WASHINGTON — From the earliest days of the recent protests against police brutality and racism, some top federal law enforcement officials viewed the demonstrators with alarm and called for an aggressive federal response that two months later continues to escalate. A memo from the deputy director of the F.B.I., dated June 2, demanded an immediate mobilization as protests gathered after George Floyd’s death while in police custody a week earlier. David L. Bowdich, the F.B.I.’s No. “When 9/11 occurred, our folks did not quibble about whether there was danger ahead for them,” he wrote, telling aides that the continuing coronavirus pandemic should not hold them back. “They ran head-on into peril.”

Source: New York Times July 28, 2020 21:56 UTC