The Metropolitan Police have confirmed a total of 23 people were arrested during the London Black Lives Matter protests and they remain in custody.
The Black Lives Matter demonstration on Sunday was organised after George Floyd died when a US police officer held him down by pressing a knee into his neck last Monday in Minneapolis.
The protest started in Trafalgar Square around lunchtime, where people chanted Mr Floyd’s name along with ‘F*** the police’ and knelt on the floor on mass, before heading to the US embassy in Battersea to voice their anger.
One demonstrator said the protests were ‘very important because it is sending a clear message that we have had enough racial injustice in our country’.
Isabelle Orsini, 20, who is originally from New York, but now lives in Kensington told the PA news agency: “The US obviously has a much deeper and darker history of black discrimination compared to the UK.
“The reason people are so angry is because this is reopening wounds that go back hundreds of years.
“It is very important that we do whatever it takes to tell our government that racism will not be tolerated.”
After going to the United States embassy protesters then crossed the river again, and headed through affluent Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Notting Hill, before gathering at the base of Grenfell Tower where 72 people died in a 2017 fire.
Reverend Sally Hitchiner, associate vicar at St Martin-in-the-Fields, said: “It’s showing there are people in the UK who care passionately about the situation in the US.
“Clearly they’re not following lockdown and social distancing, but I think there’s a huge amount of passion there and that’s overriding their concerns.
“It’s an issue that requires passion but at the same time there’s a huge amount of risk in what they’re doing.”
The London demonstration comes after tens of thousands of people joined nightly protests across the US since the death, with at least 1,600 people arrested in 22 cities as some demonstrations descended into scenes of chaos, violence and looting.
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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