10 Ways Employers Can Support Their Staff’s Mental Health Remotely

Many reports and predictions during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic show that there is a silent wave we must fight off–the mental health wave.

Because of the effects of the coronavirus, global-scale lockdowns, and quarantines, people have become prone to anxiety, depression, and even suicide, especially in the wake of a global recession and mass layoffs. And with 90% of minority businesses locked out of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), there can be added worries and concerns among employees.

For businesses that now work remotely, it can be even more challenging to become a champion for employees’ mental health. But it doesn’t take much effort to do so. All employers need to do is follow these 10 tips to support your remote employees’ mental health.

10 Tips to Support Mental Health of Remote Employees

1. Do regular face-to-face check-ins

In this 2020 State Remote Work report, loneliness is still ranked as one of the biggest challenges that a remote worker faces in their everyday life. In the United States, loneliness is considered an epidemic– and the risks are heightened when people are discouraged from going outside amidst a global pandemic.

So one way to show remote workers you’re there for them? Doing regular non-work-related check-ins.

Use your online collaboration tools to schedule a time to meet, either one-on-one or as a group. Strike a balance between checking in with employees individually and as a team. 

If you’ve never done this regularly, it may be a little awkward at first. So, ease everyone in with some virtual icebreakers to lighten the mood and get everyone out of work mode.

2. Offer added benefits and perks

Can you perhaps offer additional benefits or perks for employees during these trying times? Some employers are now considering health plans that include mental health services for employees to enjoy– and it can be a good benefit to add if you can’t hand out raises as often as before.

If changing your company health plan isn’t an option, you can give smaller, one-time perks instead. For example, help your remote team build their dream productive workspace at home by subsidizing expenses for certain office supplies or equipment.

3. Send a mental health survey

Sometimes employees can’t open up about their mental health concerns in a virtual meeting. Some might find it easier to evaluate their wellbeing if they’re sent a guided survey or form to express where they’re struggling.

A mental health survey tells you as the employer where you can support your employees more in a very specific way. Encourage employees to be very honest when answering this survey, especially if it means it will help you support them emotionally and mentally in and out of work.

4. Encourage employees to take leaves from work

Sometimes remote employees may feel they aren’t entitled to take leaves because they already work from home and have greater flexibility. But everyone needs to take a break from work, even for a few days. Encourage employees to take their paid leaves or apply for unpaid leave whenever needed. 

An effective way to encourage employees to do this? Model the behavior yourself: take leaves from work and show employees that rest is an essential part of their work lives.

5. Share mental health resources in a dedicated newsletter or channel

Sometimes sharing resources like articles or videos about mental health are enough to show employees you’re thinking about their wellbeing. Regularly send new resources to help them manage stress, reduce anxiety, or get over relatable work issues like being “always on” or being afraid of taking breaks from work.

Share these in a dedicated Slack channel for mental health, so everyone knows where to find them. Or send them in a company newsletter each week.

5. Create a company exercise calendar

There are strong links that support physical exercise being one of the most effective ways to alleviate stress and boost the spirit. As a business owner, try to find ways to get everyone to stay active, even if they’re stuck at home.

One fun way to do this is creating a company exercise calendar, or scheduling different physical activities anyone can do. For example, you can schedule a weekly dance party or invite instructors for a fun company yoga session online.

6. Express gratitude often

Gratitude is one of the only things you can give away without losing anything in return. And when it comes to your employees, expressing gratitude can help boost morale and make them feel appreciated.

Work gets stressful for everybody, but you should still reward good work and employee presence with praise. Thank everyone individually for their contributions and even praise teams for jobs well done in public Slack channels or company newsletters.

7. Put up extracurriculars and team-building activities

Give employees something to look forward to each week or month with extracurriculars they can join outside work. Encourage teams to start book or film clubs, get everyone together for a team talent show, or just have a good time playing virtual games with each other. 

