Hundreds march in Milford to condemn the murder of George Floyd
Milford. The crowd assembled in front of the Pike County Courthouse to condemn racism, oppression, and injustice.
Milford /
| 03 Jun 2020 | 07:54
Young people joined the protest in Milford (Photo courtesy of David Richard)
People gathered at the Pike County Courthouse in Milford (Photo courtesy of Ed Gragert)
A memorial to George Floyd on the courthouse steps (Photo courtesy of Ed Gragert)
The Milford Borough Police declared their solidarity with those horrified by the murder of George Floyd; see page 10 for more information. (Photo courtesy of Ed Gragert)
Protesters march in front of the Pike County Courthouse (Photo courtesy of Ed Gragert)
Milford joined many communities across Pennsylvania that held peaceful protests over the weekend to condemn racism, oppression, and injustice.
“It was a great turnout,” Milford Mayor Sean Strub said of Sunday’s march. “At one point I personally counted around 230 people; others say they counted 250 and one said it was closer to 270. Those are huge numbers for Milford. Maybe 25 percent of them were students from Delaware Valley. No sign of outsiders, it was very. much a local crowd.”
He said everyone he saw was wearing a mask.
Milford police chief Matthew McCormack said said in a statement that the department “stand(s) in solidarity with those across the world who are outraged by what they saw on the video footage of Mr. Floyd’ s arrest and death....We can no longer sit by silently when brutality by a police officer takes a life, inflicts profound pain on black and brown communities, perpetuates systemic oppression, sows distrust of law enforcement, and exacerbates the divisions in our society.”
See page 10 for McCormack’s full statement on behalf of the department.
Resident David Richard observed: “I stopped at the Black Lives Matter rally in Downtown Milford and observed some outstanding police work by the Chief of Police that may have saved Milford from a potential tragedy. This is my subjective observation, as I have no way of knowing the actual intent of the gun toter, only the facade he presented to others.”
In the wake of the weekend’s protests in Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf said, “Every Pennsylvanian should speak out against violence and oppression, and the recent murder of George Floyd in Minnesota has rightfully outraged many of us. Pennsylvanians are joining together to speak out against this injustice, and make their voices heard, peacefully.”
Editor’s note: The Associated Press contributed to the reporting of this article. This story has been revised from the original.
“We can no longer sit by silently when brutality by a police officer takes a life, inflicts profound pain on black and brown communities, perpetuates systemic oppression, sows distrust of law enforcement, and exacerbates the divisions in our society.” --Milford Police Chief Matthew McCormack