Unrest continues in US cities
Violent protests raged across elements of the united states on Saturday over the death of George Floyd and other police killings of black men.
Police cars were set ablaze and there have been reports of injuries mounting on all sides, reports AP.
Triggered by the death of Floyd in Minneapolis on Monday after a officer kneeled on his neck, the unrest has since become a national phenomenon with protesters decrying years of deaths at police hands.
But the large crowd protesters, many not wearing masks or maintaining social distancing, health authorities fear it could further spread coronavirus infection as the united states emerges from months in lockdown.
After a tumultuous Friday night, racially various crowds took to the streets again for mostly calm demonstrations in a large number of cities everywhere. The prior day's protests also started calmly, but many descended into violence later in your day.
"Our country includes a sickness. We must be out here," said Brianna Petrisko, among those at lower Manhattan's Foley Square, where most were wearing masks amid the coronavirus pandemic. "It is the only way we're going to be heard."
In Minneapolis, 29-year-old Sam Allkija said the damage seen in recent days reflects longstanding frustration and rage in the black community. "I don't condone them," he said. "Nevertheless, you need to look deeper into why these riots are happening."
Minnesota Gov Tim Walz fully mobilised the state's National Guard and promised a massive show of force.
"The problem in Minneapolis is no more at all about the murder of George Floyd," Walz said. "It is about attacking civil society, instilling fear and disrupting our great cities."
Greater than a dozen major cities nationwide imposed overnight curfews. People were also told to be off the streets of Atlanta, Denver, LA, Seattle and Minneapolis.
The unrest comes at a time when most Americans have spent months in lockdown. Hundreds of people were arrested Friday, and police used batons, rubber bullets and pepper spray on crowds in a few cities. Many departments reported injured officers, while social media platforms were awash in images of police using forceful tactics, throwing persons to the bottom, using bicycles as shields and in a single instance trampling a protester while on horseback.
Authorities vowed to crack down on lawbreakers.
"Quite frankly, I'm ready to just lock persons up," Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields said at a news conference.
This week's unrest recalled the riots in LA nearly 30 years back following the acquittal of the white cops who beat Rodney King, a black motorist who had led them on a high-speed chase.
The protests of Floyd's killing have gripped a lot more cities, however the losses in Minneapolis have yet to approach the staggering totals LA saw during five days of rioting in 1992, when over 60 people died, 2,000-plus were injured and thousands arrested, with property damage topping $1 billion.
Many protesters spoke of frustration that Floyd's death was one more in a litany. It came in the wake of the killing in Georgia of Ahmaud Arbery and in the center of the coronavirus pandemic that has thrown millions out of work, killed a lot more than 100,000 people in the US and disproportionately damaged black people.
The officer who held his knee to Floyd's neck was arrested Friday and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. But many protesters are demanding the arrests of the three other officers involved.
Trump stoked the anger, firing off a number of tweets criticising Minnesota's response, ridiculing persons who protested beyond your White House and warning that if protesters had breached its fence they would "have already been greeted with vicious dogs, & most ominous weapons, I've ever seen."
