Salt Lake City Protesters Join National Day of Action in Calling for Community Control of Police

As close to 400 protesters passed throngs of people out Saturday evening in Salt Lake City — those dining on restaurant patios or zooming aimlessly on electric scooters — the marchers chanted “Black lives matter” and “Whose streets? Our streets,” raising fists and signs to drive the point home.

They were a literal movement against police brutality and for community control of law enforcement, the 14th in 15 days in Salt Lake City after the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

On their way to a memorial for Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal near 300 W. 900 South from Pioneer Park in downtown, the protesters stopped in front of the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, a building decorated with a biophotonic glass proclaiming tenets District Attorney Sim Gill says his office holds dear: Due process, justice, equality, trust, and public service as duty.

Demonstrators gathered around the front door and chanted that Gill wasn’t doing his job. They wanted him gone. Two women held up a sign listing the names of people killed by police in Gill’s jurisdiction, and how he’d found each officer in those cases to be legally justified in shooting. The names included Cody Belgard, Zane James, Dillon Taylor and Patrick Harmon.