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George Floyd Updates: 10th Night of Protest Follows Somber Memorial

Thousands of demonstrators poured into streets across the nation, marching over the Brooklyn Bridge and gathering outside City Hall in Seattle.

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A crowd lingered after the memorial service for George Floyd in Minneapolis on Thursday.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

A somber and defiant memorial for George Floyd in Minneapolis gave way to a 10th night of protests on Thursday as thousands of demonstrators again poured into the nation’s streets, crowding outside City Hall in Seattle and marching across the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who gave a eulogy for Mr. Floyd, pledged that his death would be a catalyst for change, after video showed a white police officer kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes as he lay face down and handcuffed on the pavement, saying “I can’t breathe.”

The tragedy, Mr. Sharpton said, was also a symbolic message: “Get your knee off our necks.”

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‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,’ Sharpton Says

Hundreds of people in Minneapolis attended the first of several memorials for George Floyd, who was killed in police custody, spurring global outrage. The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered a eulogy.

Singing: “Praise God. Ohhh praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God because he’ll praise you.” “I love my brother, man, we had so many memories, you know, together. He was powerful, man, he had a way with words. He could always make you ready to jump and go, all the time. Everybody loved George.” “For those that have agendas that are not about justice, this family will not let you use George as a prop. What happened to Floyd happens every day in this country, in education, in health services and in every area of American life. It’s time for us to stand up in George’s name and say, ‘Get your knee off our necks.’”

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Hundreds of people in Minneapolis attended the first of several memorials for George Floyd, who was killed in police custody, spurring global outrage. The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered a eulogy.CreditCredit...Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times

The tone at many protests on Thursday was largely mournful, after more than a week of crowds burning with grief and anger over the deaths of Mr. Floyd and other black Americans that have spurred calls for criminal justice reform.

Fueling the anguish on Thursday, an investigator in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was fatally shot while being chased by three white men in suburban Georgia, said one of the suspects had used a racial slur after the shooting.

The developments came as officials from Louisville, Ky., to Seattle have been lifting nightly curfews, after protests there had become largely peaceful in recent days.

  • New York: The police cornered and arrested dozens of peaceful protesters in Manhattan and the Bronx who were violating the city’s curfew. Earlier in the day, thousands of demonstrators had also gathered in Brooklyn and outside the mayor’s mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. [Follow our live coverage of the protests in New York.]

  • Minneapolis: Two City Council members said they planned to significantly alter the city’s Police Department after the killing of Mr. Floyd. Council members plan to vote Friday on a temporary restraining order against the department that would require immediate changes, although they were still hammering out the details Thursday. The two council members, including the City Council president, said on Twitter that they hope longer-term changes will effectively “dismantle” the current department.

  • Nashville: The Black Lives Matter movement held a protest at the Bicentennial Mall. Demonstrators marched to the National Museum of African American Music, which is scheduled to open this year, before the procession made its way to the State Capitol.

  • Boston: In Jamaica Plain, a silent vigil was held to protest racial injustice. The city’s mayor, Marty Walsh, led a moment of silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, which was how long a Minneapolis police officer charged in the killing of George Floyd kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck.

  • Asheville, N.C.: The city’s police chief, David Zack, apologized after officers in riot gear destroyed a medical station at the site of a protest this week. A video widely circulated on social media showed the officers stomping on water bottles and ransacking the triage station. Chief Zack called the episode an embarrassment, saying, “For these actions, I am truly sorry.”

  • Washington: Mayor Muriel Bowser said there would be no curfew on Thursday night, despite President Trump encouraging shows of force from the military and law enforcement to crack down on protesters. And the U.S. ambassador to India, Ken Juster, apologized after a statue of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who is a symbol of peaceful resistance, was vandalized with graffiti outside the Indian Embassy.

  • Santa Monica, Calif.: In Los Angeles County, a nightly curfew that had been widely criticized was lifted on Thursday. The decision came after more than 3,000 people had been arrested in the nation’s second-largest city since the protests began last week. Most of the arrests were for curfew violations, with offenders issued citations and released. There were demonstrations in several places in the county, including Santa Monica.

