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'Damn Shame': Pittsburgh Police Chief Says White Males Dressed In Anarchist Attire Hijacked George Floyd Protests Downtown

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - During a press conference, Pittsburgh Police Chief Scott Schubert expressed disappointment and anger toward those that turned Saturday afternoon's protest from peaceful to violent.

"I can tell you as the police chief, I am very disappointed because this was a peaceful protest for something that was very serious, and this does nothing to honor the memory of somebody who died," Chief Schubert said. "When you take it from a peaceful protest and you take it to a riot where you're injuring people, you're throwing rocks at people, you're throwing cans at people, you're hurting reporters, you're taking over something that shouldn't be."

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  • Both Chief Schubert and Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich expressed a belief that those responsible for taking the protest from peaceful to violent are not from the city.

    "We believe a lot of these individuals that are creating trouble are not from the city," Hissrich said.

    "I am so angry at the fact that some segment hijacked this and then took some of the youth and brought them into the mix," Schubert said. "This is something we take very seriously and we'll do everything we can for the ones who did this and to find out who they are and to get them."

    Schubert also expressed the belief that those responsible were not there to protest the death of George Floyd, but just to create chaos and cause harm.

    "I'm willing to bet my check that there's a lot of people who are anarchists, who, they're not here to protest what happened, they're not here to protest what happened, they're here to take advantage of situations and throw it their way and bring other people into the mix and cause damage and cause injury," Cheif Schubert added. "There's no doubt that that's who's doing it and a lot of things we're seeing are white males, dressed in the anarchist, ANTIFA, they're ones who are fueling a lot of this. It's just a damn shame that they took advantage of the situation, for something, something happened in another state where somebody died who shouldn't have died, and they hijacked that message for their own."

    Schubert promised Pittsburgh Police would find those responsible for hijacking the protests.

    "We will look at every video that we have, and we will do everything we can with our technology to find the ones who are responsible for a lot of this," he said.

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