The Curfew Bell

The Curfew Bell is a visual investigation into the use of emergency order curfews in the United States imposed following protests against the police killing of George Floyd. The curfews tracked here lasted from May 26 to June 8 2020. Over a hundred cities imposed curfews that suppressed both the reporting of the protests and the protests themselves. This period saw unprecedented police violence against both media and protestors.

History

State’s enforce curfews for many reasons. The lockdowns of the current COVID pandemic - a public health crisis - are current examples of State power to restrict the movement of citizens through criminal sanction, but curfews have a broader history. Natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, see lockdowns. 'Disorderly' juvenile behaviour sees law enforcement resort to curfews. For instance, in the 50s and 60s women students were subject to curfew on university campuses fearing sexual promiscuity.

But curfews in the United States have a troublingly white supremacist history. One of the first curfews enacted in 1690  restricted the movement of Connecticut slaves without a written pass from their owner. Following the American Civil War, the Jim Crow laws saw most Southern cities prohibit black residents from being out in public after 10:00 P.M.

Curfews in American cities, in the last century, have now become synonymous with protest against racial discrimination. Harlem in 1943, Watts South Central Los Angeles in 1965, Detroit in 1967, Los Angeles in 1992, Cincinnati in 2001 and Ferguson in 2014 all saw curfews used against protestors. The common thread in these protests was criminal injustice and in recent years police violence and the police killing of black men and women.

George Floyd Protests 

The protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd on May 27 have been on a scale unlike anything seen previously. The widespread civil disorder that followed was met with aggressive militarised policing.

‘Less-than-lethal’ weapons deployed by the police against protestors included sound cannon, sponge bullets, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds, pepper spray, teargas, flashbangs and even military helicopters. In tandem, more than 17,000 National Guard troops were deployed on civilian city streets.

Whilst a justified rage by protestors ensued many of the protests were peaceful and yet from May 27 onward 117 American cities imposed curfews on their citizens. Many of these jurisdictions such as Palo Alto and San Mateo county enacted curfews without even experiencing any vandalism or looting. 

Imposing a curfew, however, entailed the police understanding the limits of their power under emergency orders. Instead, the curfews were selectively enforced in troubling ways. This has favoured the protestors but it has also been applied arbitrarily. The curfews were used in many instances by police as an excuse for arresting protestors and even of police boxing in peaceful protesters attempting to go home so they could arrest them and gather intelligence. By June 8 more than 10,000 mainly peaceful protesters had been arrested.

Police Violence Against the Press

According to The Press Freedom Tracker eighty-five journalists have been physically attacked during the protests; many by the police. Forty-seven journalists were arrested whilst doing their job. The focus of this investigation has been on how the curfews have impacted press reporting of the protests.  

The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press found that the majority of these incidents occurred in jurisdictions with media curfew exemptions. The curfews have in a sense worked as enablers of police violence against both press and protestors alike.

The documented cases of police violence and arrest against the press included in this project leave one glaring question; if the police were emboldened enough to respond with violence against the press how did they treat the protestors?

Mayors and adminstrators

Emergency Curfew Orders May 27 - June 11 2020 

Police Violence Against Protestors

Throughout the curfews, unprecedented police violence against protestors occurred. Not only physical assault with fists, batons and bicycles but so-called less-lethal weapons such as pepper spray, rubber bullets, flash-bangs and tear gas. Research agency Forensic Architecture has extensively tracked and verified this police violence.

Curfew violation itself became an excuse to inflict violence on protestors and perform mass arrests. In unrest related data, collected by the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and made available after the protests, out 1 027 charges filed against 742 individuals during the period May 2020 to April 2021 395 (39%) arrests were for ‘Curfew violation’. In the centre of Washinton DC the largest spike in arrests by the MPD  - 184 arrests for curfew violation - were made at one location: 1400 Swann Street NW on June 1 2020. 

This was symptomatic of a specific police tactic used across the US at this time; kettling. ‘Kettling’ is a tactic where police surround a group of people to restrict their freedom of movement and then conduct arrests. 

Although originally a military tactic the police internationally have employed kettling since the 1990s. Its first use was in Hamburg in 1986 where it was subsequently declared unlawful. Since then it has been used across the world. In London at the 2001 May Day protests, the 2009 G20 summit and the student fee protests in 2010. In the Copenhagen climate change protests in 2009, the Toronto G20 Summit protests in 2010, and on Brooklyn Bridge in New York against ‘Occupy’ protesters in 2011. (Capturing protest in urban environments: The ‘police kettle’ as a territorial strategy).

During the curfews, police in New York City’s South Bronx, Portland, Charlotte, Chicago and cities across the US police would encircle protestors and prevent them from leaving areas under curfew order. Once the curfew deadline passed police felt legitimised in conducting violent arrests of protestors they had tightly and forcibly corralled. The curfew deadline was payback time.

At Swann Street in Washington DC protestors had already been forcibly cleared from Lafayette Square to allow President Donald Trump’s photo opportunity at St. John's Church. Police corralled them North then blocked their exit on Swann Street. Once the curfew deadline passed the police conducted violent arrests using pepper spray, batons and shields. Some protestors escaped the violence as they were offered shelter by a local resident. The District of Columbia American Civil Liberties Union later sued the MPD over the Swann Street incident and other police violence that occurred across Washington DC.

It would be naive to look back on this period and the unparalleled police violence and use of curfews as exceptional. Rather, this period and the scars it has inflicted could be seen as only the beginning of a new and hostile relationship between the State, police, media and community. 

Under Curfew 2020

117 Cities

12 Counties

96 Days

3 States.