  • Salt Lake City: A man who pointed a bow and arrow at demonstrators and brandished a knife during a protest last week was charged with two felony weapons counts and one count of aggravated assault, the county’s district attorney said. The man, Brandon McCormick, drove his car into the crowd and said, “Yes, I’m American. All lives matter,” a video of the altercation showed. The crowd beat him up and set his car ablaze.

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Buffalo Police Shove Man to the Ground

Police officers knocked a man down on a sidewalk in Buffalo on Thursday as he tried to talk to them. The 75-year-old man appeared to hit his head and lie motionless on the ground.

“Move back!” “Hey!” [gasps] “He is bleeding!” “Bleeding out his ears, bleeding out of his ears.” “Call a medic! Call a medic!” “He’s bleeding out of his ear.” “Get a medic.” “What the [expletive] you walking up on me?” [unclear] “Oh [expletive].” “Back up. Back up. Get off the steps, let’s go, get back. Get back!” “Better get an ambulance for him.” “He’s — there — we have EMT on scene.”

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Police officers knocked a man down on a sidewalk in Buffalo on Thursday as he tried to talk to them. The 75-year-old man appeared to hit his head and lie motionless on the ground.CreditCredit...WBFO NPR

Two Buffalo police officers were suspended without pay on Thursday night after a video showed them shoving a 75-year-old protester, who was hospitalized with a head injury, the authorities said.

Mayor Byron Brown said the man was in serious but stable condition. A video showed the man motionless on the ground and bleeding from his right ear.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York condemned the actions of the officers in a statement late Thursday night.

“The incident in Buffalo is wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I’ve spoken with City of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and we agree that the officers involved should be immediately suspended. Police officers must enforce — NOT ABUSE — the law.”

“It sickens me,” the Erie County executive, Mark Poloncarz, wrote on Twitter about what the video posted by the radio station WBFO shows. It includes both vulgarity and disturbing images.

In the video, an officer who pushed the man appeared to start to check on him but was nudged to leave by another officer. Someone could be overheard saying, “Get a medic, right now.”

The Police Department initially told local media that “one person was injured when he tripped and fell” and that there were five arrests during the protest.

The mayor, Mr. Brown, said in a statement that he was disturbed by the episode and that the city’s police commissioner had ordered an immediate investigation.

“After days of peaceful protests and several meetings between myself, police leadership and members of the community, tonight’s event is disheartening,” he said.

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Demonstrators in Washington on Thursday.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told a group of black supporters on Thursday night that most Americans are good people who think the nation can be improved, but also declared that “there are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there that are just not very good people.”

“The words a president says matter, so when a president stands up and divides people all the time, you’re going to get the worst of us to come out,” Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, said during an online round table hosted by the actor Don Cheadle. “Do we really think this is as good as we can be as a nation? I don’t think the vast majority of people think that.”

Several times during his 70-minute conversation, Mr. Biden acknowledged that he did not know what it was like to be discriminated against on the basis of race, and that his election would not guarantee an end to systemic racism.

“Hate didn’t begin with Donald Trump; it’s not going to end with him,” Mr. Biden said. “The history of our country is not a fairy tale. It doesn’t guarantee a happy ending. But, as I said earlier, we’re in a battle for the soul of this country. It’s been a constant push and pull for the last 200 years.”

Mr. Biden also admitted that he had misjudged the amount of progress the nation had made on race.

“I thought we had made enormous progress when we elected an African-American president. I thought things had really changed,” he said. “I thought you could defeat hate, you could kill hate. But the point is, you can’t. Hate only hides, and if you breathe any oxygen into that hate, it comes alive again.”

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Protesters on Thursday visiting the site where George Floyd was arrested in Minneapolis.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

When George Floyd heard banging on the car window, he was startled, but knew immediately how he should respond.

“What do you want me to do, officer?” he said calmly, according to a friend who was sitting in the passenger seat of his car on May 25 as the fatal encounter with the police began.

The officer answered, “Show me your hands.”

The friend, Maurice Hall, said he had observed Mr. Floyd interact with police officers before. Known as a “gentle giant,” Mr. Floyd was always able to defuse the situation, Mr. Hall said in an interview with Erica L. Green on Wednesday. This time seemed to be different.

“When they approached, they approached with aggression,” Mr. Hall said of the Minneapolis police officers.

Mr. Hall was interviewed this week by Minnesota investigators as a key witness in the state’s case against the four officers charged in Mr. Floyd’s death.

