Sit-in protesters were at constant risk of police violence even for peaceful requests.

Evidence

I prayed all day the police wouldn’t walk through the glass doors and try to yank them off those swivel chairs and when them young men resisted—which I could tell they would—that they wouldn’t get dragged outside—one by one—then shot and killed for every time they kept on asking for a cup of coffee and didn’t get it. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1002