Month: May 2020

Chicago officials took extraordinary steps Sunday to patrol and restrict access to the city’s downtown in the hopes of preventing further chaos after a night of tense protests over the death of George Floyd that included violent clashes, hundreds of arrests and smashed windows at stores and banks.Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had already ordered an indefinite nightly 9 p.m. curfew, said the Illinois National Guard had been requested to help keep order. She said only essential workers would be allowed into the central business district, city trains and bus service would be suspended, major streets would be blocked with city sanitation trucks and Chicago River drawbridges allowing pedestrians and vehicles into downtown would remain lifted.  “Seeing the murder of George Floyd sickened me and it still does,” Lightfoot said at a news conference, taking several breaks to compose herself. “But rather than respond to his death as we should and focus our energy toward doing the hard work to create the change that we need, we have instead been forced to turn our focus and energy toward preventing wanton violence and destruction”  She called for a 5 p.m. moment of silence for Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died last Monday  after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes as he pleaded for air and eventually stopped moving. That officer, Derek Chauvin, and the three others who were arresting Floyd have been fired, but only Chauvin has been charged — he faces counts of third-degree murder and manslaughter.Floyd’s death and the broader issue of the treatment of black people by police inspired protests in dozens of cities throughout the country, including other Illinois communities such as Peoria and Rockford.A pedestrian looks into a 7-Eleven store early Sunday morning, May 31, 2020 in Chicago, after a night of unrest and protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who was in police custody in Minneapolis.More protests were planned for Sunday in Chicago and Lightfoot said city officials were working with activists to find alternate locations to downtown where they could demonstrate. Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he would activate 375 Illinois National Guard soldiers to assist local law enforcement.  The downtown Chicago demonstrations that drew thousands started peacefully Saturday afternoon in a plaza, with protesters reading the names of black people who have died at the hands of police. But that gave way to violence and destruction that continued overnight Sunday in Chicago and elsewhere.Police used batons to beat back demonstrators as police cars were set ablaze and windows were smashed at businesses ranging from neighborhood convenience stores to high-end Michigan Avenue shops.  At least six people were shot, one fatally, in four shootings during the chaos. A 26-year-old man was shot and killed after getting into a verbal exchange with a suspect who got out of a car.  There were 240 arrests, according to Police Superintendent David Brown. He said 20 police officers were injured, including two who will require surgery.  City officials suggested that the vandalism had been a coordinated effort, which required the city to take the extra steps to prevent further destruction.  “This was not a First Amendment protest,” Brown said. “‘This was a synchronized strategy to loot and burn and destroy.”Still, some protesters questioned certain restrictions, saying Lightfoot’s late Saturday curfew didn’t allow enough time to safely exit downtown because many streets were blocked and public transportation had been restricted. The American Civil Liberties of Union of Illinois said an indefinite curfew raised “serious constitutional questions that need to be remedied” and said it was considering taking legal action.Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, defended her response as necessary for safety.  City officials said they were still assessing the damage and didn’t have a monetary estimate ready. Among the businesses burned in the chaos was Central Camera, a family-owned store that has been operating downtown since 1899.  “I’m going to rebuild and make it just as good or better, so I’m not depressed at all,” owner Don Flesch told WBBM-TV.Volunteers swept up broken glass and cleaned debris Sunday. Among them was Michelle Eleby, who was cleaning up outside a downtown Macy’s store where several windows had been broken.  The 42-year-old biracial woman said Floyd’s death was “enraging” particularly as she lives in fear of racial profiling for herself and family members. Her father is black and her mother is white.  “I needed to do something,” she said of her motivations to clean up. “We can’t sit back and hope the solution is going to come.”___Follow Sophia Tareen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiatareen
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U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Sunday that it was an “absolute outrage” that three policemen in Minneapolis, Minnesota, stood by and watched without intervening last week as another policeman pinned a black man to the street with a knee to his neck as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man who was handcuffed and lying on the street after he was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, died in the incident last Monday. Derek Chauvin, the white policeman who held him down for minutes, was charged Friday with third degree murder in the case.Video of the incident was aired widely on social media and network newscasts, sparking five days of protests in the United States in dozens of cities. The demonstrations have often erupted in chaos, with protesters setting police cars and government buildings afire and clashing with authorities in riot gear. Looters have ransacked stores and run off with high-priced consumer products.This photo provided by the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office shows former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, who was arrested Friday, May 29, 2020, in the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.Chauvin and his three police colleagues at the scene were all fired from the city’s police force. The three policemen who watched the incident unfold are under investigation, but no charges have been filed against them.“What were they thinking?” O’Brien asked on ABC News’ “This Week” show. O’Brien said he was not prejudging the case against the three former policemen, but said, “I can’t imagine they won’t be charged.”O’Brien said the U.S. government mourns Floyd’s death and prays for the Floyd family.“That should never have happened in America,” he said.In an interview on CNN, O’Brien questioned why Chauvin, whom he called a “dirty cop,” was still on the Minneapolis police force at the time of the Floyd incident after multiple complaints had been filed against him in recent years.“We love our law enforcement” in the U.S., O’Brien said. He rejected the suggestion there is “systemic racism” in U.S. police forces, while acknowledging that “there are some bad cops that need to be rooted out. We’ve got a few bad apples that give law enforcement a bad name. I think they are the minority.”A person runs while a police vehicle is burning during a protest in Los Angeles, over the death of George Floyd, May 30, 2020.Some U.S. authorities have blamed both far-left and far-right provocateurs for the violence in cities from coast to coast, some of the worst in the country since perhaps the days of extended protests against the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s.While O’Brien told ABC, “We’ll keep our eyes out for anyone,” he blamed the radical leftist group Antifa for the violence.“This is Antifa, they’re crossing state lines,” to foment violence against police and destroy property, he said.“This has to stop,” he said. “This Antifa violence has to stop.”A top Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said she has been told 80% of those arrested in the protests in Minneapolis were not local residents, but came from other places outside Minnesota, an upper Midwestern state.In the adjoining St. Paul, Minnesota, Mayor Melvin Carter told CNN it became obvious that some people rioting and looting in his city were “not driven by a love for our community.”O’Brien said on CNN, “Who know where they come from,” but vowed, “We’re going to get to the bottom of it.”FILE – An Atlanta Police Department vehicle burns during a demonstration against police violence, May 29, 2020 in Atlanta.Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” show that some of the protesters in her southern city also were unknown to her.“You know, I can’t say who they are,” Bottoms said. “It looked differently racially in our city than our normal protests looked. And it was — it was just — it was a different group. So, we don’t know who they were, but many of them were not locally based. I’ll say that.”O’Brien named four countries — China, Russia, Zimbabwe and Iran — that have cast the U.S. in unfavorable terms because of the death of Floyd and the ensuing violent demonstrations — all coming in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and economic turmoil it has created. More than 40 million workers, about a quarter of the U.S. labor force, have been laid off.But O’Brien said the U.S., where peaceful protests remain a bedrock of the nation’s democratic principles, is not like authoritarian countries where police often arrest even non-violent anti-government demonstrators.“That’s what makes America different from other countries,” he said.O’Brien said other countries casting aspersions on the U.S. “aren’t going to take advantage of us. We stand with the peaceful protesters. We want peaceful
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Volunteers were using shovels and brooms on Sunday to clean up broken glass outside at least five stores at an upscale mall in a Phoenix suburb damaged after a day of peaceful marches turned into a night of sometimes violent protests that included vandalism and an attack on a police station. Protests have erupted in U.S. cities in the days after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck until he stopped breathing. On Saturday night, people knelt with their hands up in the streets outside Phoenix police and municipal buildings, chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot” and “Black lives matter.” Officers used flash-bang grenades and dispersed the crowd shortly after 10 p.m., telling people it was an unlawful assembly. In the upscale Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, some people smashed windows at stores including Neiman Marcus and Urban Outfitters, grabbing goods and damaging buildings. Police had tweeted at 10:52 p.m. Saturday that an unlawful assembly had been declared after large groups appeared to damage and loot a number of stores in and around Scottsdale Fashion Square. On Sunday morning, TV station video showed large holes punched in some store windows with the glass completely shattered in the front windows of other stores. There were no immediate report of any arrests made or damage estimates. Protests during daylight were largely peaceful in Phoenix and Tucson. Friday’s protest unfolded after a vigil for Dion Johnson, a 28-year-old black man who was fatally shot Monday during an encounter with state trooper along a Phoenix freeway. Around 15 downtown Phoenix buildings, including the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse, sustained broken windows, according to authorities. Protesters also slashed the tires of seven police SUVs and attempted to set one vehicle on fire. Two people were arrested. Cleanup crews spent Saturday sweeping up broken glass and power-washing spray-painted buildings after Friday night protests. Gov. Doug Ducey said in a statement that he and the state Department of Public Safety director respected protesters’ rights to assemble. “We will not, however, tolerate rioting, looting, violence, destruction of property or any behavior that endangers the safety or rights of other individuals,” said Ducey, who made no mention of the deaths of Floyd or Johnson. Johnson was shot during a struggle after a trooper found him passed out in his vehicle, authorities say. Phoenix police are investigating. Johnson’s mother, Erma, told the Arizona Republic that her son never would have engaged in a struggle with police, and she questioned the police account. “It’s a lot of things that I want to know that happened to my son in the last minutes of his life,” she said. 
