Violent protests persist across U.S.
Trump urges tougher reply, use of military
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota activated thousands of additional National Guard troops to send to Minneapolis but declined the Army’s offer to deploy military police units, as demonstrators returned to the nation’s streets Saturday.
Tense protests over the death of George Floyd and other police killings of black people grew Saturday from New York to Tulsa to Los Angeles, with police cars set ablaze and reports of injuries mounting on all sides.
“Let’s be very clear, the situation in Minneapolis is no longer in any way about the murder of George Floyd,” Walz said.
Walz, a Democrat, acknowledged that officials had underestimated the demonstrations in Minneapolis, where despite a newly issued curfew, people burned buildings and turned the city’s streets into a smol
dering battleground Friday night. He compared the havoc to wars that Americans have fought overseas.
The protests surged even after the arrest of the officer who held his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes Monday, leading to charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter by Friday. The national anger and sorrow fueled by a widely shared video of the encounter left Minneapolis convulsing with fires and police confrontations and galvanized protests in cities across the country.
Protests in Louisville, Ky., also focused on the death of Breonna Taylor, a young black emergency medical technician shot dead when police officers burst through her apartment door in March.
With further protests planned across the country Saturday, President Donald Trump urged officials in Minnesota to “get tougher” and offered the support of the military.
Pentagon officials said Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke Friday with Walz to express willingness to de- ploy military police units. The governor declined the offer, the officials said, and has since activated all of the state’s National Guard troops, up to 13,200.
Nonetheless, the U.S. Northern Command has put several military police units on four-hour status, which means they could be ready to deploy in four hours as opposed to a day.
VIOLENCE CONDEMNED
State and federal officials have increasingly condemned the protests in Minneapolis and elsewhere, which have at times been peaceful and other times marked by fires, looting and vandalism.
Minnesota officials said it appeared that some of the more violent protesters were from out of state, and Attorney General William Barr on Saturday denounced radical “agitators” who he said had their own agendas.
At a brief news conference, Barr said anger over the death of Floyd, 46, was “real and legitimate,” but said justice must be served through the courts, not through the rioting that has overtaken several of the nation’s largest cities. He warned that protesters who cross state lines to “incite or participate in violent rioting” may be violating federal laws and that the Justice Department would pursue cases against them.
“The voices of peaceful protest are being hijacked by violent radical elements,” Barr said. “Groups of outside radicals are exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate and violent agenda.”
Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis pleaded with residents to go home and stop burning down the local businesses that he said were even more vital in the middle of a pandemic.
“You’re not getting back at the police officer that tragically killed George Floyd by looting a town,” Frey said. “You’re not getting back at anybody.”
Trump on Saturday criticized the authorities in Minnesota for allowing protests to continue to be violent.
“They have to get tougher, and by being tougher they will be honoring his memory,” Trump said, adding: “When I saw the policemen running out of a police station for that police station to be abandoned and taken over, I’ve never seen anything so horrible and stupid in my life.”
“We have our military ready, willing and able if they ever want to call our military,” he said. “We could have troops on the ground very quickly.”
Trump tweeted Saturday night that the Guard “should have been used 2 days ago & there would not have been damage & Police Headquarters would not have been taken over & ruined. Great job by the National Guard. No games!”
Overnight curfews were imposed in more than a dozen major cities nationwide, ranging from 6 p.m. in parts of South Carolina to 10 p.m. around Ohio. People were also told to be off the streets of Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Minneapolis.
NATION CONVULSED
Other rallies expanded far beyond Minneapolis through the weekend, including demonstrations in Little Rock, as well as Fayetteville. In other areas:
■ In Washington, growing crowds outside the White House chanted, taunted Secret Service agents and at times pushed against security barriers.
■ Hundreds of demonstrators poured into the streets near Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, smashing windows and clashing with police officers. Others shattered windows at the College Football Hall of Fame, where people rushed in and emerged with branded fan gear.
■ The mayor of Nashville, Tenn., has declared a state of civil emergency after protesters set a fire in the Metro Courthouse in the state’s capital city. The Tennessean newspaper said demonstrators also pulled down a statue outside the Capitol of Edward Carmack, a controversial former lawmaker and newspaper publisher who espoused racist views.