Mr. Hall said he and Mr. Floyd were in the car shortly after they left the store — where Mr. Floyd had been accused of paying for merchandise with a counterfeit $20 bill — when two officers approached, one on each side of the car.

Mr. Floyd complied with the instruction to show his hands, Mr. Hall said, but an officer started reaching into the car to grab them, prompting Mr. Floyd to ask why.

“Now what are you doing that for?” Mr. Hall recalled Mr. Floyd saying. “You asked to see my hands.”

The officer who was on Mr. Hall’s side of the car quickly made his way to Mr. Floyd’s side. “Floyd was not fighting, he’s just shifting from them tussling on him,” Mr. Hall said.

During Mr. Floyd’s arrest, Mr. Hall said he could hear his friend’s cries: “Please officer. I’ve been shot before.” From across the street, he could see his friend’s feet squirming.

“He was just crying out at that time for anyone to help because he was dying,” Mr. Hall said. “He could feel it.”

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Police officers stood in line near protesters after the nightly curfew went into effect in Brooklyn on Wednesday.Credit...Amr Alfiky for The New York Times

A protest movement that was ignited by a horrific video of police violence — a white police officer pressing his knee against the neck of Mr. Floyd for nearly nine minutes — has now prompted hundreds of other episodes and videos documenting cases of violent police tactics.

Often captured by bystanders and sometimes broadcast on live TV — a compilation of videotaped incidents posted on Twitter by a North Carolina lawyer stood at 281 clips by Thursday evening — the violent incidents have occurred in cities large and small, in the heat of mass protests and in their quiet aftermath.

In California, an officer sitting in a police car fatally shot a 22-year-old man who was on his knees with his hands up. In Texas, a 20-year-old protester was shot in the head by police officers in Austin aiming at someone else with nonlethal beanbag ammunition. He was left with brain damage and a fractured skull. In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Miami Herald reporters filmed officers shooting a nonviolent protester in the head with foam rubber bullets, fracturing her eye socket and leaving her screaming and bloody. In Kansas City, Mo., the police walked onto a sidewalk to use pepper spray on protesters yelling at them.

To those protesting police violence, the violence adds up to confirmation of their basic premise: that officers too willingly used excessive force. Experts on policing said that the videos showed, in many cases, examples of abrupt escalation on the part of law enforcement that was difficult to justify.

“It feels like the police are being challenged in ways that they haven’t been challenged in some time,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. “They are responding. And sometimes, that response is totally inappropriate.”

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Although some forces are departing, more than 2,000 National Guard troops are in Washington, and their numbers are expected to grow.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

President Trump agreed on Thursday to begin sending home 82nd Airborne Division troops he had ordered to Washington, temporarily easing a contentious standoff with the Pentagon over the role of the armed forces in quelling protests that have broken out across the nation.

None of the active-duty forces ever actually deployed in Washington, instead remaining on alert outside the city while National Guard troops took up position near the White House and elsewhere around town. But they became caught up in a confrontation pitting a commander in chief intent on demonstrating strength in the face of street demonstrations versus a military command resistant to being drawn into domestic law enforcement or election year politics.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper initially tried to send home a small portion of the 1,600 active-duty troops on Wednesday, only to have Mr. Trump order him to reverse course during an angry meeting. The president finally acquiesced on Thursday, according to an administration official who asked not to be named discussing internal deliberations, but it did not appear the two men spoke directly.

Mr. Esper ordered 700 airborne soldiers to head back to Fort Bragg, N.C., by evening and a Pentagon official said the remaining 900 soldiers from the division as well as a military police unit from Fort Drum, N.Y., could begin withdrawing as early as Friday. More than 2,000 National Guard forces remain in Washington, a number set to climb to 4,500.

Protesters returned to the White House on Thursday to find that National Guard units that had established a perimeter blocks away had pulled back, allowing the crowds all the way up to the northern edge of Lafayette Square once again, at least during daylight. But the government fortified the square, adding concrete barriers behind chain-link fences installed earlier in the week and extending the fences farther around the White House.

What appeared on Thursday to be an uneasy truce between the White House and Pentagon did not mean that the conflict was over. While Mr. Trump’s advisers counseled him not to fire Mr. Esper, the president spent much of the day privately railing about the defense secretary, who along with Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposed the president’s desire to send regular troops into the nation’s cities.