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Protesters demonstrating against the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck, targeted Confederate monuments in multiple cities.As tense protests swelled across the country Saturday into Sunday morning, monuments in Virginia, the Carolinas and Mississippi were defaced. The presence of Confederate monuments across the South — and elsewhere in the United States — has been challenged for years, and some of the monuments targeted were already under consideration for removal.The words “spiritual genocide,” along with red handprints, were painted on the sides of a Confederate monument on the University of Mississippi campus Saturday, The Oxford Eagle reported. One person was arrested at the scene. Ole Miss administrators, student leaders and faculty leaders have recommended moving the statue — installed in 1906 and a rallying point in 1962 for people who rioted to oppose the university’s court-ordered integration — from a central spot to a Civil War cemetery that’s in a more secluded location on campus, but the state College Board has delayed action.Critics have said its display near the university’s main administrative building sends a signal that Ole Miss glorifies the Confederacy and glosses over the South’s history of slavery.In Charleston, South Carolina, protesters defaced a Confederate statue near The Battery, a historic area on the coastal city’s southern tip. The base of the Confederate Defenders statue, erected in 1932, was spray-painted, including with the words “BLM” and “traitors,” news outlets reported. It was later covered with tarp, photos show.In North Carolina, the base of a Confederate monument at the State Capitol was marked with a black X and a shorthand for a phrase expressing contempt for police, according to a photo posted by a News & Observer journalist to social media. The word “racist” was also marked on the monument, the newspaper reported.The question of Confederate monuments has been especially contentious in North Carolina, where such monuments are generally protected by law.A nearly two-year battle was waged over the fate of the “Silent Sam” statue after it was toppled by protesters at the University of North Carolina’s flagship Chapel Hill campus in 2018. A legal agreement reached last November handed over the statue to a group of Confederate descendants, keeping it off campus. A Confederate statue outside a Durham courthouse was also torn down by protesters.Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper had asked for the three Confederate monuments on the grounds of the Capitol to be moved to a nearby battlefield; a state historical panel voted in 2018 to keep the statues, but add context about slavery and civil rights. Statues in Winston-Salem and Chatham County were removed last year in rare moves.But the state where the debate over Confederate monuments has perhaps attracted the most attention is Virginia, where a 2017 white nationalist rally over Charlottesville’s proposed removal of such monuments turned deadly.In the coastal city of Norfolk, protesters climbed a Confederate monument and spray-painted graffiti on its base, according to photos posted by a Virginian-Pilot journalist. Norfolk is among the Virginia cities that have signaled intent to remove their Confederate monuments. In February, state lawmakers approved legislation that would give cities autonomy to do so.A commission in Richmond, the state capital and what was the capital of the Confederacy, recommended removing one of five Confederate statues along the city’s famed Monument Avenue. Photos posted to social media late Saturday and early Sunday showed the bases of at least two statues — those of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart — almost entirely covered in graffiti.Nearby, a fire burned for a time at the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group responsible for erecting many Confederate statues and fighting their removal. The building, too, was covered in graffiti, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.In Tennessee and Pennsylvania, statues of people criticized for racist views, but without Confederate ties were also targeted.Protesters in Nashville toppled Saturday a statue of Edward Carmack, a state lawmaker in the early 1900s and newspaper publisher who had racist views and wrote editorials lambasting the writings of prominent Tennessee civil rights journalist Ida B. Wells, The Tennessean reported.Protesters sprayed graffiti on a statue of former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, tried to topple it and set a fire at its base. Rizzo, mayor from 1972 to 1980, was praised by supporters as tough on crime but accused by critics of discriminating against minorities. His 10-foot-tall (3-meter-tall) bronze statue across from City Hall has been defaced before and is to be moved next year. 
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Midnight violence erupted within two blocks of the White House on Saturday night while U.S. Park Police, the Secret Service and the National Guard defended a perimeter around nearby Lafayette Square.As pepper spray pushed back hundreds of protesters, vandals smashed windows of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in the 1400 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, and a PNC bank was vandalized.Small fires were set inside two restaurants by looters across the street from the White House Historical Association, off Lafayette Square, and multistory scaffolding was also set on fire in a portion of the nearby U.S. Chamber of Commerce building under construction.Several vehicles parked on streets in the neighborhood were also vandalized and set alight.The Washington fire department responded to the larger fires, but witnesses said local police were conspicuously absent as the vandalism occurred, some of it playing out on live local and national television.The scene in downtown Washington on Saturday night and into Sunday morning mirrored events in dozens of other American cities.The unrest followed what had been generally peaceful protests across the country in the days after the death in Milwaukee of 46-year-old George Floyd, an African American man who was pinned to the ground for more than eight minutes by a white police officer who knelt on his neck.A firework explodes by a police line as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd, May 30, 2020, near the White House in Washington.Curfews have been imposed in at least 25 cities in 16 U.S. states.In Washington late Friday and early Saturday, protesters between Lafayette Square and the White House threw bricks and rocks at uniformed Secret Service officers while demonstrators repeatedly knocked over security barriers on Pennsylvania Avenue.Numerous officers and agents were injured, according to the Secret Service.“No individual crossed the White House Fence and no Secret Service protectees were ever in danger,” according to a Secret Service statement.The protective perimeter around the White House was enlarged on Saturday to a roughly six-block area.President Donald Trump, who was in the White House both Friday and Saturday night, praised the initial Secret Service response and tweeted that if demonstrators had come any closer on Friday night the authorities would have responded with “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons.”Trump said Secret Service agents told him they were clamoring for engagement with the demonstrators.“We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and good practice,” he quoted them as saying.Trump appeared to invite his supporters to amass on Saturday to counter the protesters.“Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???” he tweeted, using the acronym for his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”No such crowd of the president’s supporters appeared.“I call upon on our city and our nation to exercise great restraint even while the president tries to divide us,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said Saturday.Trump, on Saturday, blamed the mayor for withholding Washington police assistance in Lafayette Park. The Secret Service, however, said the local police had been on the scene.“The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters, and anarchists,” said Trump in a speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday. “The violence and vandalism is being led by Antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses, and burning down buildings.”The president, who went to Florida to witnesses the first launch into space of NASA astronauts aboard a commercial craft, said the government will not “give into anarchy, abandon police precincts, or allow communities to be burned to the ground. It won’t happen.”  
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The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists Saturday condemned reported attacks by police and protesters against journalists covering the demonstrations across the country that erupted after the Monday death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, an African American, in police custody.“Targeted attacks on journalists, media crews, and news organizations covering the demonstrations show a complete disregard for their critical role in documenting issues of public interest and are an unacceptable attempt to intimidate them,” CPJ program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in the statement.The journalist rights group called on city authorities across the nation “to instruct police not to target journalists and ensure they can report safely on the protests without fear of injury or retaliation.”Meanwhile, the CPJ is investigating reports of attacks on and arrests of journalists in Atlanta; Las Vegas; Louisville, Kentucky; and Washington covering the unrest.Also Saturday, the Society of Professional Journalists tweeted an open letter asking protesters and police not to attack or harass journalists.”Before taking any aggressive action toward us, take a moment, take a breath, and decide to do the right thing and let us do our jobs,” the letter read in part.Protesters: Please don’t attack or harass journalists covering #protests. They want to hear and tell YOUR stories. Please read this open letter. #StPaulProtest#PhoenixProtest#ColumbusProtest#SanJoseProtest#BrooklynProtest#GeorgeFloyd#Protesthttps://t.co/cGscEtiyi9pic.twitter.com/Ozl74PqMsM— Society of Professional Journalists (@spj_tweets) May 31, 2020 
