East Liberty cleans up after George Floyd protest
Nikhil Mohan scrubbed spray paint Tuesday morning from the storefront of the Domino’s pizza he manages on N. Sheridan Avenue in East Liberty.
The 23-year-old lives in Monroeville and attends Saint Vincent College in Latrobe. He understands the reason people across the country are outraged over the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Still, he lamented the damage caused by the protests.
“I’m not going to go out and destroy buildings and property,” Mohan said as he scrubbed the graffiti from the windows of the pizza shop. “You can’t act like that.”
A Monday protest in the Pittsburgh neighborhood was largely peaceful, but small groups of people who police say splintered off from the main group of several hundred protesters during the evening caused damage and spurred confrontations with police, officials said.
Twenty people were arrested after the protest. Mayor Bill Peduto said he was reviewing the police response.
The East Liberty protest was the second to descend into unrest. A Saturday protest Downtown also started peacefully but ended with two police vehicles burned and 46 people arrested.
A protest at noon Monday in the Hill District that was organized by clergy was peaceful, as was another held Sunday in Greensburg.
Aside from graffiti and boarded-up windows there were few visible signs of the chaos that ensued the night before in East Liberty.
A street sweeper cleaned Centre Avenue; some chain stores had boarded up their storefronts as a precaution and fliers with messages about the Black Lives Matter movement were on utility polls, along with others urging protesters to keep hydrated.
A chain link fence on Centre Avenue had names of people who have been victims of police violence in recent years and “Say their names” was painted on a mural behind the fence.
“We’re all neighbors here. We’re all Pittsburghers and we support the expression of the pain that our neighbors are incurring,” said Jay Nesbitt of Wholesome International, the Pittsburgh-based company that operates Choolaah Indian BBQ.
Choolaah, on Centre Avenue, closed early Monday because of the protest, Nesbitt said. It wasn’t damaged.
“We’re grateful for that,” he said.
Nesbitt said he understands the outrage people feel about the way Floyd died. “Any type of injustice hits us hard,” he said.
Tom Davidson is a TribLive news editor. He has been a journalist in Western Pennsylvania for more than 25 years. He can be reached at tdavidson@triblive.com.
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