Trump threatens to call in Army
Teargas fired on protesters so that Prez can pose with Bible
Washington, June 2: President Trump, in a conference call Monday with the nation’s governors, threatened to deploy the US military to restore order unless states hit by days of unrest “put down” violent demonstrations, urging leaders to “dominate” lawbreakers or risk looking like “a bunch of jerks.”
Mr Trump, who has been criticised for his silence on once-in-a-generation violent protests gripping the US, again struck a martial tone in a nationwide address Monday from the White House garden.
“I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property,” Mr Trump said.
Despite the President’s rhetoric, Monday’s protests appeared largely peaceful in major cities, though some looting was reported in New York and Los Angeles.
During his address, however, law enforcement
including military police used tear gas to clear protesters outside the White House so the President could walk across the street to the two-centuriesold St John’s church, hit with graffiti and partially damaged by fire during unrest on Sunday.
“We have a great country,” Mr Trump declared as he stood before the church’s boarded-up windows, held up a Bible and posed for photographs. The backlash was swift. “He tear-gassed peaceful protesters and fired rubber bullets. For a photo. For our children, for the very soul of our country, we must defeat him,” tweeted Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.
Washington, June 2: President Donald Trump has threatened to deploy the military if the states fail to take necessary actions to “dominate the streets” and “quell” the violent protests that have spread across the country over the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd. During a hurriedly-convened address to the nation on Monday from the Rose Garden of the White House, Trump announced that he was dispatching “thousands and thousands” of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults, and the wanton destruction of property.
For about a week now, properties worth billions of dollars have been destroyed in the US, and rioters have damaged commercial centres, and public places and looted from shops and malls, in angry response to the killing of Floyd, a 46-year-old man who was pinned to the ground in Minneapolis last week by a white police officer who kneeled on his neck as he gasped for breath.
“Today I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled,” Trump said.
“If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and proper of their residents, then I will deploy the US military and quickly solve the problem for them,” he threatened.
Trump said the country, in the recent days, has been gripped by “professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa and others”. “These are not acts of peaceful protest. These are acts of domestic terror. The destruction of innocent life and the spilling of innocent blood is an offence to humanity and a crime against God,” he said.
In his address, Trump also said all Americans were “rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death” of Floyd, and asserted that justice will be served. “I swore an oath to uphold the laws of our nation and that is exactly what I will do. My administration is fully committed that, for George and his family, justice will be served. He will not have died in vain,” he said. The white police officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with thirddegree murder and will appear in court next week. Three other police officers have been fired.
THE PEACEFUL protests that we see in the US... are understandable and more than legitimate. I hope that these peaceful protests won’t slide further into violence, but even more than that I hope that they will make a difference in the US.
HEIKO MAAS, German foreign minister