding a new spike in the virus across Massachusetts. The results, disclosed Tuesday by Governor Charlie Baker, sprung from 17,617 tests over roughly two days, and marked the largest testing effort in Massachusetts aimed specifically at those who participated in protests or demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. (Stout, 6/23)

Los Angeles Times: LAPD Coronavirus Cases Spike Following Protests
Coronavirus infections among Los Angeles police officers spiked in recent weeks, reflecting a broader increase in cases regionally and raising fresh questions about the role of protests in the spread. Police officials have said that officers were exposed on skirmish lines as they worked to disperse screaming crowds. Protesters say officers recklessly arrested people en masse without wearing masks, exposing not just themselves but others. (Rector, 6/23)

The New York Times: Gun Violence Spikes In N.Y.C., Intensifying Debate Over Policing 
It has been nearly a quarter century since New York City experienced as much gun violence in the month of June as it has seen this year. The city logged 125 shootings in the first three weeks of the month, more than double the number recorded over the same period last year, police data show. Gunmen opened fire during house parties, barbecues and dice games, and carried out coldly calculated street executions. (Southall and MacFarquhar, 6/23)

WBUR: Why There's A Push To Get Police Out Of Schools 
At least two-thirds of American high school students attend a school with a police officer, according to the Urban Institute, and that proportion is higher for students of color. Now, the national uprising for racial justice has led to a push to remove police officers from security positions inside schools. School systems in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Denver, Portland, Ore., and two districts in the Bay Area have all moved in recent weeks to suspend or phase out ties with police. (Kamenetz, 6/23)

The Washington Post: Trump Tweets D.C. Protesters Will Be Met With 'Serious Force' If Autonomous Zone Established 
D.C. police lined streets around the White House on Tuesday, periodically clearing out tents, barricades and other structures built by protesters seeking to create an autonomous zone in the area that has been at the center of weeks of protests against police brutality. The action came after President Trump tweeted early Tuesday that protesters would be met with “serious force” if they tried to establish an autonomous zone and that federal officials would seek long sentences against anyone who toppled statues or vandalized monuments. (Lang, Svrluga, Heim, Kunkle and Jouvenal, 6/23)

The Washington Post: Seattle Police Will Return To East Precinct As Future Of CHOP Remains Uncertain 
Around dusk in Seattle on Monday night, dozens of protesters linked arms outside the police department’s East Precinct, forming a human chain to function as a steadfast wall. They were preparing for police to return to the building, the heart of what they call the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, or CHOP. Neither Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) nor Police Chief Carmen Best have said exactly when police will come back, just that it was time. In a Monday news conference, they pledged a peaceful return of police in the near future, after back-to-back shootings in CHOP have left residents, business owners and demonstrators on edge. (Flynn, 6/23)

The Washington Post: Madison Protests Turn Violent As Wisconsin State Senator Tim Carpenter Attacked, Statues Torn Down
Amid heated demonstrations that left two statues destroyed and windows smashed in Madison, a Democratic state senator was reportedly attacked by protesters near the Wisconsin State Capitol. State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had been heading to the Capitol to work late Tuesday when he stopped to snap a photo of the protesters. (Chiu, 6/24)

Kaiser Health News: For A Black Social Media Manager In The George Floyd Age, Each Click Holds Trauma 
Recently, as I scrolled the more than 1 million tweets connected to the hashtag #Black_Lives_Matter, this is what flashed before my eyes: the black-and-white dashcam video of Philando Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, in handcuffs crying, her 4-year-old daughter trying to comfort her; protesters in Berlin standing in solidarity with the BLM movement; a Now This video of a young Black girl calling herself ugly; police attacking protesters and protesters fighting back; an image of George Floyd unable to breathe. Suddenly neither could I. My chest tightened, my heart beat faster and hot tears began to bubble from my eyes. (Giles, 6/24)

AP: Cops In Misconduct Cases Stay On Force Through Arbitration
An Oregon police officer lost his job and then returned to work after fatally shooting an unarmed Black man in the back. A Florida sergeant was let go six times for using excessive force and stealing from suspects, while a Texas lieutenant was terminated five times after being accused of striking two women, making threatening calls and committing other infractions. These officers and hundreds of others across the country were fired, sometimes repeatedly, for violating policies but got their jobs back after appealing their cases to an arbitrator who overturned their discipline — an all-too-common practice that some experts in law and in policing say stands in the way of real accountability. (Bellisle, 6/24)