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The rioting in the U.S. city of Minneapolis after the death of a black man in police custody is just the latest incident of racially charged mayhem to mark the United States since the 1960s.1965: Los AngelesAn identity check by police on two black men in a car sparks the Watts riots, August 11-17, 1965, in Los Angeles, which leave 34 dead and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of damage.The trouble starts when Marquette Frye and his half brother are stopped by police and taken in for questioning. Several thousand blacks surround the police station and, after a week of arson and looting, the Watts neighborhood is all but destroyed.1967: NewarkTwo white police officers arrest and beat up a black taxi driver for a minor traffic violation, setting off rioting July 12-17 in Newark, New Jersey. For five days, in stifling summer heat, rioters wreck the district, leaving 26 dead and 1,500 injured.1967: DetroitRace riots in Detroit, Michigan, July 23-27, 1967, kill 43 and leave more than 2,000 injured. Trouble spreads to Illinois, North Carolina, Tennessee and Maryland.1968: King assassinationAfter the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, violence erupts in 125 cities April 4-11, 1968, leaving at least 46 dead and 2,600 injured. In Washington, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson sends in the 82nd Airborne Division to quell riots.1980: MiamiThe acquittal of four white police officers in Tampa, Florida, on charges of beating a black motorcyclist to death in December 1979 after he rode through a red light sets off a wave of violence in Miami’s Liberty City, May 17-20, 1980, leaving 18 dead and more than 300 injured.1992: Los AngelesFrom April 30 to May 1, 1992, riots erupt in Los Angeles, with a toll of at least 59 dead and more than 2,300 injured. The violence was set off by the acquittal of four white police officers who were filmed beating up a black motorist, Rodney King. Violence also breaks out in Atlanta, California, Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco and San Jose.2001: CincinnatiOn April 9, 2001, rioting erupts in Cincinnati, Ohio, after the killing of a 19-year-old black man, Timothy Thomas, by a white police officer.Mayor Charlie Luken lifts a four-night curfew on the city on April 16, after the city’s worst rioting in more than 30 years, during which 70 people are injured.2014: FergusonTen days of protests and riots and heavy-handed police tactics in Ferguson, Missouri, take place August 9-19, 2014, after a white officer kills an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown. In late November, the announcement that charges are being dropped against the police officer leads to a new explosion of anger.2015: BaltimoreOn April 19, 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, dies a week after suffering serious spinal injuries in a police van after being arrested by Baltimore officers.The arrest is captured on video and broadcast, leading to rioting and looting in Baltimore, a city of 620,000 inhabitants, of which nearly two-thirds are black. A state of emergency is declared and the authorities call in troops.2016: CharlotteIn September 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina, sometimes violent protests break out over the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, 43.Police say the shooting happened when they saw him hold up a gun as they approached his vehicle after seeing him rolling a marijuana cigarette. His family says he was unarmed.The authorities impose a curfew and call in troops.
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President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would postpone a meeting of the Group of Seven nations until fall and called for an expansion of the group’s membership because he considers it an outdated group that doesn’t properly represent what’s taking place in the world.The G-7 members are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Trump singled out Russia, Australia, South Korea and India as possible additions.The leaders of the world’s major economies were slated to meet in the U.S. this year, but the coronavirus outbreak has hobbled those plans.
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On two straight nights of unruly protests against police brutality, officers retreated from their posts in some American cities, while in others, they deployed batons, flash-bang grenades and tear gas to quell the unrest.The wide range of responses exacerbated tensions with the protesters in several locations and brought global attention to the tactics that American police use during riots as they try to find a balance between keeping the peace and protecting the safety of officers and the public.The protests came in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into the 46-year-old black man’s neck for more than eight minutes on Memorial Day. Floyd was handcuffed as Officer Derek Chauvin pushed his face into the pavement amid his pleas for help.  Tensions rose throughout the week and reached a crescendo Friday night as protests erupted in cities across America. On their smart phones, social media feeds and TVs, viewers saw the extremes in tactics play out all through the night Thursday and Friday, even as the majority of cops nationwide tried to keep the peace without retreating or shoving people to the ground.In Minneapolis, leaders decided to evacuate a police precinct Thursday and surrender it to protesters who set it on fire. Protesters also broke into the police headquarters Friday in Portland, Oregon, and ignited a fire.  In New York, officers used batons and shoved protesters down as they took people into custody and cleared the streets. One video showed on officer slam a woman to the ground as he walked past her in the street. In Louisville, a police officer fired what appeared to be pepper balls at a news crew, and a clip of the video amassed more than 8 million views on Twitter in less than six hours. Los Angeles police arrested more than 500 protesters on Friday night.Minneapolis police and Mayor Jacob Frey have been sharply criticized for the noticeably non-confrontational strategy Thursday in handling the protests after Floyd’s death. Chauvin was arrested Friday and charged with murder.As Minneapolis Burns, Mayor Takes Heat for Response Jacob Frey’s leadership is being questioned after police failed to quell three nights of looting, rioting and fires that followed Floyd’s deathTo some, the act of protesters taking over the evacuated Minneapolis precinct amid fires could stoke further flames.”You’ve got to defend that,” said former Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Michael Downing. “That’s your command operation. Symbolically, it looks very bad if you have to give that up.”Downing would know: He witnessed the Los Angeles riots firsthand in 1992 following the acquittal of four officers accused of beating black motorist Rodney King.  In Los Angeles, the center of the uprising was an intersection, Florence and Normandie avenues, and the violence spiraled into five days of riots and fires. More than 60 people died, including 10 who were fatally shot by law enforcement.In 1992, then-Lt. Downing would typically oversee that intersection, but he was on vacation studying for a promotional exam. A different lieutenant was in charge instead.The lieutenant made a decision: He ordered his officers to abandon the intersection. An hour later, a truck driver would be pulled from his vehicle and be brutally beaten by rioters.”I think that sent a signal to the rest of the city,” said Downing, who immediately rushed to work. “When you have that coupled with political leadership saying ‘show your anger, go to the streets’ it was kind of like permission to go out and misbehave and be violent.”Nearly 30 years later, police officers around the country are confronted with an eerily similar dilemma, with cities aflame, violent protests erupting and another challenging night ahead Saturday as National Guard troops start arriving in some cities.Alex Vitale, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College, said that when deciding how to manage large protests, police and political leaders look for ways to facilitate “legitimate outpourings of anger” while trying to limit the likelihood of injury and property destruction. But he said the difficulty is trying to strike that balance.”The crisis of police legitimacy has become so great that then to use the police to manage the situation just enflames the problem,” said Vitale, who has studied the policing of protests for two decades.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File Embed” />Copy Download AudioSectionUSAThumbnailFri, 05/29/2020 – 15:50Sandra D. LemaireMedia Duration00:03:23SummaryA viral video of a white police officer in the U.S. pressing his knee on the neck of a black man who died shortly after has again raised the issue of excessive force against black Americans. It’s unlikely that it would have drawn such attention without graphic video. And it’s not the only case stirring interest. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni reports.Rights RestrictedOffAmateur Videos Are Increasingly Forcing US Police AccountabilityUbiquitous cameras document abuse of minorities by police and private citizens In Minneapolis and other cities around the nation where high-profile police killings of black people have prompted protests, the rage felt by protesters is understandable, said Ed Gonzalez, sheriff of Harris County, Texas.”We keep promising real change but not delivering it on a consistent basis,” he said. “We see the resulting emotions and anger and calls for change that occur, only for it to happen again.”Edward Maguire, a criminology and criminal justice professor at Arizona State University whose research focuses primarily on policing and violence, said mass arrests are almost always a bad idea during protests. But so is not making arrests in the face of violence and property damage.He said police departments should be continuously engaged in building connections with minority communities, faith representatives and social justices leaders so that they have a degree of social capital and open communications when protests break out.In other recent protests, police found themselves in a similar situation as those on the front lines this week. Police were criticized in Baltimore and Charlottesville, Virginia, for taking too much of a hands-off approach during protests in 2015 and 2017.In Minneapolis, Frey said he made the decision to evacuate the third precinct that was later torched because of “imminent threats” to both officers and the public.”Brick and mortar is not as important as life,” Frey said.Even as law enforcement nationwide harshly condemned Chauvin’s actions in unprecedented language earlier in the week, they denounced the violence of the fiery protests and pleaded for calm.  “You can’t allow anarchy just because this horrible injustice has occurred,” said Stephen Downing, Michael Downing’s father and also a retired LAPD deputy chief. “You can’t let your city burn. You just can’t.”
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Demonstrators marched through downtown Des Moines on Saturday to protest George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis the afternoon after a peaceful rally turned into a melee in which participants threw bricks at police cars.Live video from WHO-TV showed dozens of people marching in Iowa’s capital chanting slogans such as, “I Can’t Breathe” and “No Justice, No Peace.” The crowd then knelt on a bridge, briefly blocking traffic.  Floyd’s death in Minneapolis sparked looting there and protests across the United States. Floyd, who’d been handcuffed, died after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air. Chauvin now faces murder and manslaughter charges.The Des Moines protesters called for the arrests of three other officers involved in detaining Floyd.  Organizers of the rally Friday said its participants dispersed in the evening after an hour, but “a small group” remained and began damaging property, The Des Moines Register reported.  When protesters threw bricks, police officers in riot gear pushed against them, and at least one officer sprayed chemical irritants into the crowd.Community activists and religious leaders were planning a Sunday candlelight vigil and a Monday evening rally at the Iowa Capitol.
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Protesters blocked a downtown St. Louis interstate, set a fire in the road and broke into trucks in a demonstration over the death of a black Minneapolis man after a white police officer knelt on his neck. One St. Louis protester died early Saturday.Protesters blocked I-44 for nearly three hours after taking to the streets Friday night, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.  The protester who died had climbed between two trailers of a Fed Ex truck and was killed when it drove away. Police said they were investigating.  The crowd dispersed after a few gunshots were fired. Police did not report any arrests.The white Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck was arrested on murder charges Friday.Floyd’s death has sparked protests across the United States and fires and looting in Minneapolis. Tensions between police and minority residents have lingered in the St. Louis area since the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson.  In Kansas City, Missouri, police used pepper spray on people marching through its Westport bar-and-entertainment district Friday night, The Kansas City Star reports. Police said a window was broken and protesters appeared ready to use a police barricade to do more damage.  On Saturday, managers of the Country Club Plaza, a shopping and entertainment district that has become a gathering place for protesters, announced on social media and their website that the district would close at 4 p.m. Saturday and remain closed Sunday because of planned protests.
 
