Salt Lake City doctors demonstrate to honor George Floyd and decry racism
Healthcare workers and medical students pause for 8 minutes 46 seconds of silence in front of the University of Utah Health Sciences Education Building during a demonstration in support of the Black Lives Matter movement Friday, June 5, 2020, in Salt Lake City. The White Coats for Black Lives protest was organized to stand in solidarity with those speaking out against the death of George Floyd who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Dozens of doctors, nurses and other health care workers and students knelt in support of anti-police brutality protests in Salt Lake City on Friday.
About 100 people in Utah joined healthcare professionals around the country using the label White Coats for Black Lives to honor George Floyd, a black man in Minnesota who died at the hands of police in an incident that sparked protests around the world. They knelt for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the same amount of time Floyd was held under an officer's knee.
Hundreds of people have been taking to the streets in Salt Lake City every night this week to draw attention to police brutality and racism.
Meanwhile, in the southern Utah city of St. George on Thursday, nearly 1,000 protesters walked the streets shouting “No justice, no peace” and “I can’t breathe."
“I just feel empowered to see so many people here. I feel loved,” said Augustus Fraser, a football player at Dixie State University, to the Spectrum newspaper.
Police handed out Popsicles to protests at the demonstration, which was calm aside from a brief incident where a line of trucks drove by and taunted the demonstrators.
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