Live updates: People gather for vigil in downtown San Antonio

Every day for nearly a week, protesters have taken to the streets of downtown San Antonio to push for social justice and police reform. Live updates from today’s events will be posted below.

2:32 p.m. | People gather at Milam Park for the vigil of Charles Roundtree and Marquise Jones.

Marquis Jones’ aunt, Debbie Bush, said her nephew played basketball for in a city league, loved the Spurs and was the family clown.

“He was playful and outgoing,” Bush said. “He loved to dance. Whenever we had get-together, he would always make everybody laugh. He was very loving.”

Bush said Jones’ daughter was 3 months old when he was killed.

“You could see the love he had for her,” Bush said.

Bush said she is hopeful Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales will re-open the case.

“It was most definitely not handled correctly,” Bush said. “They didn’t interview the witness. They didn’t present all the evidence to the grand jury like they told me they would do. There was just a whole lot of stuff that was not done.”

3:00 p.m. | There is a medical tent equipped with tear gas solutions, masks, cough drops, immune boosters and other first aid.

The Brown Berets have set up posters with the numbers of local lawyers who will represent any protesters today who are wrongfully arrested.

Medics and peacekeepers are wearing a red arm band for protesters.

Relatives of Jones and Roundtree spoke in front it a few hundred people. They’re about to march up Commerce Street to the courthouse.

Deborah Martin, 52, said has long been a believer in social justice.

3:15 p.m. | “Speaking as a white person, I have to own this,” Martin said. “My mom has been worried that I’ve been coming to these marches. She tells me, ‘I don’t want an officer coming to my door and saying, your daughter has been shot.’ How many black mothers worry about that every day? How can we as a country and a white majority not speak up and do something about that?”

4:30 p.m. | Protesters continued to call for changes such as redirecting funding from the San Antonio Police Department toward community programs.

But others at the vigil said they’ve been dissatisfied with city leadership, and said the city must do more to grow economic opportunity for black residents in San Antonio.

“It’s access to contracts,” said Christopher Herring, director of the Global Chamber in San Antonio and former president of the Alamo City Chamber of Commerce. “I’ve seen the inequity in the black business community. We’ve been shut out of the financial marketplace of San Antonio.”

As he marched, Herring said he was organizing a Juneteenth rally to call on Mayor Ron Nirenberg and members of City Council to more equitably distribute city contracts.

Nirenberg also marched along with protesters, and acknowledged the anger residents have had about police brutality and racial inequality.

Nirenberg is set to meet Monday with community activist Pharaoh Clark to discuss a list of policy actions to take to curb police violence. The list of ten recommendations includes things such as ending no-knock warrants and establishing a public online database of police complaints against SAPD.

“We’re listening, we understand the frustration,” Nirenberg said as he walked toward Milam Park alongside protesters. “We’ve had opportunities for reform in the past that we haven’t followed through on, and people don’t want to see that happen again.”