Tag Archives: George Floyd

Seattle police oversight to continue after 12,000 Floyd protest complaints

By Gregory Scruggs

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Police in the city of Seattle will continue to be overseen by federal monitors, the mayor said on Wednesday, days after the force drew 12,000 complaints for its handling of protests over the death of George Floyd.

Mayor Jenny Durkan reversed her position from last month when she and the U.S Justice Department filed a motion to end the eight-year federal intervention, arguing police had met obligations under a “consent decree” imposed for excessive use of force, such as killings of young men of color.

Prosecutors have leveled new criminal charges against four policemen implicated in the death of Floyd, a black man pinned by his neck to the street during an arrest in Minneapolis. Outrage over the death has sparked more than a week of protests and civil strife in major U.S. cities.

The backpedaling in Seattle came after its Office of Police Accountability on Monday reported a host of complaints against the police response to weekend protests, including pepper-spraying a young girl and placing knees on the necks of two people arrested.

“The City knows it still needed to address concerns on discipline and accountability,” Durkan, who helped introduce the 2012 consent decree as a U.S. attorney, said in a statement. “We should pause as our community is rightfully calling for more police reforms.”

The Seattle Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Seattle’s decision came as former President Barack Obama urged every American mayor on Wednesday to work with communities to review police use-of-force policies.

Seattle lawyer and community organizer Nikkita Oliver, who ran against Durkan in the 2017 election, characterized the city’s decision to continue federal oversight as a longstanding demand from police reform advocates.

States like New Jersey and Colorado have proposed police reforms in response to the Floyd killing, but critics say deeper overhauls like defunding or dismantling of departments are necessary to bring real change.

(Reporting by Gregory Scruggs in Seattle, additional reporting and writing by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

New charges against Minneapolis policemen as protests continue

By Brendan O’Brien

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – Prosecutors on Wednesday leveled new criminal charges against four Minneapolis policemen implicated in the death of a black man pinned by his neck to the street during an arrest that sparked more than a week of nationwide protest and civil strife.

The added murder charge filed against one officer already in custody and the arrest of three more accused of playing a role in the killing of George Floyd, 46, came as several nights of escalating unrest gave way to mostly peaceful protests.

Thousands of demonstrators massed near the White House lit up their cellphone flashlights and sang along to the 1970s soul tune “Lean on Me,” before resuming a chorus of anti-police chants.

In a further display of self-policing seen in Washington and elsewhere this week, a number of protesters urge some of their more provocative cohorts to stop taunting police and leave.

Several major cities scaled back or lifted curfews imposed for the past few days. But not all was calm.

In New York City’s Brooklyn borough, police in riot gear charged into a crowd of about 1,000 protesters defying a local curfew, albeit peacefully, near an outdoor plaza, and clubbed demonstrators and journalists as they scurried for cover in a downpour of heavy rain.

The confrontation in Brooklyn seemed to be the biggest exception to a calmer night, hours after the new charges in Minneapolis.

Thousands of people sit on the street next to Seattle City Hall during a protest calling for a 50% defunding of the Seattle Police Department and investment in community-based solutions in Seattle, Washington, U.S. June 3, 2020. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

MORE CHARGES

Derek Chauvin, jailed Friday on charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter, was newly charged with second-degree murder.

The added charge, defined under Minnesota law as unintentionally causing another person’s death in the commission of a felony offense, can carry a sentence of up to 40 years, 15 years longer than the maximum sentence for third-degree murder.

Chauvin, 44, was the white officer seen in widely circulated video footage kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd gasped for air and repeatedly groaned, “Please, I can’t breathe.”

Floyd, whom police suspected of trying to pass a counterfeit bill to pay for cigarettes, was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after the May 25 encounter.

Three fellow officers fired from the Minneapolis police department along with Chauvin the next day were charged on Wednesday – each with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter.

The three men – Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao – have also been taken into custody. Aiding and abetting second-degree murder carries the same maximum punishment as the underlying offense – 40 years in prison.

Floyd’s death has become the latest flashpoint for long-simmering rage over police brutality against African Americans, propelling the issue of racial justice to the top of the political agenda five months before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3.