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Houston police say nearly 200 people were arrested and four officers were injured during protests over the death of Houston native George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.  Those arrested “participated in unlawful assemblies, Police Chief Art Acevedo said Saturday on Twitter.  “Most will be charged with obstructing a roadway,”The four officers suffered minor injuries and eight police cars were damaged during the protests, according to Acevedo.Protesters also blocked a Dallas interstate and one officer suffered non-life threatening injuries, police said on Twitter.Police in both cities also used pepper spray and tear gas to disperse crowds that numbered in the hundreds.Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall said officers were making sure the protest was peaceful when violence began.”Then all of a sudden bricks start hailing, hitting our squad cars, hitting the officers … I almost got hit with a brick,” Hall said.It was not clear how many were arrested in Dallas and police did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Saturday.Protests have spread across the U.S., fueled by outrage over Floyd’s death. On Friday, the white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck was arrested and charged with murder.
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Britain, France and Germany issued a joint statement Saturday in which they expressed “regret” about the United States decision to end sanctions waivers for Iranian civilian nuclear projects intended to prevent weapons development.  “We deeply regret the decision by the United States to end the three exemptions for key nuclear projects of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), including the Arak reactor modernization project,” the statement said.”These projects, including the Arak reactor modernization project, endorsed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, have served the non-proliferation interests of all and provide the international community with assurances of the exclusively peaceful and safe nature of Iranian nuclear activities,” the three counties said.
Wednesday the United States announced the end of the waivers, which had allowed the continuation of projects related to Iran’s civil nuclear program, even though the Trump administration abandoned the 2015 international plan of action in 2018.Under the waivers Russian, Chinese and European companies worked on the conversion of Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor to civilian purposes and on the transfer of nuclear fuel abroad.
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As Minneapolis burns over the police killing of George Floyd and shock and disappointment in Africa grow, some U.S. embassies on the continent have taken the unusual step of issuing critical statements, saying no one is above the law.       The statements came as the head of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, condemned the “murder” of Floyd and said Friday the continental body rejects the “continuing discriminatory practices against black citizens of the USA.”       Africa has not seen the kind of protests over Floyd’s killing that have erupted across the United States, but many Africans have expressed disgust and dismay, openly wondering when the U.S. will ever get it right.       “WTF? `When the looting starts the shooting starts’?” tweeted political cartoonist Patrick Gathara in Kenya, which has its own troubles with police brutality. He, like many, was aghast at the tweet by President Donald Trump, flagged by Twitter as violating rules against “glorifying violence,” that the president later said had been misconstrued.       ‘Wanton Destruction’ in Minneapolis As Protests Spread Across USWhite police officer is charged with murder of George Floyd in MinneapolisMindful of America’s image on a continent where China’s influence has grown and where many have felt a distinct lack of interest from the Trump administration in Africa, some U.S. diplomats have tried to control the damage.       The ambassador to Congo, Mike Hammer, highlighted a tweet from a local media entrepreneur who addressed him saying, “Dear ambassador, your country is shameful. Proud America, which went through everything from segregation to the election of Barack Obama, still hasn’t conquered the demons of racism. How many black people must be killed by white police officers before authorities react seriously?”       The ambassador’s response, in French: “I am profoundly troubled by the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The Justice Department is conducting a full criminal investigation as a top priority. Security forces around the world should be held accountable. No one is above the law.”       Similar statements were tweeted by the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Uganda, while the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya tweeted a joint statement from the Department of Justice office in Minnesota on the investigation.       African officials also were publicly outspoken last month over racism in China, when Africans complained of being evicted and mistreated in the city of Guangzhou amid the COVID-19 pandemic.         Protests Around the Country Following Minneapolis Death During a night of protests on Thursday, at least seven people were shot, one criticallyAt the time, the U.S. was quick to join in, with the embassy in Beijing issuing a critical security alert titled “Discrimination against African-Americans in Guangzhou” and noting actions against people thought to be African or have African contacts.       Now the Africa-facing version of the state-run China Daily newspaper is tweeting footage from Minneapolis with the hashtags #GeorgeFloydWasMurdered and #BlackLivesMatter.
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As unrest spread across dozens of American cities on Friday, the Pentagon took the rare step of ordering the Army to put several active-duty U.S. military police units on the ready to deploy to Minneapolis, where the death of George Floyd in police custody sparked the widespread protests.Soldiers from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Drum in New York have been ordered to be ready to deploy within four hours if called, according to three people with direct knowledge of the orders. Soldiers in Fort Carson, in Colorado, and Fort Riley in Kansas have been told to be ready within 24 hours. The people did not want their names used because they were not authorized to discuss the preparations.The get-ready orders were sent verbally on Friday, after President Donald Trump asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper for military options to help quell the unrest in Minneapolis after protests descended into looting and arson in some parts of the city.Trump made the request on a phone call from the Oval Office on Thursday night that included Esper, National Security Advisor Robert O’ Brien and several others. The president asked Esper for rapid deployment options if the Minneapolis protests continued to spiral out of control, according to one of the people, a senior Pentagon official who was on the call.”When the White House asks for options, someone opens the drawer and pulls them out so to speak.” the official said.Protesters move along a highway, May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis.The person said the military units would be deployed under the Insurrection Act of 1807, which was last used in 1992 during the riots in Los Angeles that followed the Rodney King trial.”If this is where the president is headed response-wise, it would represent a significant escalation and a determination that the various state and local authorities are not up to the task of responding to the growing unrest,” said Brad Moss, a Washington D.C.-based attorney, who specializes in national security.Members of the police units were on a 30-minute recall alert early Saturday, meaning they would have to return to their bases inside that time limit in preparation for deployment to Minneapolis inside of four hours. Units at Fort Drum are slated to head to Minneapolis first, according to the three people, including two Defense Department officials. Roughly 800 U.S. soldiers would deploy to the city if called.Protests erupted in Minneapolis this week after video emerged showing a police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck. Floyd later died, and the officer, Derek Chauvin, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter on Friday.The protests turned violent and on Thursday rioters torched the Minneapolis Third Police Precinct near where Floyd was arrested. Mayor Jacob Frey ordered a citywide curfew at 8 p.m. local time, beginning on Friday. In that city, peaceful protests picked up steam as darkness fell, with thousands of people ignoring the curfew to walk streets in the southern part of the city. Some cars were set on fire in scattered neighborhoods, business break-ins began and eventually there were larger fires.People set a fire during continued protest May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis.The unrest has since spread across the country, with protests, some violent, erupting in cities including Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Phoenix, Denver and Los Angeles.Minnesota Governor Tim Walz ordered 500 of his National Guard troops into Minneapolis, St. Paul, and surrounding communities.But a Pentagon spokesman said Walz did not ask for the Army to be deployed to his state.”The Department has been in touch with the Governor and there is no request for Title 10 forces to support the Minnesota National Guard or state law enforcement,” the spokesman said, Title 10 is the U.S. law that governs the armed forces, and would authorize active duty military to operate within the U.S.Alyssa Farah, the White House director of strategic communications, said the deployment of active-duty military police is untrue.”False: off the record – title 10 not under discussion,” said Farah in an email response. No off-record agreement was negotiated with The Associated Press.The 16th Military Police Brigade forwarded the AP’s questions to the Defense Department.  
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A divided Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal by a California church that challenged state limits on attendance at worship services that have been imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.Over the dissent of the four more conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberals in turning away a request from the South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, California, in the San Diego area.The church argued that limits on how many people can attend their services violate constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and had been seeking an order in time for services on Sunday. The church said it has crowds of 200-300 people for its services.Roberts wrote in brief opinion that the restriction allowing churches to reopen at 25 percent of their capacity, with no more than 100 worshipers at a time, “appear consistent” with the First Amendment. Roberts said similar or more severe limits apply to concerts, movies and sporting events “where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time.”Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in dissent that the restriction “discriminates against places of worship and in favor of comparable secular businesses. Such discrimination violates the First Amendment.” Kavanaugh pointed to supermarkets, restaurants, hair salons, cannabis dispensaries and other businesses that are not subject to the same restrictions.Lower courts in California had previously turned down the churches’ requests.The court also rejected an appeal from two churches in the Chicago area that objected to Gov. Jay Pritzker’s limit of 10 worshipers at religious services. Before the court acted, Pritzker modified the restrictions to allow for up to 100 people at a time. There were no recorded dissents.  
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World leaders are condemning the death in police custody of an African American man, George Floyd, in the Midwestern U.S. city of Minneapolis.Graphic video of Floyd’s arrest Monday shows a white police officer kneeling on his neck, with Floyd pleading to be allowed to breathe. Floyd’s death sparked protests throughout the United States, and on Friday the police officer was taken into custody and charged with third-degree murder.The African Union Commission on Friday issued a strongly worded, rare public statement on the domestic events in the United States.In the statement, the chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, “strongly condemns” police conduct in the Floyd case and extended his “deepest condolences to his family and loved ones.”’Continuing discriminatory practices’Citing a 1964 Organization of African Unity resolution on racial discrimination in the United States, the commission said it “reiterates the African Union’s rejection of the continuing discriminatory practices against black citizens of the United States of America.”U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet also condemned the circumstances surrounding Floyd’s death, which she said was the latest “in a long line of killings of unarmed African Americans by U.S. police officers and members of the public.”“I am dismayed to have to add George Floyd’s name to that of Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and many other unarmed African Americans who have died over the years at the hands of the police — as well as people such as Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin who were killed by armed members of the public,” she said.The U.N. human rights chief called on U.S. authorities to take serious action to stop such killings, and to ensure justice.Prevention a must“Procedures must change, prevention systems must be put in place, and above all police officers who resort to excessive use of force should be charged and convicted for the crimes committed,” said Bachelet.Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said he had seen the video of Floyd lying on the ground with a policeman’s knee on his neck.”Because of this discrimination, racism on the basis of race, such things are done,” he said during a webcast on compassion Friday. “We see in the news channels, the media, about discrimination on the basis of color or religion these days, and then there is killing due to that, and then there are some who even take it as a pride to be able to kill somebody.”
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President Donald Trump on Friday vetoed a measure that would have overturned a policy that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued in 2019 making it harder for students to get their loans erased after being misled by for-profit colleges.The Senate gave final approval to the bipartisan measure in March, dealing a rare rebuke of DeVos from the Republican-led chamber. But Trump on Friday said DeVos’ rules are better than an Obama-era policy that would have been restored if the measure succeeded.In issuing his veto, Trump said the rules created by former President Barack Obama “defined educational fraud so broadly that it threatened to paralyze the nation’s system of higher education.”He added that DeVos’ policy “strikes a better balance, protecting students’ rights to recover from schools that defraud them while foreclosing frivolous lawsuits that undermine higher education and expose taxpayers to needless loss.”Democrats condemned the move and promised a House vote to override the veto. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nevada, who led the bill in the House, said the fight is “far from over.””President Trump sent a message to the American people that he cares more about enriching predatory schools than protecting defrauded students and veterans,” Lee said.A statement from the Education Department thanked Trump for the veto.”This administration is committed to protecting all students from fraud and holding all schools accountable when they fail their students,” the department said. “This administration’s rule does just that, despite false claims from many corners.”Borrower defense to repaymentLawmakers moved to overturn DeVos’ policy through the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn federal rules with a simple majority of both chambers and approval of the president.The resolution sought to strike down DeVos’ changes to a policy known as borrower defense to repayment, which erases federal student loans for borrowers whose colleges commit fraud.The policy dates to the 1990s but was expanded under Obama to forgive loans for thousands of students who went to for-profit college chains that used false claims to get them to enroll.When DeVos took office, though, she suspended the rules and began writing her own, saying the Obama policy allowed too many students to get their loans erased at the expense of taxpayers.Her changes were opposed by borrower advocates but embraced by for-profit colleges, who said their industry had unfairly been targeted by the Obama administration.DeVos’ 2019 update made it harder for students to get their loans discharged by requiring them to prove their colleges knowingly misled them and caused personal financial harm, among other changes.Congress’ effort to reverse the rules were supported by advocates for military veterans, who make up a major share of students at for-profit colleges.Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who led the measure in the Senate, said the veto hurts veterans while helping DeVos and the “fraud merchants at the for-profit colleges.””My question to the president: In four days did you forget those flag-waving Memorial Day speeches as you vetoed a bill the veterans were begging for?” Durbin said.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her chamber “will soon vote to overturn this veto, which poses a grave harm to the financial security and futures of America’s students.”The congressional measure was applauded by education advocates who said DeVos’ rules made it nearly impossible for defrauded students to get loans erased.James Kvaal, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, said he was “crestfallen” by the veto.”As a direct result of today’s action, hundreds of thousands of students cheated by colleges will have no way to get a fresh start,” he said. “The message to unscrupulous colleges is that there will be little or no consequences for illegal wrongdoing.” 
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Fires raged in Minneapolis Thursday night and protests broke out in major cities across the United States as the videotaped death of George Floyd while in police custody became the latest example of how ubiquitous phone cameras and social media have combined to become a powerful mechanism of accountability for alleged mistreatment of minorities by both police and private citizens.
 
