San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced on Wednesday that the city will lift the curfew at 5 a.m. local time (1200 GMT) on Thursday.
“Starting tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. we will be lifting the curfew in San Francisco,” Breed said, adding as the overwhelming majority of people out protesting are now doing peacefully, “we trust that will continue.”
She said the protests in the city and across the United States are for an important cause and San Francisco will continue to facilitate peaceful demonstrations.
“I am Mayor of San Francisco, but I am a black woman first. I know what it is like to experience injustice, and as someone who grew up here I am well aware that we have our own legacy of racism to reckon with and rectify,” she noted, expressing the hope to see San Francisco residents continue to advocate for real change across the country in the future.
The curfew was implemented from Sunday night following chaos in the city. Numerous fires were lit and heavy vandalism and looting took place in the Downtown, China Town, Union Square and the SoMa district on May 30 as protests over the death of African American George Floyd in Minneapolis raged on in the Bay Area region.
A protester holds a sign in front of Army National Guard troops at a demonstration over the death of George Floyd in Hollywood, California on Tuesday. Anti-racism protests have put several US cities under curfew to suppress rioting following Floyd’s death in police custody. Photo: AFP
