NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Two more protests are scheduled for Middle Tennessee. This comes after the recent killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that have sparked outrage and led to rallies around the country calling for equality and an end to police brutality against African Americans.
The group Teens 4 Equality hopes to bring students and the community together to rally and support the Black Lives Matter movement. The plan is to meet at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park at 4 p.m. Thursday, have a moment of silence for those who have died, then begin marching to the National Museum of African American Music at 4:30 p.m. The group says it will play music outside of the museum before marching to the State Capitol. The group says the protest will end promptly at 7p.m.
Another protest will be at the Franklin downtown square beginning around 5 p.m. Protesters are asked to bring signs that read “End White Silence” or “Black Lives Matter."
As part of the call for sweeping change to police tactics, activists want eight key policies to be put in place in police departments across the nation.
Those are: banning choke holds, requiring de-escalation, requiring warning before shooting, exhausting all other means before shooting, recognizing the duty to intervene, banning shooting at a moving car, requiring use of force continuum and requiring comprehensive reporting.
The group behind the call for change is Campaign Zero. They claim if these policies are put into place across the country, police violence would decrease by 72 percent. Nashville has three of the eight policies in place.
