About 75 people marched to a downtown San Diego mall on Black Friday, chanting “black lives matter” and urging more attention be placed on race relations than shopping.

Marchers, some with placards calling for an end to police brutality, lay down in an intersection for several minutes as police halted motorists.

The protest was part of a nationwide movement to shift Americans’ focus from holiday sales to race-based police shootings. In Chicago on Friday, protesters marched past luxury stores, jamming traffic as they called for the mayor and police commissioner to step down over the probe into a black teenager shot 16 times by police.

At a noon rally outside the closed Hall of Justice on Broadway in San Diego, speakers said the event was a “call to action” to hold law enforcement accountable for shootings.


“Today we say no to Black Friday and yes to black lives matter,” said Rayne Ibarra-Brown, a student at University of San Diego. “They shouldn’t matter just after they’re dead. We as black people deserve attention for all of the ways we are disenfranchised.”

Desiree Smith also spoke, saying her teenage son was choked, slammed down and Tased by officers at his school.

“We have seen time and time again how police have abused their authority,” Smith said. “This has to stop. My son survived; will yours?”

Another woman came from Fairfield, in Central California, to speak about her cousin, Anthony Ashford, who was fatally shot by a San Diego Harbor Police officer in October. She said he was not carrying a weapon, but San Diego police investigators said he tried to grab the Harbor police officer’s pistol.


Representing a local Justice or Else activist group, David Muhammed asked that people hold off on Black Friday and other holiday shopping until Jan. 1, hoping that corporations squeezed financially will put pressure on politicians to keep police in check.

Cathy Mendonca, who helped organize the rally, called for a moment of silence for those killed by police.

Marchers then headed for F and Market streets, where a man carrying what turned out to be a replica gun was fatally shot by two San Diego motorcycle officers on Oct. 20.

The marchers were escorted by motorcycle officers and patrol cars, which blocked traffic for the procession to the Gaslamp District and up Fourth Avenue.


The chanting crowd made its way through shoppers at Westfield Horton Plaza shopping mall, then returned to the courthouse before disbanding.

There were no confrontations with police or onlookers and no one was arrested, police said.