The Minneapolis Police Department originally had put out a press release saying that Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died Monday afternoon, had experienced a “medical incident during [a] police interaction.”
 
But a video captured by a bystander showed Floyd face down in the street in handcuffs, begging to be allowed to breathe as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
 
After the video went viral on social media, the four officers on the scene, including the one pressing Floyd to the ground, were fired Tuesday. Investigations have been launched, including one by the FBI, that could lead to criminal charges against them.People gather outside the Hennepin County Government Center for a moment of silence for the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, arrested by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Local and national activists and friends of Floyd said they believe the existence of the videotape is the only reason why the police officers are being held accountable for his killing.  
 
“Everyone knows, in the black community, that there has been a long history of police abusing black individuals,” said Amiin Harun, a Minneapolis-based attorney. “There has been a long history of white officers killing black individuals, but this one is striking a nerve because it has been recorded on video.”
 
Andra Gillespie, director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University in Atlanta, said, “You know, the fact that that video is so visceral and because it shows kind of the sustained subduing of George Floyd in a deadly way for so long, I think it didn’t give the Minneapolis Police Department any choice. But to fire the officers who were involved in the case isn’t enough. I think the larger question will be will criminal charges be brought against all of the officers?”
 
The Floyd case had disturbing echoes of the death of Eric Garner in 2014. Garner, an African American man, was choked to death by a New York City police officer after being arrested for selling loose cigarettes. Garner, like Floyd, was captured on video begging to be allowed to breathe moments before he lost consciousness and died.
 
Floyd died on the same day that another viral video sparked anger for the racist overtones of an interaction between a black man and a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. Christian Cooper, an avid birdwatcher, asked Amy Cooper (no relation) to leash her dog in an area of the park where dogs are not allowed to roam free. In a video taken by Mr. Cooper, Ms. Cooper responded by approaching him and threatening to call the police.
 
“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” she said, before using her phone to call the police. She is seen on video speaking into the phone, saying that “an African American man … is threatening me and my dog.” She concludes by saying,” Please send the cops immediately!”
 
When the video exploded onto social media, it immediately sparked fury, particularly from members of the African-American community, who pointed out there is a long history of violence against black men—judicial and extrajudicial—being sparked by false allegations made by white women.
 
Ms. Cooper was publicly identified, and fired from her job.Malik Muhammad, center, joins a group of people marching from the Glynn County Courthouse in downtown to a police station after a rally to protest the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, Saturday, May 16, 2020, in Brunswick, Ga. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)The Floyd and Cooper videos appeared while another wound in U.S. race relations continued to fester. In February, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was shot to death on a rural road in southern Georgia where he had been jogging. No charges were filed in the case after one of two men involved in the shooting, a former local police officer named Gregory McMichael, claimed he had suspected Arbery of burglary and that the shooting had taken place in a struggle over a shotgun.
 
Months later, a video surfaced showing McMichael and his son, Travis, chasing Arbery down the road in a pickup truck with at least one weapon drawn, and pulling in front of him to block his path. Arbery did struggle for the shotgun, but only after one of his pursuers exited the truck and approached him with the weapon.  
 
Prior to the release of the video, Arbery’s family had watched in fury as prosecutors refused to file charges against the McMichaels, saying they had acted in self-defense. After the video became public, the McMichaels were charged with murder and aggravated assault, a result that many believed would not have come about except for the video.
 
“The importance and significance of videos in the last five years, I think is twofold,” said Gillespie. “One, it helps to document what African Americans had known their whole lives. It helps to educate people about the extent of racism in American society. But also it is teaching a new generation of Americans what racism is and how to be vigilant. It’s not enough to talk about racism in terms of slavery; it’s not enough to talk about racism in terms of Jim Crow, and to think that that all went away with the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.
 
“Racism is still alive and well in the United States,” she continued. “And unfortunately, these incidents remind us of how it is still operating in American society. And it should call us to cry out for justice and to look at that now.”
 
While the prevalence of video cameras has made evidence of the mistreatment of minorities by both the police and civilians more likely to come to light, there are other side effects to the virality of such recordings. Tiffany Cofield, a close friend of Floyd’s, said it was simply too painful for her to watch the video of his death. But at the same time, it has been so ubiquitous on social media that she keeps coming across it whether she wants to or not.
 
