UNITED STATES

WASHINGTON (AP):

OURS AFTER a carefully orchestrated declaration by President Donald Trump to send out the military and “dominate the streets”, American cities were engulfed in more violence and destruction that overshadowed peaceful protests demanding justice after generations of racism.

In New York City, largely peaceful demonstrations were punctuated by people smashing storefront windows near Rockefeller Center and breaching the doors to the storied Macy’s store on 34th Street, leaving the major Manhattan thoroughfare littered with broken glass. A vehicle ploughed through a group of law enforcement officers at a demonstration in Buffalo, injuring at least two.

Demonstrations erupted from Philadelphia, where hundreds of protesters spilled on to a highway in the heart of the city, to Atlanta, where police fired tear gas at demonstrators, to Nashville, where more than 60 National Guard soldiers put down their riot shields at the request of peaceful protesters who had gathered in front of Tennessee’s state Capitol to honour George Floyd.

Bystander Sean Jones, who watched as people ransacked luxury stores in Manhattan’s chic Soho neighbourhood, explained the destruction this way: “People are doing this so next time, before they think about trying to kill another black person, they’re going to be like, ‘Damn, we don’t want them out here doing this ... again’.”

The unrest in Minneapolis appeared to stabilise on the same day that Floyd’s brother made an impassioned plea for peace at the location where a white

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