You can even encourage ownership of these tasks by getting volunteers to manage these activities. It can be a great way to empower employees to contribute in ways outside work and really highlight their personal strengths.

8. Host or sponsor mental health seminars

Try inviting mental health coaches to come aboard one day and give intimate seminars to the company. This can be a space for your remote employees to talk to real professionals in the mental health industry about actual issues and concerns that may be bothering them. 

These seminars may also benefit you, since you can see areas to support employees in more intimate or much-needed ways. The mental health industry constantly sees changes and improvements in their research and studies, and it doesn’t hurt to stay informed.

9. Empower employees to help their communities

Sometimes we can uplift ourselves when we uplift others. Inspire a sense of community and contribution within your company by starting a volunteer program or fundraising campaign, especially in causes that matter most to your employees.

For example, Diishan Imira of Mayvenn, an online platform that helps hair stylists connect and gain new clients and customers, started a #SaveTheSalon fundraising campaign. 

She and her company sought to help displaced hair stylists whose incomes were severely cut because of the recent COVID-19 measures that closed down several industries, including salons, out of safety risks.

10. Put employees’ well-being first

When you take care of employees, your employees take care of business. This maxim is especially true in a remote workforce that eliminates in-person interactions.

 

Follow these 10 tips to help you become champions of your remote employees’ mental health, and you’ll see a happier, healthier workforce who’ll stay with you for the long haul.

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How South Korea, France, and Italy are using the Covid-19 response to fight climate change

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, places like Milan, Italy, have taken advantage of the reduced car traffic to paint new bike lanes. | Luca Ponti/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Never waste a crisis.

The United States has now put out several relief packages to deal with the economic impacts of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, and lawmakers are considering even more.

But a glaring hole in these economic stimulus proposals is aggressive new climate policies and targets, which are desperately needed as that crisis accelerates.

Democrats have some environmental stimulus proposals under consideration, like $550 billion for clean transportation investment. Yet at the same time, some Republican lawmakers are also pushing for bailouts of the fossil fuel industry.

In the past few months, however, cities, businesses, and governments in other parts of the world have already shown that even while fighting off a deadly virus, they can take steps to mitigate the other massive catastrophe of climate change.

With clear roads, clear skies, oil prices plummeting, businesses needing bailouts, and political capital to spend, countries like South Korea, Italy, and France have decided that the pandemic response is an opportunity to rethink energy, infrastructure, industry, and government in ways to cut pollution and reduce emissions contributing to climate change.

The #EUGreenDeal offers a chance to transform our societies and our planet for the better. We need a strong economic and recovery model that gives back to our planet more than it takes away from it. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/nCFbAiqbFB

— Ursula von der Leyen #UnitedAgainstCoronavirus (@vonderleyen) May 20, 2020

Globally, greenhouse gas emissions are poised to decline this year by a record 8 percent in large part due to the global response to the coronavirus. Many cities have also seen major declines in air pollution. But these gains are fragile, and emissions and pollution could easily spike again as economies recover. Keeping the incidental environmental improvements from the pandemic, then, requires deliberate decisions to protect gains even after the virus fades away.

Here are some of the ways people have used the crisis and the opportunity of the pandemic to enact climate policies, set ambitious goals for carbon-heavy industries, and build clean energy infrastructure.

South Korea’s Democratic Party is using its new leverage to advance a Green New Deal

South Korea has been hailed around the world for its response to Covid-19, with a massive national effort to test people for the virus, trace their contacts, and control the spread of the disease.

So it wasn’t too surprising that South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea won a landslide victory in the national legislature elections in April. The result was a vote of confidence for his handling of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country.

The party is now aiming to leverage that political capital to implement a Green New Deal for the country, first revealed in March. While it borrows the branding from the Green New Deal proposals in the United States, South Korea’s version is more similar to the European Commission’s European Green Deal approved last year. The plan would make South Korea the first East Asian country to commit to reaching net-zero emissions by the middle of the century. South Korea is the seventh-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.

