Hear from the 16-year-old who helped lead peaceful protest against police brutality in Detroit

Stefan Perez says he cares about the message behind the protests

DETROIT – A peaceful protest against police brutality was held in Detroit following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week.

Stefan Perez, a 16-year-old from Detroit, helped lead the peaceful protest on Monday.

“I can lead as many protests as I need to. People know my name,” Perez said. “I care about the message.”

READ: Protest in Detroit ends peacefully without arrests, violence

Hear from Stefan Perez in the video above

Monday’s protest wasn’t the first protest held in Detroit. The first organized protest in Detroit began on Friday afternoon and started at Detroit Police Headquarters.

READ: What Detroit police are doing to keep protests peaceful

Most of the protest on Friday during the day was peaceful. Later in the night Friday there was some violence. Multiple arrests were made, police cars were damaged and a 21-year-old East Pointe man was shot and killed. Police used tear gas to try and disperse the crowd, the standoff lasted into the early morning hours.

Protests began again on Saturday. Once more, they were mostly peaceful during the day but police reported 84 arrests that night. Police said a majority of arrests were people from outside of the city and two from out-of-state.

READ: Detroit police say outsiders coming to city to turn protests into chaos

On Sunday night more than 100 people were arrested -- 28 were from Detroit. Two were from out of state. The rest of the people arrested were from Metro Detroit suburbs. Police once again used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd.


About the Author:

Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.