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Reports: Chemicals used on crowd during Richmond protest

FILE - This Tuesday, June 2, 2020 file photo shows a large group of protesters gather around the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue near downtown in Richmond, Va. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced plans Thursday, June 4, for the removal of the iconic statue. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) (Steve Helber, Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

RICHMOND, Va. – Police in Virginia's capital city fired chemical agents at demonstrators who gathered late Sunday and early Monday to protest a previous incident in which a police car drove into a crowd, according to news reports.

Hundreds of people marched from a Richmond park to the downtown police headquarters on Sunday night and engaged in an hourslong standoff with officers.

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The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that police first shot a chemical agent, which the newspaper said was pepper spray, into the crowd around 10 p.m. Sunday. It was deployed again against a smaller crowd as the demonstration continued into Monday morning. A woman was taken into custody, the report said.

Virginia State Police were eventually called in to support Richmond officers, the newspaper said.

Video released by WWBT-TV showed a small group of protestors standing in front of a line of officers in riot gear outside the downtown police building after 4 a.m. Some protestors could be heard shouting at the officers.

Police later appeared to launch multiple canisters of what the station reported was tear gas toward the group, before some demonstrators picked them up and threw them back, according to the video.

Richmond police could not immediately be reached for comment.

The encounters took place less than a day after Mayor Levar Stoney asked a state prosecutor to investigate an incident in which a police SUV appeared to strike multiple protesters as they blocked the vehicle's path near the Robert E. Lee statue on Saturday. No one was reported seriously injured by the SUV.

The overnight confrontation also comes two weeks after Stoney and Richmond Police drew criticism over the use of tear gas against nonviolent protestors gathered in front of the Lee monument during a demonstration June 1.

Stoney and the department both apologized for the actions in that instance and promised the officers involved would be disciplined.

Protests against police brutality have rocked the U.S. since the death on May 25 of George Floyd, a black man who pleaded for air while a Minneapolis police officer pinned him down with a knee to Floyd’s neck.


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