To meet this goal, South Korea would implement a carbon tax, increase investment in renewable energy, and end public financing for fossil fuel projects domestically and abroad. The proposal also calls for retraining workers who may be affected by the transition toward cleaner energy.

South Korea’s Green New Deal still has to be legislated and signed into law, and it may face strong opposition from some business and industrial interests. And South Korea isn’t the only country signing onto an ambitious climate agenda. Prior to the pandemic, countries like Austria and Spain had also seen election victories for parties campaigning on a Green New Deal.

But as the last South Korean election and recent polls in the country showed, Moon has widespread support for his climate agenda. And South Korea still stands out for sticking to its climate agenda during a global health crisis.

Cities around the world are using clear streets to improve clean transit infrastructure

With fewer people driving and more people needing to walk at a distance as part of reducing the transmission of the coronavirus, some cities have begun to change how they allocate precious street and sidewalk space.

After the lockdowns began to relax, city officials in Milan, Italy, announced that they would modify 22 miles of roads to make more room for pedestrians and bicycles. Milan transport councilor Marco Granelli explained that the city wanted alternatives to car traffic and to public transit that would allow people to move around while staying apart.

“To avoid having another million cars on the streets, we will have to upgrade the two-wheel [infrastructure],” he told Radio Lombardy in April. “This is why we are putting in place an extraordinary action to create cycle paths.”

Live, from Milan.

The immediate transformation of the city begins.

If not now, when?

From @demescope pic.twitter.com/Udqp7iRoNc

— Jennifer Keesmaat (@jen_keesmaat) April 30, 2020

Berlin, Germany, also capitalized on the reduced car traffic from a sudden surge in people working from home during the pandemic with 14-miles and more of pop-up bike lanes. Residents in more than 100 other German cities have applied to add more bike lanes during the pandemic.

Cities like Paris, Athens, Bogotá, Philadelphia, and Denver have also expanded infrastructure for bikes. In most of these cities, some of the new lanes are temporary and some are permanent, with city officials hoping to figure out just how much their citizens will avail themselves of the new real estate.

Transportation is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, accounting for almost a quarter of all emissions from burning fossil fuels. It’s also the fastest-growing source of carbon dioxide. Vehicles are a major source of urban pollution as well. So steps to offer alternatives to cars in cities have short- and long-term environmental benefits.

Governments in Europe have used their leverage with bailouts to extract stronger climate commitments from companies

The economic crisis stemming from the coronavirus pandemic has forced some businesses to ask for government help. The aviation industry is a case in point. The collapse of international air travel during the outbreak has forced airlines to seek government bailouts.

But in some countries, those bailouts came with climate change targets. The global aviation industry causes between 2 and 5 percent of human-induced warming on the planet, and prior to the pandemic, the sector was poised to grow rapidly. That’s why some governments want to limit emissions from air travel.

For instance, the $10.8 billion bailout package for Air France-KLM included provisions that Air France must end short routes that compete with train routes. Train travel emits far fewer greenhouse gas emissions than flying over these short routes. The airline will also have to cut its emissions per passenger in half relative to 2005 by 2050.

“I want to reiterate that this support for Air France is not a blank cheque,” Bruno Le Maire, France’s economy and finance minister, told a National Assembly committee in April.

Austria also imposed sustainability requirements for its $856 million rescue package for Austrian Airlines.

Germany, however, flinched at the idea of imposing new climate targets on its national air carrier, Lufthansa, with its $9.9 billion bailout.

Meanwhile, airlines around the world are retiring some of their oldest, largest, and thirstiest aircraft because of reduced demand. The remaining aircraft in their fleets are newer, smaller, and more fuel-efficient.

Still, demand for flights is poised to grow over the long term, and aviation remains one of the toughest sectors of the economy to decarbonize. It will take more research, investment, and policy to ensure these changes endure and for emissions to decline further.

