June 6 George Floyd protest news

It's past curfew in the city of Buffalo, in upstate New York, but there is still a small group of protesters on the street.

They're gathered in Niagara Square, in the city's downtown -- where police officers pushed over and injured a 75-year-old man, Martin Gugino, during protests on Thursday night.

Video of the demonstration shows a row of officers walking toward Gugino and two pushing him. His head bleeds onto the sidewalk as officers walk past him, some looking down at him.

Gugino was hospitalized with a head injury.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the incident "wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful," and said on Twitter that "police officers must enforce — NOT ABUSE — the law."

Officers plea not guilty: The two officers were suspended without pay, and pleaded not guilty earlier today to charges of assault in the second degree.

Following their suspension, 57 Buffalo police officers resigned from the force's emergency response team. They did not resign from the force.

It's about 10:30 p.m. in New York and Washington, DC, and 7:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, but big crowds are still out on the streets in both cities, and spirits are high.

In New York, protesters are marching through Greenwich Village in downtown Manhattan. Curfew was at 8 p.m., but there isn't a heavy police presence tonight, and police haven't been enforcing the curfew with arrests like earlier this week.

The protesters have been marching for hours now. Some of the organizers and leaders keep morale up with call-and-response chants like "Do not engage, we are united, we are peaceful" and "United, the people will never be defeated."

In Washington, DC, crowds are massive tonight -- perhaps the biggest since they began, said CNN Correspondent Alex Marquadt on the scene.

Curfew was lifted earlier this week, and protests remain peaceful. People are gathering on the edge of Lafayette Park, close to the White House, taking photos with a new street sign that reads "Black Lives Matter Plaza."

There are some members of law enforcement and National Guard troops in sight -- but nowhere near the aggressive numbers seen earlier in the week, Marquadt said.

In Los Angeles, curfew has also been lifted and protests remain peaceful, with the mood light tonight.

The marchers, numbering at least 1,000, is diverse, said CNN reporter Lucy Kafanov on the scene. She described seeing "members of the Asian community, Latino community, white people, black people, LGBTQ, everyone."

The Black Lives Matter movement and ongoing US protests have struck a chord with many around the world -- perhaps most notably in Paris, where protesters have been demonstrating throughout the week, and are on the streets again on Saturday.

The Paris protesters are marching in solidarity with those in the United States -- but also to protest racial injustice and police brutality in their own country.

At least 20,000 people demonstrated in Paris on Tuesday, in support of the family of Adama Traoré, a black man who died in 2016 in Paris police custody.

Traoré died on his 24th birthday after he was taken into police custody for fleeing an identity check.

His sister, Assa Traoré, says police told her his final words were "I can't breathe."

Adama and George Floyd "died in the exact same way. They carried the weight of ... three cops on them. They had the same words," she told CNN.

The protests on Saturday: Earlier in the day, several thousand people demonstrated in Paris as well as other French cities.

Traoré's name appears often in these protests, on signs and in chants -- but protesters here have also adopted some of the slogans from their counterparts in the US, like "No justice, no peace."

"You really sense this is a movement that's been given inspiration," said CNN Correspondent Melissa Bell at the scene.

The protests are seeing large crowds gather in close quarters across the country -- and, experts warn, could lead to a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

"Honestly, I am worried about a new spike. But I was worried about this new spike well before there were protests," said epidemiologist and former Detroit health commissioner Abdul El-Sayed.

Instead of framing it as a choice between protesting and coronavirus, here are some things he suggested protesters do to keep themselves as safe as possible:

Authorities have a responsibility to address these concerns too, he said: keeping people tightly packed together in vans or cells can be dangerous for potential infection.

The Commander of the Washington, DC National Guard told CNN in an exclusive interview today that some of the nearly 4,000 additional National Guard forces brought to DC from other states could leave as early as Monday. 

The presence of approximately 3,900 out-of-state National Guard members has been a major point of contention between DC officials and the Trump administration.

He said that the out-of-state National Guard forces, hailing from 11 states, had been requested by the Defense Department to bolster the 1,200-strong DC contingent that had been activated.

He added that National Guard troops were not involved in using force to clear Lafayette Park on Monday night -- an action that caused many former military officers to criticize the Trump administration’s handling of the protests. Walker said that National Guard personnel held their positions and did not advance on the protesters.

He also denied that the controversial low overflights of helicopters on Monday night were directed by the Pentagon leadership, as the New York Times reported Saturday. Walker said the incident is under investigation.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told CNN in a separate exclusive interview that the possibility of sending out of state National Guard troops home is under serious consideration due to the peaceful nature of the ongoing protests.

In New York City, night has fallen and it's now past the 8 p.m. curfew, but crowds are still marching through the city.

It's been a relatively quiet night, with smaller crowds than earlier in the week, said CNN Correspondent Bill Weir. One group is marching down Manhattan toward the Manhattan Bridge, which would cross into Brooklyn.

Though crowds are smaller, they're also more festive and peaceful, said Weir.

Police have also taken a more hands-off approach, Weir said. It seems like "the tactic  tonight is to just let the crowd move as they want to and let it dissipate on their own," rather than arrest and detain people for being out past curfew as seen earlier in the week.

As evening approaches in Los Angeles, there are multiple protests taking place across the city.

In downtown Los Angeles, hundreds, if not thousands, of people are gathered on the steps of City Hall, by the courthouse. Protesters have been gathering there nearly every day this week -- and they say they will continue to until they see the change they demand.

The atmosphere is peaceful and spirited, with protesters chanting slogans like "Defund the Police" and gathering to listen to speakers. It's a diverse crowd, with people from all ethnicities and backgrounds, said CNN reporter Lucy Kafanov.

There aren't many police or law enforcement in the area, she added -- there are some officers on the steps of City Hall, but no National Guard members or police in riot gear.

It's "another visible effort by the city to deescalate the tensions and prevent the scenes that we saw last weekend that involved a lot of difficult and heavy clashes," Kafanov said. "This is a very different atmosphere."

Elsewhere in Los Angeles, in the Fairfax district, protesters are peacefully demonstrating -- there's even a dance-off between participants. Here, too, police are nowhere to be seen.

Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have participated in protests across Washington, DC, on Saturday.

The protests were peaceful all day, with no clashes reported with police. No arrests were made today, said a Metropolitan DC Police spokeswoman.

The police department estimated there were at least 6,000 protesters at several locations at noon -- which was before any major events began. Several different protests scattered across the city later drew major crowds. 

Earlier in the day, a large group gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. Later, several blocks full of people marched from Capitol Hill past the National Museum of African American History, before heading towards the White House and then to other locations. 

At the same time, protests filled blocks going north from Lafayette Park, which has been the center of activity. As evening fell, crowds began to dwindle a little, but protesters still filled several blocks north of the park, which is close to the White House.

What it looks like in DC now:

People are painting the street with protest slogans such as "Defund the police," said CNN Correspondent Alex Marquadt, reporting from the scene.

"You can see this huge "Black Lives Matter" banner hanging from the fence that was installed earlier this week around the northern edge of Lafayette park. This fence now stretches all the way around, most of the way around the White House," said Marquadt.

He added that previously, often law enforcement would be on the other side of the fence during protests -- but that's not the case tonight, in a reflection of how peaceful recent protests have been.

The Sacramento Police Department has suspended the use of the carotid control hold, according to a tweet from the agency.

The hold is no longer authorized for use within the department and all trainings on the hold have been discontinued, the department said in a series of tweets Saturday.

The department is also revising it's use of force policy to reflect the changes, another tweet said.