Group stages protest, march in downtown Greensburg

A group of about 40 people held a protest Thursday evening at the corner of Main and Otterman streets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The group held up signs and chanted slogans invoking victims of police violence in cases such as those that led to the deaths Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. They briefly made their way down Main Street to the Greensburg Police Department, where they chanted in the parking lot before heading back up the street.

“I don’t know how much good this protest will do,” said local resident Brianna Tomci, who co-organized the event. “But people are coming up and having conversations with us. We’re raising awareness.”

The group received steady honks of support from passing cars, along with a few shouts of profanity that were greeted with returned shouts of “Have a nice day!”

Two counter-protesters were initially standing near the police station with an “All Lives Matter” sign, and the two groups interacted peacefully when they briefly occupied the same corner.

Tomci repeated the BLM movement’s general response to “All Lives” signs: “All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter.”

“Black, Indigenous and people-of-color communities have been disproportionately affected by police brutality, incarceration, gentrification, redlining, environmental inequality, housing, job and health care discrimination — all of the above,” she said.