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He signed up to DJ on a cruise ship. Then coronavirus struck.

The Celebrity Infinity Cruise ship where DJ Caio Saldanha and the rest of the crew had been trapped since mid-March. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images

When Covid-19 put an end to cruises, customers went home. Crews weren’t so lucky.

The remnants of Caio Saldanha’s past life are fossilized on his Instagram feed. In December, the Brazilian DJ uploaded a video of a deliriously packed cruise ship floating on the rippling Atlantic ocean. But since then, that euphoria has been set aside. Instead, Saldanha, who has worked a number of different cruise dates in his career, posts a few Instagram stories a week detailing the two months he has been trapped at sea.

The Trump administration issued a no-sail mandate on all boating on March 13, the day before Saldanha launched on Celebrity Cruises’ 1,000-foot Celebrity Infinity ship for a 24-week stay. That left him, and more than 100,000 other crew members across ships, in virtual limbo. The crew of the Infinity bobs alone on the outskirts of Tampa Bay, waiting for their bosses to repatriate them back to their home countries. For now, Saldanha, and his fiance who’s aboard with him, are powerless.

View this post on Instagram

4 thousand people on the pool of #mscseaview #msccruises #msc #jeunesse #jeunesseglobal

A post shared by Caio Saldanha (@caiosaldanha) on Dec 14, 2019 at 12:00pm PST

The specifics of the mess the cruise industry finds itself in are laughably arcane, but it broadly boils down to a dispute with the CDC. As the Miami Herald reports, cruise companies only expected to be shuttered for a month after the March 13 decision, which meant that they kept most of their crew at their post to resume operations after the expiration date. But in April, the U.S. government extended that no-sail order to late July.

The CDC is allowing crew members to disembark from these ships, as long as cruise companies eat the bill for the private transportation of their employees back to their home countries. Executives have balked at those offers, calling the chartering overhead “too expensive,” and many of those CEOs have drawn up plans to avoid the cost by working at the fringes of legality. Case in point: The last Saldanha heard, his ship will be headed to Barbados on May 27. From there, he’ll fly to Brazil to avoid American guidelines. (After this interview, Saldanha confirmed that he is back home as of June 3.)

Meanwhile, the human toll on these cruise ships swells by the day. There have been multiple suicides reported among trapped crew members, including a 39-year old Ukranian woman who went overboard on a Carnival vessel. Some have been condemned to windowless on-board residencies, or have been living under strict coronavirus lockdowns. 15 members of a Royal Caribbean crew went on a hunger strike in early May, but that matter has allegedly been “resolved.”

Saldanha himself is in contact with many of his colleagues trapped on other boats, which is all he can do to put pressure on his superiors to get them on dry land again. For now, Saldanha bides his time by watching movies, playing video games, and speaking to the press. We talked about the injustice of the industry, how Chomsky is informing his activism, and how after a while, even the beauty of an Atlantic sunset can begin to feel like a prison.

When you first signed up to go DJ on some cruises, were you aware that the coronavirus was out there? Or did you not pay much attention to it?

Before we embarked, we thought about the pandemic. We didn’t get information from the company before, but when we came to the US we saw Donald Trump on TV talking about the cruise ships, and how they were a dangerous environment, and the no-sail order. We got back to the company, and said, “Will we embark?” And they said that everything is fine. We embarked on March 14, and we got the message that we’ll be sailing to Tampa Bay, and that we didn’t have any information about what was going to happen in the future. That was the first day. It was very complicated.

They disembarked all the passengers, and they kept all the crew members on the ship until further notice. It was hard to understand the situation.

What was that messaging like? Did they just say that you’d be stuck on the boat for a short period of time? Or did you know it was going to be months from the beginning?

They told us it was going to be at least 14 days. We didn’t have any kind of measure to avoid Covid-19 on the ship. There were no measures before quarantine to avoid the threat of the virus.

