Trump threatens military action
President vows to ‘quickly solve the problem’ if states can’t halt violence
MINNEAPOLIS » President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to deploy the United States military unless states quickly halted the violent protests that have convulsed cities from coast to coast, hours after George Floyd’s brother pleaded for peace, saying destruction is “not going to bring my brother back at all.”
The competing messages — one conciliatory, one bellicose — came as the U.S. braced for another round of violence at a time when the country is already buckling because of the coronavirus outbreak and the Depression-level unemployment it has caused.
Trump said he was recommending that governors deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to “dominate the streets.” If governors fail to take action, Trump said, he will deploy the United States military and “quickly solve the problem for them.”
As Trump spoke in the Rose Garden, tear gas canisters could be heard exploding as police and National Guard soldiers aggressively forced back hundreds of protesters who gathered in Lafayette
Park, across the street from the White House, and chanted peacefully against police brutality and the death of George Floyd.
Trump deplored the violence that broke out in the nation’s capital Sunday night and warned that Washington’s 7 p.m. curfew would be strictly enforced.
But in Minneapolis, Floyd’s brother, Terrence, made an emotional plea for peace at the site where Floyd was pinned to the pavement by an officer who put
his knee on the handcuffed black man’s neck until he stopped breathing.
“Let’s switch it up, y’all. Let’s switch it up. Do this peacefully, please,” Terrence Floyd said.
The crowd chanted, “What’s his name? George Floyd!” and “One down, three to go!” in reference to the four officers involved in Floyd’s arrest. Officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with murder, but protesters are demanding that his colleagues be prosecuted, too. All four were fired.
The gathering was part rally and part impromptu eulogy as Floyd urged people to stop the violence and use their power at the ballot box.
“If I’m not over here messing up my community, then what are you all doing?” he said. “You all are doing nothing. Because that’s not going to bring my brother back at all.”
In remarks Monday morning, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden vowed to address institutional racism in his first 100 days in office as he sought to elevate his voice Monday in the exploding national debate over racism and police brutality.
Biden offered emotional support and promised bold action during an in-person discussion with black leaders in Delaware and a subsequent virtual meeting with big-city mayors who are grappling with racial tensions and frustrated by a lack of federal support.
“Hate just hides. It doesn’t go away, and when you have somebody in power who breathes oxygen into the hate under the rocks, it comes out from under the rocks,” Biden told more than a dozen African American leaders gathered at a church in downtown Wilmington, his face mask lowered around his chin as he spoke.
Without offering specifics, he promised to “deal with institutional racism” and set up a police oversight body in his first 100 days in office, if elected.
The country has been beset by angry demonstrations for the past week in some of the most widespread racial unrest in the U.S. since the 1960s. Spurred in part by Floyd’s death, protesters have taken to the streets to decry the killings of black people by police.
On Monday, police fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters who spilled onto an interstate highway in the heart of Philadelphia just before a 6 p.m. curfew took effect.
While most of the demonstrations have been peaceful, others have descended into violence, leaving neighborhoods in shambles, stores ransacked, windows broken and cars burned, despite curfews around the country and the deployment of thousands of National Guard members in at least 15 states.
Earlier Monday, Trump told the nation’s governors in a videoconference that they they “look like fools” for not deploying even more National Guard troops. “Most of you are weak,” he said.
Meanwhile, an autopsy commissioned for Floyd’s family found that he died of asphyxiation from neck and back compression, the family’s attorneys said.
That distinguishes it from the official autopsy, which said he died from the effects of being restrained along with underlying health problems and potential intoxicants in his system. The official autopsy found nothing “to support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”
The second autopsy was done by a doctor who also examined the body of Eric Garner, a New York man who died in an officer’s chokehold six years ago.
Authorities in many cities have blamed the violence on outside agitators, though have provided little evidence to back that up.
But on Monday, federal authorities arrested a 28-year-old Illinois man, Matthew Lee Rupert, saying he had posted self-recorded video on his Facebook page last week that showed him in Minneapolis handing out explosive devices and encouraging people to throw them at law enforcement officers. The video also showed him attempting to light a business on fire, and looting, according to an FBI affidivit. Early Sunday, he posted more videos of himself in and around Chicago, saying “Let’s start a riot.”