Washington DC mayor Muriel Bowser has renamed a street in front of the White House "Black Lives Matter Plaza" and had the slogan painted in huge yellow letters on the roadway in an apparent rebuke of US President Donald Trump's militaristic response to protests over police brutality.
Bowser tweeted footage of the street painting on a section of 16th Street in the US capital with a message to Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed by Louisville, Kentucky, police who has inspired country-wide protests along with George Floyd, a black man who died on May 25 in Minneapolis police custody.
"Breonna Taylor, on your birthday, let us stand with determination.," Bowser wrote. "Determination to make America the land it ought to be."
Bowser and Trump are at odds over the president's use of federal law enforcement agencies and military police to break up a protest on Monday night so he could have a photo op outside a church near the White House.
"We want troops from out-of-state, out of Washington DC," Bowser said at a news conference on Thursday.
On Friday, the city also installed a street sign for Black Lives Matter Plaza at the intersection of H and 16th Streets, site of the St John's Episcopal Church where Trump, holding a Bible, stood for his photo op.
Australian Associated Press