“I can’t put myself through that trauma,” she said of watching her friend’s last moments. “I think it would be a detrimental setback to my mental and emotional stability to see him like that. You know, I’ve known him for a while and I’ve always known him as a joyous, vibrant, you know, active, fun loving laughing dancing individual. And so I don’t even want to see that. It’s hard enough for me to process that he’s not here. So it’s even more difficult for me to process that it’s another black man’s life that was taken by the police. So I can’t watch it.”
 
Additionally, the widespread attention also forces national political figures in the U.S., who might otherwise have taken no position on local law enforcement matters, to weigh in. That includes President Trump, who on Wednesday used Twitter to express sympathy for Floyd’s family and friends and to announce that the FBI was investigating the matter.  A protester carries a U.S. flag upside down, a sign of distress, next to a burning building, May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis.On Friday morning, Trump addressed the protests in Minneapolis, which had escalated to violence and looting, tweeting, “I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right. These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020
It was unclear whether Trump was aware the phrase “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” was coined by former Miami Police Chief Walter Headley, whose aggressive policies in the 1960s were denounced by civil liberties advocates. Headley famously said, “We don’t mind being accused of police brutality. They haven’t seen anything yet.”  
 
Twitter placed a warning label on Trump’s tweet, saying that it violated the platform’s rules against glorifying violence. 
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A white police officer in the U.S. city of Minneapolis seen kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed African American man who died in custody after pleading he could not breathe has been arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced the charges Friday after he said his office had enough evidence to justify the charges. Freeman did not immediately disclose details but said a criminal complaint would be available later.  The victim, 46-year-old George Floyd, was pronounced dead shortly after he was pinned to the ground while handcuffed and officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck as Floyd pleaded he could not breath.Floyd’s family responded to the charges, saying in a statement it wants prosecutors to take a tougher approach.“The arrest of former Minneapolis police officer Kerek Chauvin for the brutal killing of George Floyd is a welcome but overdue step on the road to justice. We expected a first-degree murder charge. We want a first-degree murder charge. And we want to see the other officers arrested. We call on authorities to revise the charges to reflect the true culpability of this officer.”The Midwestern city of Minneapolis remains on edge following another night of violent protests sparked by the controversial death of an African American man in the custody of a white police officer.Protesters vented their anger in Minneapolis for a third night, setting a police precinct and businesses on fire and smashing windows of businesses. The National Guard was mobilized as the twin city of St. Paul was also rocked by another night of violence.Demonstrations against Floyd’s death and years of violence against African Americans at the hands of police have also spread across the United States. Protestors also took to the streets Thursday in New York City and Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Please, please, please, I can’t breathe. Please, man,” Floyd pleaded, while being detained by officer Chauvin. The incident was captured on cellphone video that went viral after it was posted online. The officer restraining a handcuffed Floyd urged him to “relax,” but the officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck after the unarmed man stopped moving. One witness said he heard Floyd calling out for his mother. The video shows Floyd’s head turned to the side as he does not appear to be resisting. Toward the end of the video, paramedics arrive, lift a limp Floyd onto a stretcher and place him in an ambulance. Authorities later told reporters Floyd died at the hospital.
 
Minneapolis police said Floyd resembled a suspect wanted for allegedly trying to spend a counterfeit $20 bill in a food store and that he had resisted arrest. Protestors demonstrate outside of a burning Minneapolis 3rd Police Precinct, May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis.The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, said early Friday the city is in “a lot of pain and anger” but the looting and burning to protest George Floyd’s death is “unacceptable.”
 
Frey said the damaged properties, including a police precinct, are “essential to our community.” He said he decided to let the precinct burn late Thursday after receiving reports that protesters were trying to breach the premises. Frey said he ordered police personnel to evacuate from the precinct before it was set ablaze because it became too dangerous for them.Frey also responded to President Donald Trump’s tweets that Minneapolis suffers from a “total lack of leadership” and his labeling of the rioters as “THUGS” who  “are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd.”Trump also threatened to bring the city “under control” and tweeted that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right…..— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Demonstrators protest in Centennial Olympic Park, May 29, 2020 in Atlanta. Protests were organized in cities around the United States following the death of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis.Former President Barack Obama tweeted Friday about Floyd’s death, calling on the country to treat all citizens with dignity and respect.“It’s natural to wish for life ‘to just get back to normal’ as a pandemic and economic crisis upend everything around us. But we have to remember that for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal.’ “It shouldn’t be ‘normal’ in 2020 America,” Obama added. “It can’t be ‘normal.”My statement on the death of George Floyd: pic.twitter.com/Hg1k9JHT6R— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 29, 2020Floyd and officer Chauvin knew each other from working security jobs together at the same Minneapolis nightclub, City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins told CNN Friday.  Chauvin was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department who had at least a dozen complaints filed against him about his conduct, according to NBC News and other news outlets. NBC reports that records show Chauvin was not disciplined over the complaints but received one “letter of reprimand.”The other officers involved in Floyd’s restraint have been identified as Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng. They are still under investigation.  Separately, a CNN crew was arrested in Minneapolis on live television early Friday after protests overnight about Floyd’s death.  As reporter Omar Jimenez, who is black, and two other crew members were arrested, the camera continued to run. During the incident, Jimenez asked why he was being arrested. CNN says Governor Walz has apologized to the network.  Because of Floyd’s “I can’t breathe,” comment, his death was quickly compared to that of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York who died in 2014 after a white officer placed him in a chokehold while he begged for his life. Garner also told officers, “I can’t breathe,” a cry that became a national rallying point against the country’s long history of police brutality.
 
Floyd’s death comes weeks after three people were charged with the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in the southern state of Georgia. The African American man was allegedly killed in February by a white former Glynn County police officer and his son who claim they mistook Arbery for a burglar while he was jogging. The two were charged only after a video of the shooting emerged several weeks later.   
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The White House has taken the unusual step of deciding not to release an updated economic forecast as planned this year, a fresh sign of the administration’s anxiety about how the coronavirus has ravaged the nation just months before the election.
The decision, which was confirmed Thursday by a senior administration official who was not authorized to publicly comment on the plan, came amid intensifying signals of the pandemic’s grim economic toll.  
The U.S. economy shrank at a faster-than-expected annual rate of 5% during the first quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. At least 2.1 million Americans lost their jobs last week, meaning an astonishing 41 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits since shutdowns intended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus began in mid-March.  
Trump argues that the economy will rebound later this year or in 2021 and that voters should give him another term in office to oversee the expansion. But the delay of the updated midyear economic forecast, typically released in July or August, was an indication that the administration doesn’t want to bring attention to the pandemic’s impact anytime soon.  
“It’s a sign that the White House does not anticipate a major recovery in employment and growth prior to the election and that it has essentially punted economic policy over to the Fed and the Congress,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist for the consultant RSM.
 
The senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, maintained that the underlying economic data would be too uncertain to convey a meaningful picture about the recovery.  
But the political stakes of a weakening economy are hard to overstate, especially in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that are critical to the president’s reelection.
According to an AP-NORC poll conducted in May, 49% of Americans approve of how the president is handling the economy. That has dipped over the last two months, from 56% who said so in March.
 
Still, the economy remains a particular strong point for Trump. Before the outbreak began, and even as the virus started sending shock waves through the economy, approval of how he had handled the issue was the highest it’s been over the course of his presidency.
Since then, views on the economy have reversed dramatically.  
The May poll found that 70% of Americans call the nation’s economy poor, while just 29% say it’s good. In January, 67% called the economy good.  
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and liberal economists swiftly seized on the report’s delay to argue that Trump is seeking to avoid putting his administration’s imprint on bad economic news in the months before the Nov. 3 vote.
“This desperate attempt to keep the American people in the dark about the economy’s performance is not only an acknowledgement that Trump knows he’s responsible for some of the most catastrophic economic damage in American history, but also a sign of how stunningly out of touch he is with hard working Americans,” said Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman.
While the economic forecast is being delayed, updated information about the nation’s budgetary situation will still be released as expected this summer, the senior administration official said. A significant decline in tax receipts, as well as outlays from almost $3 trillion in coronavirus-related aid bills, is sure to produce a multitrillion-dollar government deficit for the budget year ending Sept. 30.  
Paul Winfree, a former Trump White House director of budget policy, doubted that the holdup on the economic update was on Trump’s radar.
“Honestly, I don’t think the president thinks about the publication of the mid-session review and the politics around it,” Winfree said.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, noted that the law requires the White House to update its budget forecast. That responsibility is even more important given the uncertainty in the economy and the trillions of dollars in aid that have already changed the trajectory of government spending, she said.  
“By staying silent on how to reallocate those federal dollars under an unprecedented economic downturn, the executive branch is doing a disservice to taxpayers and avoiding tough discussions we need to have about the new fiscal reality,” she said.
Jason Furman, who led the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration, said the Trump administration pointing to economic uncertainty as the reason to put off the forecast doesn’t hold weight.  
Trump has repeatedly predicted improvement in the third and fourth quarters of this year, and the president just this week predicted 2021 is going to be “one of the best years we’ve ever had.” White House senior adviser Kevin Hassett said earlier this week that a double-digit unemployment rate was possible in November.
“You have to make decisions on incredibly uncertain information right now,” Furman said. “They are out on TV every day making economic forecasts and predictions about what’s going to happen in the economy.”
The Trump team’s economic projections, like those from earlier administrations, have tended to be overly optimistic. Last year’s review estimated that the economy would grow more than 3% last year, but the actual gains were a far more lukewarm 2.3%.  
It similarly claimed that growth under Trump would cause the budget deficit to fall as a share of the economy. That estimate could never have anticipated the outbreak of the coronavirus that forced more than $3 trillion in aid as the deficit is on course to reach new highs.
In 2017, the Trump administration criticized the Obama administration for rosy expectations of growth during the Great Recession more than a decade ago. An updated forecast in the mid-session review could make the Trump White House a similar target for criticism.
Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Biden, said a timely update on the state of the economy is more important than ever.
“The idea that you’d abrogate that responsibility now is pretty serious fiscal malpractice,” Bernstein said. “They don’t like the numbers they’d have to write down. This is a White House that is in denial about the trajectory of the economy.”
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The midwestern U.S. city of Minneapolis remains on edge and the National Guard was called out to maintain order following another night of violent protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, an African American man who had been in police custody.
 
