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Watch now: Tension rises as protesters surge at federal courthouse - Buffalo News

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A chanting crowd of demonstrators, expressing their anger at the death of a black man at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, confronted armed U.S. Marshals and Buffalo Police in riot gear at the entrance to the federal courthouse in Niagara Square late Saturday afternoon after a march through downtown streets.

More than 1,000 protesters filled the square in front of Buffalo City Hall between 4 and 5 p.m., then marched up Delaware Avenue to North Street, chanting "No justice, no peace." Passing cars honked horns in support.

They circled to Elmwood Avenue and returned to gather around the McKinley Monument until their attention turned to the Robert H. Jackson U.S. Courthouse.

Many in the multi-racial crowd in front of the courthouse chanted “I can’t breathe” and “I’m gonna die,” the last words of George Floyd before he died as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.

“It’s really unfortunate that we have to be in this situation at all,” said protester James McDonnell, a resident of Buffalo's West Side. “There is a separate police system for black people in the United States and we’re here because we’re aware of that and don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

"I’m saddened and I am outraged that every time I turn on the news another brown person is murdered without reason,” said Sarita Rivera, who came with her daughter. “I’m tired of it and I don’t want to see it any more, so I’m here with everyone in solidarity. I just want it to stop.”

Heavily armed U.S. Marshals in camouflage uniforms kept an eye on the noisy demonstration from the perimeter of the glass-walled Robert H. Jackson U.S. Courthouse on the square. They raised their shields and tensions rose as demonstrators surged toward them around 6:30 p.m.

Some in the crowd booed and bottles were thrown. Others in the crowd urged everyone to be peaceful.

In a videotaped statement posted on Vimeo an hour before scheduled 5 p.m. start of the protest, Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown expressed support for a peaceful protest and said that rumored disruption by outside agitators would not be tolerated.

Brown said that seeing images of Floyd’s death “was very painful ... I know the pain that it caused and I know that people are hurting right now, that people want to express that hurt, they want to express that outrage and peaceful protest is the vehicle for being able to do that. Protest is the way to say that the discrimination and racism that black people have faced in this country for so many years needs to come to an end.”

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Watch now: Tension rises as protesters surge at federal courthouse - Buffalo News
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