Mayhem in US as violence spreads
AMERICANS awoke yesterday to charred and glass-strewn streets in dozens of cities after another night of unrest fueled by rage over the mistreatment of African Americans at the hands of police, who responded to the violence with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Tens of thousands marched peacefully through streets to protest the death of George Floyd, a black man who died on Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck until he stopped breathing. But many demonstrations sank into chaos as night fell: Cars and businesses were torched. The words “I can’t breathe” were spray-painted all over buildings. A fire in a trash bin burned near the gates of the White House.
The fury sparked by Floyd’s death was compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, which has left millions out of work and killed more than 100,000 people in the US, including disproportionate numbers of black people.
“We’re sick of it. The cops are out of control,” protester Olga Hall said in Washington DC. “They’re wild. There’s just been too many dead boys.”
People set fire to squad cars, threw bottles at officers and busted windows of storefronts, carrying away TVs and other items even as some protesters urged them to stop. In Indianapolis, multiple shootings were reported, including one that left a person dead amid the protests, adding to deaths in Detroit and Minneapolis in recent days.
In Minneapolis, the city where the protests began, police, state troopers and National Guard members moved in soon after an 8pm curfew took effect to break up the demonstrations.
At least 13 police officers were injured in Philadelphia, and at least four police vehicles were set on fire. In New York City, dangerous confrontations flared repeatedly as officers made arrests and cleared streets. A video showed two NYPD cruisers lurching into a crowd of demonstrators who were pushing a barricade against one of them and pelting it with objects. Several people were knocked to the ground. It was unclear if anyone was hurt.
“The mistakes that are happening are not mistakes. They’re repeated violent terrorist offenses, and people need to stop killing black people,” Brooklyn protester Meryl Makielski said.
Curfews were imposed in more than a dozen major cities nationwide, including Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle.
Few corners of America were untouched, from protesters setting fires inside Reno’s city hall, to police launching tear gas at rock-throwing demonstrators in Fargo, North Dakota. In Salt Lake City, demonstrators flipped a police car and lit it on fire. Six people were arrested and an officer was injured after being struck in the head with a baseball bat.
By daybreak, cleanup had already began in Nashville along Broadway Street after protesters broke windows, lit fires and destroyed light poles. Police said in a tweet that at least 30 businesses and buildings were damaged.
Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp authorized the deployment of up to 3,000 National Guard troops to Athens, Savannah and other cities where more demonstrations were planned. Kemp had already approved up to 1,500 guardsmen to help enforce a 9pm curfew in Atlanta.
President Donald Trump appeared to cheer on the tougher tactics, commending the National
Guard deployment in Minneapolis, declaring “No games!” and saying police in New York City “must be allowed to do their job!”
In Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown Jr was shot and killed by a white police officer in 2014, sparking a wave of protests throughout the country, six officers were hurt after being hit with rocks and fireworks.
Police have arrested nearly 1,700 people in 22 cities since Thursday. Nearly a third of those arrests came in Los Angeles, where the governor declared a state of emergency and ordered the National Guard to back up the city’s 10,000 police officers as dozens of fires burned across the city.
(AP)