The case has drawn national and international headlines, calls for the four white officers involved to face murder charges, and it has reignited a debate about the treatment of people of color in custody. Demonstrations are now spreading across the United States.
 
In Minneapolis, protesters vented their anger Thursday by setting a police precinct and businesses on fire. Demonstrators also smashed windows of businesses in anger over Floyd’s death. Some residents who live near the looted stores strongly criticized the police but said they could not understand why people were destroying their own neighborhood, including places where they shop.
 
Unrest also spread to the twin city of St. Paul, where authorities said officers were hit by rocks and bottles. Protests of Floyd’s death occurred Thursday in other U.S. cities, including New York City and Albuquerque, New Mexico. A gunshot was fired near a protest in Colorado at Denver’s State Capitol. A video on Twitter also showed an SUV that was driven into the Denver crowd, knocking down one of the demonstrators.Protestors demonstrate outside of a burning Minneapolis 3rd Police Precinct, May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis.George Floyd’s death
 
“Please, please, please, I can’t breathe. Please, man,” Floyd pleaded, while being detained by the officer. The incident was captured on cellphone video that went viral after it was posted online. Floyd was handcuffed. The officer restraining Floyd urged him to “relax,” but the officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck after the unarmed man stopped moving. One witness said he heard Floyd calling out for his mother.
 
The video, which goes on for several minutes, shows Floyd’s head turned to the side as he does not appear to be resisting. Toward the end of the video, paramedics arrive, lift a limp Floyd onto a stretcher and place him in an ambulance. Authorities later told reporters Floyd died at the hospital.
 
“He wasn’t actively resisting, and he was saying he couldn’t breathe,” said Charles P. Stephenson, a former police officer and FBI agent with expertise in use-of-force tactics is quoted as saying by the Associated Press. “You have to understand that possibility is there [that Floyd couldn’t breathe], and you release any kind of restriction you might have on an airway immediately.”
 
Minneapolis police say Floyd resembled a suspect wanted for allegedly trying to spend a counterfeit $20 bill in a food store. Police say he had resisted arrest. Bystanders captured the scene on cellphone video as officers detained Floyd. The four officers have been fired but reports say they have not been charged in Floyd’s death.
 A protestor faces off with two police officers using less-lethal ammunition in their weapons, May 28, 2020, in St. Paul, Minn.Pain and anger
The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, said early Friday the city is in “a lot of pain and anger” but the looting and burning to protest George Floyd’s death is “unacceptable.
 
Frey said the damaged properties, including a police precinct, are “essential to our community.” He said he had decided to let the precinct burn late Thursday after receiving reports that protesters were trying to breach the premises. Police personnel were evacuated from the precinct and late Thursday it was set ablaze, along with several nearby buildings. “Brick and mortar is not as important as life,” Frey said in defense of the move. “We will continue to do our jobs.”
 
Frey also responded to tweets from President Donald Trump, who posted Friday after Frey’s “total lack of leadership”I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right…..— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020and the “thugs” who “are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd.”….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020 
After reporters read the mayor the tweets, Frey said, “Donald Trump knows nothing about the strength of Minneapolis.” The mayor said, “We are strong as hell.”
 
Twitter later flagged the comments about the “thugs.” In a box under the tweet, the social media platform said, “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”
 
The White House later said the president did not glorify violence, but condemned it.The President did not glorify violence. He clearly condemned it.@Jack and Twitter’s biased, bad-faith “fact-checkers” have made it clear: Twitter is a publisher, not a platform. https://t.co/lTm3Pxxaqg— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 29, 2020Investigation
The FBI has joined Minneapolis police and the Hennepin County attorney’s office in the investigation. The Justice Department says the investigation is a top priority.
 
The city’s police union is asking the public to wait until the investigation is complete before “rushing to judgment and immediately condemning our officers.”Separately, a CNN crew was arrested in Minneapolis on live television early Friday after protests overnight about Floyd’s death.  As reporter Omar Jimenez, who is black, and two other crew members were arrested, the camera continued to run. During the incident, Jimenez asked why he was being arrested. CNN says Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has apologized to the network, but that police have not. The Minnesota State Patrol later said the crew members were released after it was confirmed they were with the media.Crew members could be heard saying they were with CNN during the confrontation.
 
Because of Floyd’s “I can’t breathe,” comment, his death was quickly compared to that of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York who died in 2014 after a white officer placed him in a chokehold while he begged for his life. Garner also told officers, “I can’t breathe,” a cry that became a national rallying point against police brutality.
 
Law enforcement officers have many ways to detain people but “no police academy that we know of teaches a police officer to use their knee, to put it on their neck,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which researches and advises on police practices, told the Associated Press.  
 
“That’s just not taught because that can impact their breathing and their carotid artery [a crucial vessel that supplies blood to the brain]. So, when police look at that video, they are shocked that those tactics were used,” said Wexler.
 
Floyd’s death also is drawing international attention.
 Minneapolis Protesters Demand Justice for Black Man Who Died in Police CustodyDeath of George Floyd, a black man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes, roils Midwestern US city Photo GalleryHuman rights criticism
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Right Michelle Bachelet said U.S. authorities have a duty to ensure that justice is done as she read off the list of black men who have lost their lives in U.S. police custody over the last few years.
 
“In too many cases in the past, such investigations have led to killings being deemed justified on questionable grounds, or only being addressed by administrative measures,” she said.
 
Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, told CNN Thursday he is “tired of seeing black men die” and urged protesters to maintain peace. He called on police to “start doing your job the right way, because I haven’t been seeing it…I want justice. I just want justice,” he said, he fighting back tears.
 Anger buildup
Minneapolis Mayor Frey said Thursday that the violent reaction to Floyd’s death is the “result of so much built-up anger and sadness…that has been ingrained in our black community, not just because of five minutes of horror, but 400 years,” a reference to slavery and subsequent racism.  
 
Frey is white, and the city he leads is close to 64% white, according to the U.S. Census. Only about 19% of the city’s residents are African American.
 