■ Protests in Los Angeles ended with more than 500 arrests. Police released a statement saying they were still assessing the property damage, and that “numerous downtown businesses” had been damaged and looted. Several police cars were torched Saturday afternoon as some protesters ignored authorities’ call for peaceful demonstrations after a night of violence that saw windows smashed, stores robbed and fires set.
■ Police in Houston arrested nearly 200 people who took part in what they said were “unlawful assemblies” throughout Friday and early Saturday morning. In a Twitter post, police officials said most of those arrested would be charged with obstructing a roadway. In scuffles, four officers suffered minor injuries, and eight police vehicles were damaged.
■ In New York, thousands of people attended a demonstration at the perimeter of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Some hurled bottles and debris at police officers, who responded with pepper spray. A burned police van was still smoking near Fort Greene Park after two Fire Department trucks pulled away. Protesters slammed its doors off their hinges, threw fireworks into the charred seats, flattened the tires and placed a sign that read, “Black Lives Matter.”
■ In Tulsa, in the Greenwood District, the site of a 1921 massacre of black people that left as many as 300 dead and the city’s thriving black district in ruins, protesters blocked intersections and chanted the name of Terence Crutcher, a black man killed by a police officer in 2016.
■ In Tallahassee, Fla., a pickup drove through a crowd of protesters, sending some running and screaming as the truck stopped and started and at one point had a person on its hood, police said, but no serious injuries were reported.
■ In Columbia, S.C., a reporter for WIS-TV was injured by rocks thrown Saturday amid protests outside the Columbia Police Department. Several hundred people participated in the demonstration, tearing down the American and state flags in front of the Police Department’s headquarters. They also swarmed a Columbia police car, breaking its windows, The State reported.
■ A person was killed in downtown Detroit just before midnight after someone fired shots into an SUV near the Greektown entertainment district, police said.
■ Police in St. Louis were investigating the death of a protester who had climbed between two trailers of a FedEx truck and was killed when it drove away.
■ In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has sent more than 1,500 state troopers to Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio to help control protests.
■ Denver Mayor Michael Hancock ordered a nighttime a curfew as demonstrations entered a third day there. The Colorado National Guard was sent to enforce the 8 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew.
■ Boston Mayor Martin Walsh hosted a prayer vigil with clergy and the city’s police commissioner. Streamed live on the Boston government website, the vigil was to honor Floyd and to reflect “on his murder.”
■ The unrest prompted responses across the globe. A top Vatican cardinal, Peter Turkson, who is from Ghana, urged pastors in the United States to plead for calm, while U.S. national soccer player Weston McKennie wore an armband referencing Floyd’s death while playing for Schalke in Germany’s Bundesliga.
JUDICIAL WHEELS TURNING
The intensifying protests came after authorities announced that the officer who pinned Floyd to the ground had been arrested and charged with murder Friday.
The officer, Derek Chauvin, 44, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, charges that come with a combined maximum sentence of 35 years.
An investigation into the three other officers who were present at the scene is ongoing.
Floyd’s relatives have said they wanted the more serious charge of first-degree murder.
Third-degree murder does not require an intent to kill, according to the Minnesota statute, only that the perpetrator caused someone’s death in a dangerous act “without regard for human life.” Charges of first- and second-degree murder require prosecutors to prove, in almost all cases, that the perpetrator made a decision to kill the victim. In other developments:
■ A lawyer for Chauvin’s wife, Kellie, said she was devastated by Floyd’s death and expressed sympathy for his family and those grieving his loss. The case has also led Kellie Chauvin to seek a divorce, the lawyer, Amanda Mason-Sekula, said in an interview Friday night.
■ The Hennepin County medical examiner’s office announced it has made “no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.” The medical examiner suggested underlying health conditions contributed to Floyd’s death; his family said it will seek an independent autopsy.
■ Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced Saturday morning he is calling in the National Guard to help “keep peace” in Louisville, where protests have broken out over the death of 26-year-old emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was fatally shot eight times by narcotics detectives in her own home in March. No drugs were found.
■ m Several Minneapolis City Council members are asking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to appoint the state’s attorney general as a special prosecutor in the death of George Floyd.