The spectacle of city streets flooded with angry though mostly peaceful protesters – punctuated by scenes of arson, looting and clashes with police – have fueled a sense of crisis.

The upheavals have flared following weeks of social lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced millions of Americans out of work and disproportionately affected minorities.

TRIAL MONTHS AWAY

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a black former U.S. congressman, has requested bail of $1 million for each of the four former officers charged in the Floyd case.

“This is a significant step forward on the road to justice, and we are gratified that this important action was brought before George Floyd’s body was laid to rest,” Benjamin Crump, attorney for the Floyd family, said in a statement.

Ellison told a news conference winning a conviction “will be hard,” noting that Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, whose office filed the original charges against Chauvin, is the only prosecutor in the state to have successfully convicted a police officer for murder.

Fully investigating the case “is going to take months,” he said.

Protests erupted in Minneapolis the night after Floyd’s death and quickly spread to dozens of cities large and small across the United States.

In many cities, demonstrators defying nighttime curfews have been met by police in riot gear firing tear gas, mace and rubber bullets to disperse unruly crowds. National Guard troops have been activated in several states to assist local law enforcement.

Authorities and some protest organizers have blamed much of the lawlessness on outside agitators and criminal elements.

DEPLOYING TROOPS

Republican President Donald Trump has said justice must be done in Floyd’s case but also touted a hard line against violent protests, threatening to use the military to restore order.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he did not back deploying troops to patrol the country.

“The option to use active duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now,” he told a news briefing.

At the south Minneapolis street corner where Floyd was arrested, a crowd of hundreds stood in a vigil on Wednesday, some with their fists in the air, some weeping.

“These are baby steps,” Kenneth Williams, 54, a black U.S. Navy veteran who lives nearby, said of the newly announced criminal charges in the case. “Somebody should have stepped up and done something at the scene that day.”

“Cops have been getting away with this for years, but now we have cameras,” he added.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Brendan McDermid, Nathan Layne, Maria Caspani, Rich McKay, Jonathan Allen, Sharon Bernstein, Dan Whitcomb, Lisa Lambert, Susan Heavey, Phil Stewart, Daphne Psaledakis, Andy Sullivan and Idrees Ali; Writing by Paul Simao and Steve Gorman; Editing by Howard Goller, Bill Tarrant, Cynthia Osterman and Lincoln Feast.)

Three white men to face Georgia judge in death of black jogger

By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Three white men charged with the murder of an unarmed black man in Georgia will face a judge Thursday morning in a case that caused a national outcry after cellphone video of the shooting was leaked on social media.

Protests are expected outside the courthouse after more than a week of demonstrations across the United States over the death of George Floyd, a black American who was pinned down to the ground by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

In the case in Georgia, the three men were not charged until more than two months after Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was shot dead while running on Feb. 23.

State police stepped in to investigate after the video was widely seen and Glynn County police took no action, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) pressed charges.

A former police officer is accused of involvement in Arbery’s death in the coastal community of Brunswick, and state officials have called in the National Guard to assist with the crowds expected outside the courthouse.

Glynn County Magistrate Judge Wallace Harrell who will review whether or not the GBI had probable cause to bring the charges.

Former police officer Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, are charged with murder and aggravated assault.

William “Roddie” Bryan, a neighbor of the McMichaels who took the cellphone video, was charged with felony murder and attempt to illegally detain and confine.

Police say Gregory McMichael saw Arbery running in his neighborhood just outside Brunswick and believed he looked like a burglary suspect. The elder McMichael called his son and the two armed themselves and gave chase in a pickup truck, police said.

Bryan’s video footage appears to show the McMichaels confronting Arbery before Arbery was shot with a shotgun.

The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating the case as a possible federal hate crime. The GBI is investigating the police department and two local district attorneys offices over the handling of the case.

If convicted, the three men face life in prison or the death penalty.

(Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

After more than a week of protests, four Minneapolis police officers face charges

By Brendan O’Brien

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – A fired Minneapolis police officer will face a more serious murder charge and three other sacked officers will be charged as aiding and abetting in the death of an unarmed black man that triggered eight days of nationwide protest, court documents said on Wednesday.

George Floyd, 46, died after Derek Chauvin, a white policeman, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25, reigniting the explosive issue of police brutality against African Americans five months before a presidential election.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is charging Chauvin, 44, with second-degree murder in addition to the third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges leveled against him last week, according to court documents.

The new charge can carry a sentence of up to 40 years, 15 years longer than the maximum sentence for third-degree murder.

The other three former officers who were involved in the incident – Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao – face charges of aiding and abetting murder and arrest warrants have been issued by Ellison, according to the documents.

Ellison, a black former U.S. congressman, has requested that bail be set at $1 million for each of the four former officers, the documents showed. Ellison was expected to hold a briefing later on Wednesday.

When reached by Reuters over the phone, Earl Gray, the attorney for Lane, said he had not received any information on the charges yet. Attorneys for the other officers who are being charged did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“This is a significant step forward on the road to justice, and we are gratified that this important action was brought before George Floyd’s body was laid to rest,” Benjamin Crump, attorney for the Floyd family, said in a statement.

He later told CNN that Chauvin should be facing a first-degree murder charge, and that Ellison had informed Floyd’s family that the investigation is ongoing and other charges could be filed.

Protesters who have vented their anger over Floyd’s death in sometimes violent demonstrations in major U.S. cities over the past week had demanded the case be widened to include all the officers who were present during the incident.

“This is another important step for justice,” said U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is from Minnesota and a potential running mate for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election.

Tens of thousands of people defied curfews and took to the streets of cities coast to coast for an eighth night in protest over Floyd’s death and brutality against other black Americans.

Authorities took the unusual step of ordering the curfews, and bands of police in riot gear and other heavily armed officers patrolled, ringing landmarks and shouting at protesters while helicopters roared overhead.

While most protests have been peaceful, there was less looting and vandalism overnight, and clashes between police and protesters were more sporadic.

The protests have highlighted the issues of racial inequality and excessive police force in a country that will go to the polls on Nov. 3 to decide whether to give Republican President Donald Trump another term in the White House.

Trump has said justice must be done in Floyd’s case but also touted a hard line on the violent protests, threatening to use the military to end the chaos. Biden has vowed to heal the racial divide in the nation if he is elected.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Nathan Layne, Maria Caspani, Rich McKay, Jonathan Allen, Sharon Bernstein, Dan Whitcomb, Lisa Lambert, Susan Heavey, Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Nick Macfie, Howard Goller)

Walmart removes firearms, ammunition from floor display as protests rage in U.S

(Reuters) – Walmart Inc said on Wednesday it shifted firearms and ammunition out of sales floors of some U.S. stores amid nationwide protests over the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police last week.

“We have temporarily removed firearms and ammunition from the sales floor in some stores out of an abundance of caution,” the nation’s largest retailer said in a statement.

“Those items are available for purchase, but are being stored in a secure room.”

Walmart, which stopped selling ammunition for handguns and some assault-style rifles in its U.S. stores last year, does not sell firearms in many of the major urban markets experiencing issues due to looting.

Several retailers, from Target, Apple to high-end apparel brands, have been looted and damaged as protesters turned violent in places including New York and Chicago, forcing them to reduce store hours or close shop.

This comes as U.S. retailers were already reeling under falling sales due to the pandemic-led stores closures.

(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Hackers and hucksters reinvigorate ‘Anonymous’ brand amid protests

By Joseph Menn

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The amorphous internet activist movement known as Anonymous staged an online resurgence in the past week on the back of real-world protests against police brutality.

Born from internet chat boards more than a dozen years ago, the collective was once known for organizing low-skill but effective denial-of-service attacks that temporarily shut down access to payment processors that had stopped handling donations to the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks.

But accounts using variations of the Anonymous name recently claimed credit for temporarily knocking a Minneapolis police website offline and, inaccurately, for hacking police passwords.