Floyd’s death comes weeks after three people were charged with the fatal shooting in Georgia of Ahmaud Arbery. The African American man was allegedly killed in February by a white former Glynn County police officer and his son who apparently mistook Arbery for a burglar while he was jogging. The two were charged only after a video of the shooting emerged several weeks later. The man who shot the video was charged.
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Protesters angry over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody turned out for a demonstration in Columbus that began peacefully but turned violent, with windows smashed at the Ohio Statehouse and storefronts along surrounding downtown streets.
The crowd of around 400 people entered into a standoff with Columbus police Thursday night, blocking the intersection of key streets in the Ohio capital for hours,  the Columbus Dispatch reported.
The demonstration began as a peaceful protest, but news outlets reported protesters began throwing objects like water bottles at officers, who responded by using tear gas on the crowd. A scuffle between a protester and an officer broke out around 9:45 p.m., WCMH-TV reported.
Some protesters attempted to breach the Ohio Statehouse later Thursday, the TV station reported. Videos obtained by The Associated Press show people smashing the building’s windows.
Calls and emails to Columbus police and the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which covers Capitol security, from the AP weren’t returned overnight.
“I understand why some residents are angry and taking to the streets. I have said many times that racism exists across the country, state and right here in Columbus. We are committed to addressing racism wherever we see it,” Mayor Andrew Ginther tweeted before 9 p.m. “I respect peaceful protests and ask residents to remain peaceful in their actions tonight and every night.”
Earlier Thursday, video showed the crowd marching down Broad Street and blocking High Street, two downtown arteries near the statehouse. As they marched, protesters engaged in a call-and-response chant: “Say his name,” followed by “George Floyd.”
Demonstrators also chanted, “Black lives matter” and “I can’t breathe.”
The Dispatch reported that protesters dispersed by pepper spray broke windows along South High Street and broke into the DGX store, a subsidiary of Dollar General, on the street. Photographs from the Dispatch showed a smashed storefront at the Einstein Bros. Bagels shop across the street from the statehouse.  
Floyd, a black man, was handcuffed and pleading for air as a white police officer kneeled on his neck Monday. His death has touched off protests across the country this week, including in Minneapolis itself, where protesters torched a police precinct Thursday night.
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Twitter has added a warning to one of President Donald J. Trump’s tweets about protests in Minneapolis, saying it violated the platform’s rules about “glorifying violence.”
Trump, a prolific Twitter user, has been at war with the company since earlier this week, when it applied fact checks to two of his tweets about mail-in ballots.
The third tweet to be flagged started as a message of support for the governor of Minnesota, where there have been three days of violent protests over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer kneeled on his neck.
Trump added at the end of his tweet, “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”  
Twitter did not remove the tweet, saying it had determined it might be in the public interest to have it remain accessible. It does that only for tweets by elected and government officials. A user looking at Trump’s timeline would have to click to see the original tweet.
On Thursday, Trump targeted Twitter and other social media companies by signing an executive order challenging the lawsuit protections that have served as a bedrock for online free speech.
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From the death of a black man in Minneapolis to a racist incident in Central Park, camera phones are increasingly being used as a weapon against racism even when justice doesn’t always follow.Two videos shot on smartphones spread from social media to mainstream media this week, highlighting how bystanders are now frequently capturing incidents that in the past may have gone unnoticed.It was a member of the public who filmed George Floyd grasping for breath as a white Minneapolis policeman pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for at least five minutes on Monday.Floyd went still and was later declared dead in hospital. Four police officers were fired from their jobs but remain free and the city has had three nights of angry protests.”If we did not have a video, would the officers have been fired as quickly?” Ibram Kendi, director of the American University’s anti-racism research center, asked in an interview with Democracy Now! “Would they have believed all of those witnesses who were looking at what was happening and who was the asking officers to stop?”In the second incident, a white woman falsely reported Christian Cooper, an avid birdwatcher, to police after he requested that she leash her dog in a wooded area of New York’s Central Park.”I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” she told Cooper as he filmed her dial 911 in a video that has been viewed over 43 million times on Twitter.Rodney KingIn February, Ahmaud Arbery — also African American — was shot and killed by two white residents while jogging in their neighborhood in Georgia.A third man, who was later also charged over Arbery’s death, filmed the murder, with the cellphone video sparking outrage when it was leaked onto social media earlier this month.The filming of such violent incidents is not new.Since the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1991, which was filmed by an amateur cameraman, videos have frequently documented acts of racism across the United States.But in recent years the capturing of such incidents, with them subsequently going viral online and then being broadcast across major news networks, has becoming more systematic.”Here’s the sad reality,” tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris, a black former candidate to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.”What happened to George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery & Christian Cooper has gone on for generations to Black Americans. Cell phones just made it more visible.”Katheryn Russell-Brown, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations at the University of Florida, said the videos remind us that “wherever people of color are there’s a vulnerability.”I would be hard pressed to think of cases involving Whites that show the same kind of instances of harm and assault particularly if we’re talking about law enforcement,” she told AFP.The increased use of police officers wearing body cameras while on duty over the past decade had raised hopes that the use of force against African Americans would fall.But after initial studies showed encouraging results, more in-depth reports found that “the cameras aren’t producing the reductions in use of force that were expected,” according to Urban Institute researcher Daniel Lawrence.Many forces allow officers to turn the cameras off whenever they want, while some have been accused of editing the images before making them public.’Torn apart’In the death of Eric Garner — by asphyxiation at the hands of a New York police officer in 2014 which sparked the nationwide “Black Lives Matter” movement — it was witnesses who filmed the incident, not police, like with Floyd’s death.”These videos that are published in public forms really do point to a kind of dysfunctionality in our criminal legal system,” said Russell-Brown.”It’s sort of suggesting that we need private citizens to make it necessary to watch public officers or people in public spaces to achieve justice or to at least raise the alarm bells about justice,” she added.Russell-Brown also notes that the presence of a camera often doesn’t prevent the act from being committed in the first place.Filming can also have major repercussions, with specialists warning of the risks of rushing to judgment on social networks.Within a day of the Central Park incident, Amy Cooper lost her job as vice president of a wealth management company, her anonymity and her dog amid a media storm.”I’m not excusing the racism. But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart,” said Christian Cooper, who is no relation to Amy.As powerful as videos may be, they mean little, if the law doesn’t run its course, say experts.”They got fired,” said Russell-Brown referring to the officers involved in Floyd’s death.”Is that enough? No. We have a dead person. So now we want the legal system to do what it’s supposed to do.” 
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has declared a state of emergency Thursday as protests raged and a police station burned in the tension-filled city where an African American man died in police custody Monday night.Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has called out the National Guard to try to prevent a third straight night of violence. Five hundred soldiers have been “activated,” the National Guard said late Thursday, and will be deployed to Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding communities.Late Thursday, after hundreds of demonstrators had marched peacefully, a Minneapolis police precinct went up in flames. Reporters on the scene said the police presence at in the area had been reduced to “zero” and they were unsure where the police were. Posts on Twitter indicated the police station had been abandoned. Firefighters were also absent. Meanwhile, the city warned that officials had unconfirmed reports that gas lines had been cut and that the building could explode.We’re hearing unconfirmed reports that gas lines to the Third Precinct have been cut and other explosive materials are in the building. If you are near the building, for your safety, PLEASE RETREAT in the event the building explodes.— City of Minneapolis (@CityMinneapolis) Police move through an area during demonstrations May 28, 2020, in St. Paul, Minn.The officer restraining Floyd urged him to “relax,” but the officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck after Floyd stopped moving. One witness said he heard Floyd calling out for his mother before dying.Because of Floyd’s “I can’t breathe,” his death was quickly compared to that of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York who died in 2014 after a white officer placed him in a chokehold while he begged for his life. Garner also told officers “I can’t breathe,” and the cry became a national rallying point against police brutality.Rallies were also taking part in other cities Thursday. The Associated Press reported that hundreds of demonstrators stood in the downtown streets and chanted as darkness fell outside the Colorado State Capitol in Denver, where protesters spray-painted graffiti and broke car windows.AP reported that cellphone video shot by protester Anabel Escobar, 29, showed a man on the hood of an SUV making its way through the crowd in front of the Capitol. The video showed the driver speeding up and then apparently trying to run the man over after he fell off the hood. The vehicle sped away as other protesters chased it. It was unclear if the man on the hood was injured.Downtown denver. Some girl turned around to run this guy over People pour milk onto the face of an injured man to wash pepper spray out of his eyes during a protest outside the Third Police Precinct on May 28, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minn.The windows of nearly every store surrounding the Target were smashed and a hamburger restaurant was burned to the ground.Police in riot gear fired tear gas to break up a crowd demonstrating outside a Minneapolis police precinct. The building and one police car were damaged.No serious injuries were reported, but Minneapolis police have arrested a suspect they said shot and killed a man he believed was trying to loot a pawn shop.Some residents who live near the looted stores strongly criticized the police but said they cannot understand why people are destroying their own neighborhood, including places where they shop.In New York City, the Associated Press reported, protesters defied New York’s coronavirus prohibition on public gatherings Thursday, clashing with police. Demonstrations also took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A day earlier, demonstrators had taken to the streets in Los Angeles and Memphis.Floyd’s death drew international attention.U.N. High Commissioner for Human Right Michelle Bachelet said U.S. authorities have a duty to ensure that justice is done as she read off the list of black men who have lost their lives in U.S. police custody over the last few years.“In too many cases in the past, such investigations have led to killings being deemed justified on questionable grounds, or only being addressed by administrative measures,” she said.A protester washes her eyes May 28, 2020, in St. Paul, Minn. Protests over the death of George Floyd, the black man who died in police custody, continued .While Bachelet said the “entrenched and pervasive” racism in the United States must be recognized and tackled, she also said more violence and looting will not solve the problem.“I urge protesters to express their demands for justice peacefully, and I urge the police to take utmost care not inflame the current situation even more with any further use of excessive force.”Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, told CNN Thursday that he is “tired of seeing black men die” and urged protesters to maintain peace. He called on police to “start doing your job the right way, because I haven’t been seeing it. … I want justice. I just want justice,” he said, he fighting back tears.Frey said Thursday that the violent reaction to Floyd’s death is the “result of so much built-up anger and sadness … that has been ingrained in our black community, not just because of five minutes of horror, but 400 years,” a reference to slavery and subsequent racism.Frey is white, and the city he leads is close to 64 percent white, according to the U.S. Census. Only about 19 percent of the city’s residents are African American.Floyd’s death comes weeks after three people were charged with the fatal shooting in Georgia of Ahmaud Arbery. The African American man was killed in February, allegedly by a white former Glynn County police officer and his son who apparently mistook Arbery for a burglar while he was jogging. The two were charged only after a video of the shooting emerged several weeks later. The man who shot the video was charged.
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