At least five arrests, more pepper spray mark start of day 2 protest at KC Plaza

This has been updated. The latest can be found here.

Kansas City Police confirmed they have arrested five people on municipal charges at Saturday night’s protest at the Country Club Plaza, while at least a dozen others have been led away from the demonstration by officers.

Pepper spray has also been deployed multiple times as police officers could be seen donning gas masks. Some protesters were spotted having milk poured their eyes, a commonly used remedy for pepper spray.

By 7 p.m., as many protesters had been taken into custody as the entire evening before, as Kansas City enters its second night of protests.

At least one officer and one protester have been injured, but the type and severity were not immediately known.

Kansas City Police Department Capt. David Jackson heard one of the people injured had been hit by a bottle of some kind and had a bloody nose.

“And somebody I think complained of injury after getting arrested and I didn’t know the extent (of the person’s injury),” he said. “He wanted to go to the hospital, I know that.”

Police estimated about 400 to 500 demonstrators turned out by Saturday afternoon. Roughly 75 police officers worked the protest Friday; Jackson said there were more than that Saturday, but did not provide a number.

By about 7 p.m., more officers were being called on to help with the crowd.

Asked about protesters throwing water bottles at officers, Jackson said officers would not allow things to get out of hand.

“We’re going to take some people into custody when we see it,” he said. “We’re not going to sit back and allow anything to get out of hand.”

Jackson added some of the bottles were frozen.

“They’ve done a little bit more damage,” Jackson says of frozen bottles.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said the officers who have had “projectiles” thrown at them have largely “kind of taken it so far.”

“That won’t be the case forever,” he said. “You can’t come here and throw stuff.”

He called for peace.

“We’re here to talk about George Floyd,” Lucas said. “We’re here to talk about how to improve justice in our country.

Saturday was the second night of protests in Kansas City, which joined other cities across the country demonstrating against police brutality in the days following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Floyd died as a police officer Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department kept his knee on George’s neck for more than eight minutes.

Saturday’s protest appeared to get off to a rockier start than Friday’s demonstration, which was relatively calm.

Things went well for much of Friday, but police made five arrests during early morning hours on Saturday. Jackson said pepper spray was deployed at about 1 a.m. on people who damaged property, including breaking windows at businesses and damaged police cars.

“I do believe the arrests were local residents and they were for municipal charges,” Jackson said. “The vast majority of the crowd was peaceful, cooperative, they came out to exercise their First Amendment rights, that’s what we’re encouraging everybody to do.”

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 6:25 PM.