At the same time, millions of Twitter accounts began following longstanding Anonymous posters and retweeting them, helping boost Anonymous into Twitter’s Trending column and greater attention. Many of the boosted tweets opposed police actions, defended Black Lives Matter or faulted President Donald Trump.

It is unclear who or what is driving the resurgence, and exactly why. McGill University anthropology professor Gabriella Coleman, who wrote a book on Anonymous, said she was told by insiders that some key figures from a decade ago are involved and they are being assisted by mechanical amplification.

“The ability to create so many new accounts is classic Anonymous social-technological hacking,” Coleman said. “It’s low-hanging fruit.”

Even one of the heavily boosted old accounts, YourAnonNews, tweeted that it had no idea what was going on. It experimented by tweeting nonsense and asking not to be retweeted, only to see those tweets repeated hundreds of thousands of times.

A Twitter spokeswoman said the company had seen no evidence of “substantial coordinated activity” among longstanding Anonymous accounts but deleted one spammy new one brought to its attention by a researcher Tuesday.

“We have seen a few accounts change their profile names, photos, etc. in an attempt to visibly associate with the group and gain followers,” said Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelley.

Anyone can call themselves a member of Anonymous and adopt its Guy Fawkes mask, other imagery and slogans, such as “we are legion.” It has no acknowledged leaders, making it more of a brand than an ordinary assemblage.

One account with 120,000 followers, AnonNewz, had deleted all prior tweets before June 1, when it started promoting protests. But it had neglected to delete its old “likes,” which were about Korean pop music, and it had interacted in the past with other K-pop fans touting giveaways.

After researcher Marcus Hutchins of cybersecurity company Kryptos Logic tweeted about the account, Twitter suspended it.

Twitter told Reuters it removed AnonNewz for “spam and coordination with other spammy accounts.”

(Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Greg Mitchell and Leslie Adler)

George Floyd, a ‘gentle giant,’ remembered in hometown Houston march

By Ernest Scheyder

HOUSTON (Reuters) – George Floyd’s hometown of Houston held a memorial march for him on Tuesday, where attendees recounted a “gentle giant” whose legacy had helped the city largely avoid the violent protests seen elsewhere in the United States.

The mayor’s office said 60,000 people gathered downtown to honor Floyd, who died after a white police officer pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25.. Floyd’s death has ignited protests across the country.

Floyd lived most of his 46 years in Houston’s historically black Third Ward neighborhood, located about a mile south of the park where the march began. He moved to Minneapolis in recent years for work.

The memorial march was organized by well-known Houston rappers Trae Tha Truth, who was a longtime friend of Floyd’s – and Bun B, who worked directly with Floyd’s family for the event. Houston’s mayor and police chief attended.

“We’re gonna represent him right,” Trae Tha Truth, whose given name is Frazier Thompson III, told the crowd of several hundred people gathered for the march. “We are gonna tear the system from the inside out.”

He added: “George Floyd is looking down at us now and he’s smiling.”

After a prayer, the marchers exited the park and began to walk toward City Hall.

Democratic U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who represents portions of Houston where Floyd was raised, told the crowd that she would introduce police reform legislation in Congress on Thursday in honor of Floyd.

Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is black, said he understood marchers’ pain and told them they were making an impact.

“People that are in elected office and positions of power – we are listening,” Turner said. “It’s important for us to not just listen, but to do. I want you to know your marching, your protesting has not gone in vain. George did not die in vain.”

Houston has so far largely escaped the violent protests, with some attributing that directly to the legacy of Floyd himself.

“The people who knew George the best help set the tone for Houston. They knew what he was about. He truly was a gentle giant, a sweet guy,” said David Hill, a Houston community activist and pastor at Restoration Community Church, who knows the Floyd family.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Brad Brooks and Peter Cooney)

‘No justice, no peace’: Tens of thousands in London protest the death of Floyd

By Michael Holden and Dylan Martinez

LONDON (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people chanting “no justice, no peace, no racist police” and “black lives matter” gathered in central London on Wednesday to protest against racism after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Floyd died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he lay handcuffed on the ground in Minneapolis on May 25.