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Demonstrators chanted slogans and some knelt outside the White House grounds on Thursday evening.CreditCredit...Evan Vucci, Associated Press

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska on Thursday became the first Republican senator to say she was considering not voting for President Trump, as she endorsed scathing criticism of the president by James Mattis, the former defense secretary.

Ms. Murkowski said the critique by Mr. Mattis on Wednesday, in which he said that Mr. Trump had divided the nation and failed to lead, was overdue and might be a tipping point that would cause Republicans to air concerns about the president that they had only spoken about privately.

Some Republican lawmakers have found fault with the president’s handling of the unrest convulsing the nation, but Ms. Murkowski was the most explicit so far in her support for the comments by Mr. Mattis, a former four-star Marine Corps general.

“I was really thankful,” Ms. Murkowski told reporters on Capitol Hill. “I thought General Mattis’s words were true and honest and necessary and overdue.”

Ms. Murkowski, one of the few Republicans in Congress who has been willing to break publicly with Mr. Trump, added that when she saw the Mattis statement, “I felt like perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally, and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up.”

Asked whether she could still support Mr. Trump in the coming election, Ms. Murkowski said: “I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.”

In his statement, Mr. Mattis said: “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.”

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Gathering this week at the site where George Floyd was detained in Minneapolis.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Three former Minneapolis police officers charged with aiding in George Floyd’s death made a brief appearance in court on Thursday afternoon, in a first public appearance since protests seized the nation.

The officers, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, appeared one at a time, wearing masks because of coronavirus concerns. Amid protests and high national tensions, attorneys for the defendants entered the courtroom via a corridor flanked by National Guard soldiers and Hennepin County Sheriff’s Deputies.

A Hennepin County district judge, Paul R. Scoggin, considered and denied requests for reduced bail, which was set at $750,000 each with certain conditions.

The officers were charged on Wednesday with aiding and abetting second-degree murder, as well as aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. A fourth former officer who was seen on video holding Mr. Floyd down, Derek Chauvin, faces a charge of second-degree murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter.

All four officers were fired after video emerged of the May 25 arrest that led to the killing.

Mr. Chauvin, who is white, held his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Mr. Lane held his legs and Mr. Kueng held his back, while Mr. Thao stood by, according to video footage of the encounter.

Mr. Lane is white and Mr. Thao is Hmong, according to a spokesman for the Minnesota attorney general. Mr. Kueng is black, according to his defense lawyer.

The hearing and 235 pages of personnel records released by the Minneapolis Police Department late Wednesday revealed the varying histories of the four officers, and lawyers sought to paint a contrast between Mr. Lane and Mr. Kueng, who were new to the force, and Mr. Chauvin, who had been with the Minneapolis Police Department for nearly two decades.

Lawyers for Mr. Lane and Mr. Kueng said they had only been full members of the police department for a matter of days when they got the call about Mr. Floyd, and that they had raised flags multiple times during the arrest while also looking to Mr. Chauvin for guidance.

A defense lawyer said Mr. Lane performed CPR on Mr. Floyd in the ambulance “for a lengthy period of time.”

Mr. Chauvin, 44, was the subject of at least 17 misconduct complaints over two decades, though only one was detailed in 79 pages of his heavily redacted personnel file.

A woman complained in 2007 that he needlessly removed her from her car, searched her and put her into the back of a squad car for driving 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. The file shows that the complaint was upheld and that Mr. Chauvin was issued a letter of reprimand.

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Federal agents dispersed protesters on Monday using smoke, flash grenades and chemical spray.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its handling of protests near the White House, calling aggressive efforts to disperse those gathered a violation of their Constitutional rights.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court names President Donald Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr and other administration officials. Scott Michelman, the legal director for the A.C.L.U. of the District of Columbia, said the tactics employed with the blessing of the nation’s top law enforcement official “chills protected speech for all of us.”

“The President’s shameless, unconstitutional, unprovoked, and frankly criminal attack on protesters — because he disagreed with their views — shakes the foundation of our nation’s constitutional order,” Mr. Michelman said.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter D.C. as well as individual protesters who were at Lafayette Square.

On Monday, federal agents using smoke, flash grenades and chemical spray abruptly dispersed protesters and clergy members who had gathered peacefully near the White House. Mr. Trump and aides then held a photo op in front of a historic church.