“We didn’t have any kind of measure to avoid Covid-19 on the ship”

You don’t have any coronavirus cases, right?

We don’t have any cases here as far as I know. But we are aware that we might be exposed to the virus. That’s not good at all. Especially as a couple, if I get sick, or my fiance gets sick, we would be separated. It makes us really stressed, and really afraid. You’d be sick and alone.

People are just now seeing headlines that 100,000 people are still stuck at sea, do you feel forgotten at all?

Yes, that’s the feeling. This industry is focused on passengers. Nobody thinks about the crew members. This industry is focused on keeping a good image for the public and the service, and they forget about the workers.

Does it feel like you’re caught in the middle of a bureaucratic mess?

After a story from the Miami Herald, where Royal Caribbean said that this was a financial issue, and it was too expensive to do as the CDC wanted to do for repatriation, I don’t think that it’s a bureaucracy problem. It’s a crime. It’s a crime that this company is practicing. They’re sending us to Barbados. We’re arriving there tomorrow, and they’re going to fly us home May 27. I can interpret that as a way to avoid the measures that the CDC has laid out. It’s a big cartel. They’re trying to avoid doing the right thing, and care about us.

You post stories on Instagram where you’ve documented nearly every day you’ve been trapped at sea. What’s it been like keeping your social media updated, and keeping friends and family tuned in on your plight?

Yeah, I stopped posting photos on Instagram about my job. I’m just giving information to people who follow me to try to expose what’s going on. I’ve stopped every bit of social media as a DJ — the stuff we do to get an audience, or work when we’re on land.

I’m exposing my situation. I’m trying to help. A lot of people are in silence right now. So I’m using my social media to make it a journal, or a channel, for everybody to see. I want to be a source in the middle of this.

As you mentioned, there are thousands of people stuck on cruise ships right now. Have you been communicating with anyone else on other boats?

Yeah it’s interesting. I’m in contact with an Argentinian girl who works on Royal Caribbean. She was repatriated two days ago. We’ve got someone on the ship who’s the music director, and he and his girlfriend went through so much worse than us. For five days, they were in a crew cabin with no windows. We’re sharing everything. People on other ships are reaching [out to] me. We’re developing a network of people who are thinking the same way.

Are you on lockdown?

We have good treatment right now. We have a guest cabin, we have a balcony, and we can go anywhere until midnight. That’s not a problem, we’re not gonna be outside the cabin that late.

What allows you to forget that you’ve been on a cruise ship for two months? What’s been an escape?

We are watching a lot of movies. We are watching videos on YouTube. We’re trying to learn more about financing, because we will need to be prepared, back on land, to face a new reality as far as work goes. We’re going to need to change our jobs. We can’t work here anymore. We’re playing games, we have things to read, we’re passing our time, and we go outside and watch the ocean. We aren’t always stressed.

Are there ever any moments, where you’re looking at the ocean, that you’re like, “You know, this really sucks, but at least there’s a nice view.”

You know, when you’ve been stuck at sea this long, you don’t see it as beautiful. The sea is a jail, it’s oppressive. It’s so beautiful, but the meaning of the sea goes away. When you’re so exposed to the same view, you get desensitized.

“When you’ve been stuck at sea this long, you don’t see it as beautiful.”

Are you still making an income right now? Is the cruise company still paying you?

They said to us that they’d stop paying us in full on April 25. That was the last payment. Then they started giving us $13 a day until it reached $400. But for a few weeks, we didn’t get any money from that. We didn’t reach $400. I really don’t know what’s going on right now. [Saldanha has since received the full $400.]

Are you thinking about going to court?

I had an offer for a class-action lawsuit. I contacted the lawyers. I’m still reading and studying it. I don’t like to sign anything before I’m sure about it. But the psychological damage is already here. We feel like our psychological integrity is not preserved.

Have you always been an activist? Have you always been vocal about worker injustices? Or did this experience spark that inside of you?

