LOS ANGELES (AP) — After days of jarring images of violence, thousands of protesters sang, danced and shouted in boisterous but peaceful California protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Police cordons — in some cases backed by National Guard troops — kept a tight watch on marchers from San Francisco to Hollywood but on the fifth day of protests the mood seemed far less tense. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and some police officers took a knee during a clergy-led demonstration outside the LAPD’s downtown headquarters. There also were demonstrations in Hollywood and in front of Garcetti’s official residence.

Demonstrations were held in cities large and small in the San Francisco Bay Area, California’s wine country and Southern California.

In San Francisco, a mass of people marched up the Great Highway along San Francisco’s Ocean Beach while at San Jose’s City Hall several hundred people showed up for a demonstration and speeches organized by the local branch of the NAACP.

Protesters held about nine minutes of silence in front of the state Capitol in Sacramento — approximately the amount of time that a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck before his death on May 25.

“This means everything,” a man marching with his two daughters in Fremont told KPIX-TV. “I was born and raised in Louisiana. My mom marched in the civil rights movement back in the 60s. It’s great to be out here with the next generation to change the world.”

Protesters who gathered at the official Los Angeles mayor’s residence chanted "defund police” and some did yoga, deep breathing and stretching exercises, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Whitney Peterson, 35, of Los Angeles said money for the LAPD could be better used elsewhere.

“When ... people are getting killed by police, and yet we have schools and lower income communities struggling, it’s hard to swallow,” she told the Times. “These communities are not being protected, and that needs to change.”

After evening curfews fell, police began moving in to disperse remaining demonstrators. More than 200 people were detained in Los Angeles, including about two dozen who lay down on a Hollywood apartment building rooftop and spelled out “BLM” with their bodies, for “Black Lives Matter.”

Demonstrators, their line stretching a full block, waited patiently with their hands bound behind their backs with plastic ties. Police planned to cite and release them.

Police Chief Michel Moore said nearly 3,000 people had been arrested since the protests began, most of them for failure to disperse or curfew violations.

Moore himself came under fire at a civilian Police Commission hearing where speakers called for his resignation or firing because of remarks he made a day earlier. Moore had said rioters and thieves were “capitalizing” on the demonstrations to commit crimes and had Floyd's death on their hands just as much as the Minneapolis police officers who killed him.

He later apologized and said he misspoke. Garcetti on Tuesday defended Moore and praised the chief for correcting his “wrong" statement “that looters are the equivalent of murderers."

The Los Angeles County curfew was extended to a fourth night Tuesday. Authorities credit it and the arrival of more than 1,000 National Guard troops with significantly reducing vandalism and thefts at businesses.

In Vallejo, police used tear gas after a small group of protesters failed to disperse after the 8 p.m. curfew.

In Redwood City, protesters chanted “take a knee and we’ll leave” at California Highway Patrol officers, and began leaving after an officer dropped to one knee, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The demonstrations were boisterous but virtually free of the violence that marred the weekend, when despite a peaceful majority, some people hurled rocks and other objects, injuring at least three dozen police in various cities. Police responded with flash-bang devices, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds. Police cars were set afire, buildings were scrawled with graffiti and their windows smashed. Law enforcement officers said during the protests, organized gangs of thieves took advantage of the distraction to hit dozens of pharmacies, phone stores and other businesses in smash-and-grab attacks.

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott asked supervisors Tuesday to keep an overnight curfew order for at least the “next few days” to get ahead of people bent on using peaceful protests to pilfer stores and commit violence. Supervisors talked about the request and scheduled more discussion for Thursday. Mayor London Breed ordered the 8 p.m. curfew Sunday following a night of thefts downtown, including at a major shopping mall where several fires were set.

Scott said the burglars are organized, with vehicles waiting to ferry away people rushing out of stores with armloads of goods. He said San Francisco will be overwhelmed if it revokes its curfew while neighboring cities and counties keep theirs.

Oakland’s interim police chief, Susan Manheimer, asked for video or other information on a shooting during Friday night’s protest that left a federal officer dead and another injured. The victims were guarding the U.S. courthouse.

She said investigators believe the assailants were targeting law enforcement.

“They were out and about in the area where our officers and others were stationed and ultimately came upon these two individuals who were in a more secluded area,” she said.

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Associated Press journalists Olga Rodriguez and Janie Har in San Francisco; Kathleen Ronayne, Cuneyt Dil and Adam Beam in Sacramento; and Christopher Weber and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.