The A.C.L.U. said it also planned to file many other lawsuits around the country in response to law enforcement tactics used against protesters.

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A home in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Ga.Credit...Dylan Wilson for The New York Times

A Georgia investigator testified on Thursday that one of the three defendants accused of chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was jogging in Brunswick, Ga., heard another defendant use a racist slur after shooting Mr. Arbery.

At a preliminary hearing in the case, the investigator said that William Bryan, who used his cellphone to film the fatal encounter, heard the remark by Travis McMichael, the man who pulled the trigger.

From the witness stand, Richard Dial, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation assistant special agent in charge of the case, said that Mr. Bryan heard Mr. McMichael use the slur after the shooting took place, and before the police arrived on the scene.

The death of Mr. Arbery in February drew widespread condemnation that only intensified after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. His name has become one of several that protesters have repeated in recent days, urging attention to the issue of systemic racism and criminal justice reform in nationwide demonstrations.

The hearing ended with Judge Wallace E. Harrell of the Glynn County Magistrate Court determining that sufficient probable cause existed to support the murder charges brought against the three men.

Gregory McMichael, a retired investigator in the local district attorney’s office, and his son, Travis McMichael, were arrested May 7. Each was charged with murder and aggravated assault. They had pursued Mr. Arbery through their Satilla Shores neighborhood on the afternoon of Feb. 23, suspecting him of being the perpetrator of a number of neighborhood break-ins.

Travis McMichael, 34, who was armed with a shotgun, shot Mr. Arbery three times as the two men scuffled. Greg McMichael, 64, who had armed himself with a handgun, watched the shooting while standing in the bed of a pickup truck.

Their neighbor, William Bryan, 50, made a video recording of the incident on his phone. He was arrested May 21 on charges of felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. In a police report, Greg McMichael appears to indicate that Mr. Bryan, who goes by “Roddie,” was a participant in the chase, telling an officer that Mr. Bryan “attempted to block” Mr. Arbery as he ran.

The three men remain in Glynn County jail and have not yet entered a plea in the case.

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Earlier on Thursday, Democratic senators knelt during a moment of silence in the Capitol to commemorate the lives of African-Americans killed by the police.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

Democrats in Congress are “on the brink” of unveiling legislation to address police brutality, racial profiling and the loss of trust between the police and their communities, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.

Ms. Pelosi said the Congressional Black Caucus planned to unveil the bills on Monday that would go beyond the kind of incremental changes considered by Congress in the past. She called the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis “a threshold that our country has crossed,” and predicted that the debate could help push the country forward in meaningful ways.

“We want to see this as a time where we can go forward in a very drastic way,” she told reporters. “Not incrementally, but in an important way to address those problems.”

Ms. Pelosi declined to detail what would be included in the package, but Democrats have previously indicated they would try to outlaw chokeholds, set up a federal commission on the social status of black men, and make it easier to track violent officers as they move from department to department.

Senate Republicans pledged to act, as well, though they were on a slower track and are likely to pursue narrower solutions than those the Democrats will propose.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that he would convene a hearing on June 16 on race and law enforcement, aimed at finding “better policing methods.”

“I’m willing to spend a lot of money to get the system to engage in better policing,” Mr. Graham said. “I’m willing to make it easier to fire bad cops who shouldn’t be wearing the uniform to begin with. Count me in for solutions.”

Meanwhile, on the Senate floor, a Republican blocked a move by two Democratic senators, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, to push through legislation that would make lynching a federal crime.

The bill overwhelmingly passed the House earlier this year, but Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has insisted on trying to make changes, and refused on Thursday to allow it to pass without a formal vote.

Following Mr. Floyd’s somber memorial service in Minneapolis on Thursday, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered the eulogy, announced a march on Washington on Aug. 28, to demand a federal law against discriminatory policing, led by family members of Mr. Floyd, Eric Garner and other black people who have died in police custody.

The date is the anniversary of the 1963 civil rights march that culminated in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.

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President Trump leaving the White House on Monday for a photo opportunity in front of St. John’s Church.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Attorney General William P. Barr pushed back on Thursday against the widespread condemnation of President Trump’s photo opportunity in front of a historic church earlier this week, and the forcible clearing of protesters just before Mr. Trump’s appearance.

