What’s happening at protests in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Atlanta

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• Judy Woodruff:

  As you saw in Yamiche's report, outrage and protests have erupted in cities across the country.

  Amna Nawaz takes a closer look.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Judy, that's right.

  What started in Minneapolis last week spread to dozens of cities this weekend. And thousands of protesters were arrested.

  We have got reporters across the country joining us now. "PBS NewsHour" special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro is in Minneapolis. Rickey Bevington of Georgia Public Broadcasting is in Atlanta. And Cerise Castle of public radio station KCRW joins us now from Los Angeles.

  Welcome to you all.

  And, Fred, let's go to you in Minneapolis first. This is ground zero in many ways. This is where George Floyd was killed, or where the protests began. Bring us up to speed on what has been happening over the last two to three days and what is happening there now.

• Fred de Sam Lazaro:

  What's happening here now all around me, very close to the 3rd Precinct, which was burned down, is a lot of cleanup activity, Amna, and officials here in Minnesota allowing themselves for the first time to be optimistic.

  The governor has loosened the curfew hours. So, they're a little shorter. Certain National Guard deployments on standby are now being sent home. There is a sense that people can be a little more optimistic.

  There was word this afternoon a fund-raising drive, to which no fewer than 27,000 people have contributed $2 million to help businesses, the small businesses that have been devastated in these last few days.

  So, for the first time, we're getting a sense of a Minneapolis that can look post-George Floyd into its future.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Certainly good news for so many people.

  But, Fred, just to follow up, I wonder if you can tell us about what that official response has been? We heard President Trump on that reported call with governors earlier hail the response from Governor Walz, saying he had done a good job.

  What have you seen and what does that mean about what you think people there can expect tonight?

• Fred de Sam Lazaro:

  Governor Walz pushed back a little bit.

  While agreeing that the beefed-up police presence, which was no-nonsense yesterday, did help de-escalate the situation, he said this is militarily unsustainable. That was on one of two points that the governor seemed to make in his news conference today.

  The other point is, he said, the compliance with the stay-at-home pleas, essentially, from officials, were escalated to be stay at home commands. And there was a great deal more compliance and tranquility in the city, relative to the days before that.

  So — so, there was a little bit of pushback from the governor on what caused this. He said, this is just not militarily or socially sustainable. It is the antithesis of how we live.

  All eyes are on tonight to see how it evolves in Minneapolis.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And we will be watching as well.

  Cerise Castle, I want to go now to you over in Los Angeles.

  You were out covering the protests in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles. It's an area with a lot of shops and restaurants and a tourist attraction.

  Describe for us what you saw over the course of the hours that you were there.

• Cerise Castle:

  Sure.

  So, I came out to cover a protest that was happening at Pan Pacific Park around noon on Saturday. I was there for about six hours. And in that time, I was walking with protesters as they made their way throughout the district. Lots of them for the most part were peaceably gathered. I saw lots of signs, lots of group chanting, and even some Aztec people that came out and performed a ceremonial dance, which you can see in the photos you are seeing now.

  Now, things did start to get a little hairy as the afternoon wore on. At one point, about 500 people had gathered at the intersection of Beverly and Fairfax, and I a saw a number of police cruisers that had been put on fire. That was the only real violence that I saw while I was out there.

  For the most part, like I said, people were gathered peacefully. At one point, however, around 4:00 is when things started to turn up a little bit. That was when police in full riot gear made their way to the intersection and began firing rubber bullets without warning at protesters and at journalists, such as myself.

  I was actually hit with a rubber bullet in the arm, and — by Los Angeles police. And I haven't really heard any word from the police department as to why they were shooting at journalists.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Cerise, very briefly, you mentioned to my producer you saw kind of two groups of people out there. What did you mean by that?

• Cerise Castle:

  Sure.

  Well, for the most part, most of these protesters that I am seeing out here came with the intent to peacefully demonstrate and exercise their First Amendment rights. On the other hand, there are people that are sort of taking advantage of the police being preoccupied with these demonstrators and sending all their resources over there.

  These people that are coming in and choosing to break into stores and steal from them are, you know, taking advantage of the police being preoccupied. Those are the two groups of people that we're seeing covered by most of the media in these protests.

  But there isn't really a lot of differentiation between the two groups. However, on the ground, it is clear that these really are two different groups of people with two completely different agendas.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Rickey Bevington over in Atlanta, tell us about what you were seeing covering the protests. Did you see something similar to what Cerise is describing?

• Rickey Bevington:

  In fact, very similar.

  Here in Atlanta, the police presence was robust. It was professional, organized and calm. The group, however, last night that I saw was less unified. There were definitely people there to peacefully protest against police brutality, parents with small children, couples holding signs.

  There were other groups of people who appeared ready for conflict with police. In fact, those conflicts within the group were clear. When one group of protesters began to tear apart a construction site, stealing the fencing to create a barricade in the road, other protesters were screaming at them to stop, saying that the property damage does not represent the message that they were there to send.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Rickey, do you have any sense, based on the community and the people you have been talking to and the official response, of what is ahead for Atlanta tonight?

• Rickey Bevington:

  Atlanta is under a 9:00 p.m. curfew for the third evening in a row. Authorities do believe that there will be more activity today.

  Earlier this afternoon, about 55 people were arrested for blocking the road in front of City Hall. There were about 157 arrests on Saturday night, about half that many last night. Authorities are hoping for a downward trend.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Cerise, very briefly, in just a couple of seconds, do you know what officials are anticipating in Los Angeles?

• Cerise Castle:

  Well, tonight, we have a curfew in place as well. The curfews in L.A. county range from as early as 1:30 this afternoon to as late as 8:00.

  We have brought in the National Guard to help disperse people and make sure people adhere to that curfew. But I myself have already seen a number of protests planned that are outside the curfew hours. So we can expect law enforcement to be out on the streets enforcing that tonight.

• Amna Nawaz:

  We will all be watching, and we hope all of you stay safe.

  Thank you for joining us tonight, Rickey Bevington, Cerise Castle, and, of course, Fred de Sam Lazaro in Minneapolis.

  Stay safe.