This was always a concern for me, but I never spoke about it. I read a lot of books that are important to our knowledge as a worker. I read Marx, Adam Smith, Foucault, all of the economic thinking that is related to philosophy. So I do a lot of reading. And now I’m in a situation where I see those kinds of injustices grip a whole industry, I started to speak up. It makes me think about my reading of Noam Chomsky, about profit over people, and neoliberal thinking. My readings have made me an activist, I think.

When you’re back in Brazil and hopefully this pandemic is finally over, what’s the first thing you’re going to do?

I will get married to my fiance. And also, we’ll walk our dog. That’s what we want to do so bad. We miss the animals.

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George Floyd autopsy report reveals he tested positive for COVID-19

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A full autopsy of George Floyd, the handcuffed Black man who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police, was released Wednesday and provides several clinical details, including that Floyd had previously tested positive for COVID-19.

The 20-page report released by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office came with the family’s permission and after the coroner’s office released summary findings Monday that Floyd had a heart attack while being restrained by officers, and classified his May 25 death as a homicide.

READ MORE: All four ex-cops in George Floyd death charged and officially in custody

Bystander video showing Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck, ignoring Floyd’s “I can’t breathe” cries until he eventually stopped moving, has sparked nationwide protests, some violent.

George Floyd and Minneapolis Police officer assaulting him (Family photo from Ben Crump and Screenshot from incident)

The report by Chief Medical Examiner Andrew Baker spelled out clinical details, including that Floyd had tested positive for COVID-19 on April 3 but appeared asymptomatic. The report also noted Floyd’s lungs appeared healthy but he had some narrowing of arteries in the heart.

The county’s earlier summary report had listed fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use under “other significant conditions” but not under “cause of death.” The full report’s footnotes noted that signs of fentanyl toxicity can include “severe respiratory depression” and seizures.

READ MORE: George Floyd’s smiling daughter, 6, says ‘daddy changed the world’

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Wednesday upgraded charges against Chauvin to 2nd-degree murder, and also charged the three other officers on the scene with aiding and abetting.

Floyd family attorney, Ben Crump, earlier decried the official autopsy — as described in the original complaint against Chauvin — for ruling out asphyxia. An autopsy commissioned by the Floyd family concluded that he died of asphyxiation due to neck and back compression.

Have you subscribed to theGrio’s new podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!

 

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The protests over Breonna Taylor’s shooting death, explained

Protesters gather on May 30, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky, in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor and other police violence in America. | Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Taylor was killed by police in her apartment. Now a man is dead in Louisville after police opened fire.

Hundreds of people gathered in Jefferson Square Park in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday, many wearing masks, some bearing signs with messages like “No More Excuses, No More Fear.”

They were there, like thousands around the country, to protest police violence in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. But in Louisville, protesters are also mourning deaths closer to home. In March, Breonna Taylor, an EMT, was fatally shot in her apartment by police who were looking for someone else. And late on Sunday night, David McAtee, the owner of a local barbecue restaurant, was killed when law enforcement opened fire on a crowd.

“All he did on that barbecue corner is try to make a dollar for himself and his family,” McAtee’s mother, Odessa Riley, told the Louisville Courier-Journal. “And they come along and they killed my son.”

After McAtee’s death, Louisville Police Chief Steve Conrad was fired, and the FBI is investigating both McAtee’s and Taylor’s killings. And Louisville residents and others have continued to memorialize both. On Tuesday, they held a vigil at the corner where McAtee cooked, and his nephew has pledged to keep his business going. Meanwhile, activists are planning to commemorate Taylor’s birthday on Friday by sending cards to the attorney general of Kentucky, demanding that he file charges against the officers who shot her.

