On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, after arresting him for allegedly using counterfeit money. During the three months that followed, there were more than 7,750 demonstrations linked to the Black Lives Matter movement across more than 2,440 locations in all 50 states and Washington, DC.

That summer, jurisdictions of all sizes faced the challenge of managing First Amendment demonstrations. Some of those jurisdictions, like the District of Columbia, have hosted hundreds of demonstrations and were able to activate specific plans for providing law enforcement and other types of services to support events. However, the majority of these jurisdictions were dealing with the intricacies of responding to protests for the first time. Across the United States, unclear and unsuitable Unified Command structures, a lack of planning (or planning with too small of a group), and inadequate communications before and during protests led to poor outcomes for protestors, law enforcement, politicians, and communities.

In its work providing after-action support for several of these jurisdictions, CNA has observed that many of these pitfalls originated in dangerous false assumptions and provides recommendations and best practices for avoiding them in future events.