“The president is the head of the executive branch and the chief executive of the nation, and should be able to walk outside the White House, and walk across the street to visit the church,” Mr. Barr said at a news conference with other top Justice Department officials.

“I don’t necessarily view that as a political act,” he said. “I think it was entirely appropriate.”

In the minutes before Mr. Trump strode from the White House on Monday evening and crossed Lafayette Park, to pose for a photo in front of St. John’s Church, officers in riot gear rushed to move people out of his path using smoke, flash grenades and chemical spray.

Mr. Barr denied any link between Mr. Trump’s visit to the church and the authorities’ violent clearing of protesters, saying that well before he knew that Mr. Trump intended to visit the church, he had asked that the park be cleared in order to create more space between the White House and the protests.

“There was no correlation between our tactical plan of moving the perimeter out by one block and the president’s going over to the church,” he said.

The demonstrators in the park on Monday night were peaceful.

But Mr. Barr and other department officials said the decision had been made earlier that day to increase the law enforcement presence in and around the park, in response to looters, vandals and others who committed violent acts over the three previous nights, during weekend protests over the killing of George Floyd.

The officials stressed that most of the protesters were peaceful, and attributed much of the illegal activity over the weekend to extremist groups intent on sowing chaos.

Mr. Barr mentioned antifa, a loose collective of anti-fascists associated with the left, and the similarly loosely organized “boogaloo” movement of people on the far right who hope to touch off a race war. “It’s important to point out the witch’s brew that we have of extremist individuals and groups that are involved,” Mr. Barr said. “There were a variety of people, a variety of ideological persuasions.”

Justin Howell was not the demonstrator who threw a water bottle on Sunday at officers guarding police headquarters, Chief Brian Manley of the Austin police said. It was not Mr. Howell, but someone next to him, who then hurled a backpack toward the officers, the chief said.

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Justin Howell in an undated photograph provided by his family.Credit...Family photo

But as officers responded with force, it was Mr. Howell, 20, a student studying political science at Texas State University, who was struck in the head with a bean bag round fired by the police. Mr. Howell was critically injured.

The encounter is expected to be discussed at an Austin City Council hearing on Thursday afternoon about the actions of the police during the protests.

In an article published Wednesday in The Battalion, the student newspaper of Texas A&M University, Mr. Howell’s brother Joshua Howell wrote that Justin, who is black, sustained a skull fracture and brain damage and that doctors said he would probably not recover quickly.

“These ‘less-lethal’ munitions are only ‘less-lethal’ by technicality,” Joshua Howell, who is the opinion editor of the newspaper, wrote. “My brother’s condition shows what can happen when you fire them into a crowd.”

Saying the police in Austin were “entirely out of their depth,” Joshua Howell wrote that when people carried his brother’s limp body to the headquarters building for medical help, the police fired at them, too — as they had been told to do by other officers — a sequence of events that Chief Manley said on Monday was under investigation.

“At minimum, it shows a complete inability to be aware of your surroundings and to manage the situation appropriately,” Joshua Howell wrote.

Reporting was contributed by Tim Arango, Mike Baker, Peter Baker, Kim Barker, Katie Benner, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Emily Cochrane, Nick Corasaniti, Michael Crowley, Elizabeth Dias, John Eligon, Reid J. Epstein, Tess Felder, Matt Furber, Lazaro Gamio, Sandra E. Garcia, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Katie Glueck, Russell Goldman, Erica L. Green, Richard Fausset, Amy Julia Harris, Shawn Hubler, Carl Hulse, Mike Ives, Sean Keenan, Neil MacFarquhar, Barbara Marcolini, Patricia Mazzei, Sarah Mervosh, Richard A. Oppel Jr., Richard Perez-Peña, Catherine Porter, Elisabetta Povoledo, Michael Powell, Frances Robles, Alejandra Rosa, Marc Santora, Anna Schaverien, Eric Schmitt, Thomas Shanker, Derrick Taylor, Glenn Thrush, Daniel Victor, Neil Vigdor, Karen Weise and Mihir Zaveri.

A correction was made on 
June 4, 2020

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a cousin of George Floyd's who spoke at his memorial service. It was Shareeduh Tate, not Tera Brown.

How we handle corrections

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