AP: Police Officer Involved In Breonna Taylor Shooting Fired
The Louisville Metro police department has fired one of the police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, more than three months after the 26-year-old Black woman was killed in her home. A termination letter sent to Officer Brett Hankison released by the city’s police department Tuesday said Hankinson violated procedures by showing “extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he “wantonly and blindly” shot 10 rounds of gunfire into Taylor’s apartment in March. The letter also said Hankison, who is white, violated the rule against using deadly force. (6/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Louisville Police Chief Fires Officer Involved In Breonna Taylor Killing 
The Louisville, Ky., police chief on Tuesday officially fired one of the three police officers involved in the March killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman. Ms. Taylor was asleep with her boyfriend when the three officers, who had secured a no-knock warrant to search her home in connection with a drug case, broke through her apartment’s front door. Her boyfriend, thinking they were intruders, shot at them, according to his attorney. Officers responded by firing more than 20 bullets, at least eight of which hit and killed Ms. Taylor, according to attorneys for her family. (Campo-Flores, 6/23)

AP: Icons Of 1960s Civil Rights Movement Voice Cautious Optimism
Bob Moses says America is at “a lurching moment” for racial change, potentially as transforming as the Civil War era and as the 1960s civil rights movement that he helped lead. “What we are experiencing now as a nation has only happened a couple times in our history,” said Moses, a main organizer of the 1964 “Freedom Summer” project in Mississippi. “These are moments when the whole nation is lurching, and it’s not quite sure which way it’s going to lurch.” (Sewell and Contreras, 6/24)

The Washington Post: Geico Removes Fort Pillow Ad After Criticism From Civil War Historians 
Historian Bob O’Connor could not believe the Geico ad was still on the radio, but there it was. The spot hawking homeowners insurance featured a woman talking about building a fort of pillows in her house, a normally innocuous description until she glibly dubbed it “Fort Pillow. ”The Civil War expert was appalled, especially at a time when Black Lives Matter had become an international movement. In 1864, he said, Confederate troops massacred around 300, mostly black, Union soldiers after they had lifted their hands in surrender at Fort Pillow outside of Memphis. O’Connor said the attack was led by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest — who went on to become the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan — and was motivated by the Confederate’s outrage that the North had enlisted black soldiers. (Denham, 6/23)

Reuters: Woman Arrested Over Torching Of Wendy's Where Rayshard Brooks Died 
A woman accused of setting fire to the Wendy’s fast-food restaurant in Atlanta where police shot and killed Rayshard Brooks in the parking lot was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of arson, authorities said. Natalie White, 29, was taken into custody by Fulton County sheriff’s deputies on the same day that Brooks, a Black man who was slain by a white officer, was buried following a funeral at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. (McKay, 6/23)

The Washington Post: A Baltimore Restaurant Group Apologizes To A Black Woman And Son For Unequally Enforcing Its Dress Code 
A Baltimore restaurant group that has previously been accused of creating dress codes targeting nonwhite customers has apologized after a black woman posted a video showing a white manager refusing to seat her and her son because he said the boy violated a ban on athletic wear. The footage of the incident at Ouzo Bay in Baltimore’s Harbor East, which drew accusations of racism on social media, showed the boy’s mother pointing out a similarly dressed white boy whose family had been served. (Heil, 6/23)

The Washington Post: Mourners Recall Rayshard Brooks, Say His Death ‘Much Bigger Than Him’ 
ATLANTA — Mourners gathered for the funeral of Rayshard Brooks on Tuesday in Ebenezer Baptist Church, a historic Atlanta sanctuary that rose after the Civil War and Reconstruction, survived decades of Jim Crow laws, and for years served as a spiritual home for civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The years weighed heavily as family and friends clad in white and wearing masks amid the coronavirus pandemic filed into the red-brick church under cloudy skies, for yet another black man killed, with a white police officer accused of murder in his death. (Nirappil and Sacchetti, 6/23)

In other news —

AP: White Parents Of Black Children Navigate A Changing Nation
Izzy Simons has been fired up about the prospect of driving on his own.The 15-year-old has craved the freedom a license promises. He has proudly and effectively maneuvered the family’s vehicles around the church parking lot and beyond, and he’s confident he’ll pass his test in August. He imagines arriving at Southmoore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, someday in a navy blue crew cab Silverado truck with a lift kit. (Brunt, 6/23)

Stateline: Black Businesses Largely Miss Out On Opportunity Zone Money 
President Donald Trump says the opportunity zone tax break he signed into law in 2017 has created “tens of thousands of jobs” and is helping minority communities and Black businessowners. In a tweet earlier this month, he pointed to opportunity zones as proof he’d done more for the Black community “than any President since Abraham Lincoln.”There’s no way to prove that the tax break for wealthy investors who buy a stake in a business or property in the zones has created jobs or helped minority businessowners. (Quinton, 6/24)