Ok! I finally have something concrete to share. Below is the official list of action items for this Friday's #BirthdayForBreonna initiatives. Do as many as you can and share this widely so others can participate. Let's make sure to #SayHerName. https://t.co/uJr5qPK2YA

— Cate Young (@battymamzelle) June 3, 2020

Campaign organizer Cate Young is also asking supporters to post art, music, or poetry in Taylor’s honor on social media — “anything that will remind people that she lived and her life mattered,” Young writes. “Let’s make June 5th Breonna Taylor Day.”

Breonna Taylor was an essential worker when she was killed in her home by police

An EMT who wanted to be a nurse, the 26-year-old Taylor was an essential worker providing health care as the coronavirus pandemic worsened earlier this year.

Her mother, Tamika Palmer, told her, “make sure you wash your hands,” Palmer recalled to the 19th, which partnered with the Washington Post to cover the story of Taylor’s death.

Palmer didn’t think Taylor would be at risk in her own home. But late at night on March 13, Taylor was fatally shot by police in her Louisville apartment. The officers were investigating two people suspected of selling drugs, neither of whom was Taylor.

Police said the officers knocked on the door to announce themselves. But multiple neighbors say the officers neither knocked nor identified themselves, according to the family’s lawsuit. They also weren’t wearing body cams.

When police arrived, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, says he woke up and believed someone was trying to break into the apartment. He fired a shot, hitting an officer in the leg. Police then fired more than 20 rounds into the apartment. Taylor was hit eight times and died at the scene.

Taylor’s family members, who are alleging excessive force and gross negligence in her death, filed suit on April 27 against the three officers involved in the shooting. Taylor’s family has retained Benjamin Crump, an attorney also working with the family of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man killed while jogging in February.

“If you ran for Ahmaud, you need to stand for Bre,” Crump told the 19th in early May.

Since then, Taylor’s death has gotten increasingly widespread national attention — especially after Floyd was also killed by police. As protests against police brutality spread around the country, demonstrators in Louisville have been remembering Taylor, as well as Floyd and others.

Louisville “community pillar” David McAtee shot after protest curfew

But authorities in Louisville, as in other cities, have also imposed curfews in response to protests in recent days. And on Sunday night, police and the National Guard were sent to a parking lot at 26th and Broadway in downtown Louisville on Sunday at about 12:15 am, according to NBC, to break up a crowd that had gathered after the 9 pm curfew.

Police say they began shooting after being fired on by the crowd. “Officers and soldiers began to clear the lot and at some point were shot at,” Conrad said in his statement on Monday. “Both LMPD and national guard members returned fire.”

McAtee, 53, was fatally shot. He owned a barbecue restaurant on the corner where the crowd had gathered. Riley, his mother, says he was a “community pillar,” known for giving free meals to police officers. “He left a great legend behind,” Riley told the Louisville Courier-Journal. “He was a good person.”

Several sources say the crowd in the parking lot was not actually protesting when police arrived. One bystander told reporters they were merely out past the city’s curfew. And McAtee’s sister told WAVE 3 News that McAtee and others meet in the area every Sunday night for food and music, and that her brother was serving food.

It is not yet clear who shot McAtee. In the wake of his death, his family called for officers’ body camera footage of the shooting to be released and for the National Guard to be pulled out of Louisville. But on Monday, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced that the officers had not recorded any footage. He also announced the firing of Conrad from his role as police chief. Conrad had already announced his upcoming retirement as attention to Taylor’s killing grew.

In addition to the FBI investigation, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has ordered an independent investigation by state police. And protesters in Louisville and around the country are honoring both McAtee’s memory and Taylor’s. On Tuesday, demonstrators marched on the University of Louisville to demand it cut ties with the police.

Group of protestors is marching through @uofl’s campus demanding the university cut ties with LMPD. pic.twitter.com/Zds0JDxj7t

— Drew Gardner (@WLKYDrew) June 2, 2020

On Monday, according to the Washington Post, people marched from the spot where McAtee was killed to Jefferson Square Park, with cars lined up honking in support — until police dispersed the crowd with tear gas.

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