His death drew outrage across a nation that is politically and racially divided five months before a presidential election, reigniting protests that have flared repeatedly in recent years over police killings of black Americans.

Since then anti-racism rallies have been held in cities around the world, from Paris to Nairobi.

In London’s Hyde Park, many of the protesters wore face masks and were dressed in red. They chanted “George Floyd” and “Black lives matter”.

“This has been years in the coming, years and years and years of white supremacy,” 30-year-old project manager Karen Koromah told Reuters.

“We’ve come here with our friends to sound the alarm, to make noise, to dismantle supremacist systems,” Koromah said, cautioning that unless there was action the United Kingdom would face similar problems to those in the United States.

“I don’t want to start crying,” she said of the images from the United States. “It makes my blood boil.”

Some protesters waved banners with slogans such as: “The UK is not innocent: less racist is still racist”, “Racism is a global issue” and “If you aren’t angry you aren’t paying attention”.

‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’

Prime Minister Johnson said on Wednesday that black lives mattered and that he supported the right to protest in a lawful and socially-distanced way.

“Of course, black lives matter and I totally understand the anger, the grief that is felt not just in America but around the world and in our country as well,” he told parliament.

British police chiefs said they were appalled by the way Floyd lost his life and by the violence which followed in U.S. cities but called on potential protesters in the United Kingdom to work with police as coronavirus restrictions remain in place.

But in Hyde Park, near Speakers’ Corner, many cautioned that racism was still a British problem too.

“My mum was a protester in apartheid and that was 30 to 40 years ago – it’s pretty disappointing that we have had to come out today to protest the same thing today they were protesting how many years ago,” Roz Jones, 21, a student from London told Reuters.

Jones came to Britain as a small child with his mother from South Africa.

“It’s a systematic issue all over the world. It’s not like this is just about someone dying, we live our lives made awfully aware of our race. That’s not right, that’s not the natural order,” he said.

The Hyde Park rally is the second major protest in Britain after hundreds gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square on Sunday before marching to the U.S. embassy.

(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Raissa Kasolowsky)

U.S. crowds defy curfew to protest Floyd’s death, but violence subsides

By Jonathan Ernst and Brendan O’Brien

WASHINGTON/MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – U.S. protesters ignored curfews overnight as they vented their anger over the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police, but there was a marked drop in the violence that led President Donald Trump to threaten to deploy the military.

George Floyd died after a white policeman pinned his neck under the officer’s knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25, reigniting the explosive issue of police brutality against African Americans five months before the November presidential election.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of cities coast to coast for an eighth night as National Guard troops lined the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

There was sporadic violence in Washington and Portland, Oregon, with protesters tossing fireworks and bottles answered by police flash grenades and tear gas.

Clashes between protesters and police and looting of some stores in New York City gave way to relative quiet in the early hours of Wednesday. Police told media they made 200 arrests, largely for curfew violations.

In Los Angeles, many demonstrators who defied the curfew were arrested, but calm had been restored by mid-evening to the extent that television stations switched from wall-to-wall coverage back to regular programming.

Large marches and rallies also took place in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver and Seattle.

The officer who knelt on Floyd, Derek Chauvin, 44, has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Three other officers involved in the incident were fired but have not been charged.

‘SILENCE IS VIOLENCE’

Although rallies on behalf of Floyd and other victims of police brutality in recent days have been largely peaceful, many have turned to vandalism, arson and looting after dark. On Monday night, five police officers were hit by gunfire in two cities.

Outside the U.S. Capitol building on Tuesday afternoon a throng took to one knee, chanting “silence is violence” and “no justice, no peace,” as officers faced them just before the government-imposed curfew.

Many of the protesters used the slogan “take a knee”, referring both to how Floyd died and a long-standing protest against racism in America that started in 2016 with a football player taking a knee instead of standing during the National Anthem.

The crowd remained after dark, despite the curfew and vows by Trump to crack down on what he has called lawlessness by “hoodlums” and “thugs,” using National Guard troops or even the U.S. military if necessary.

The Republican president, who is seeking re-election in November, continued his hard-line rhetoric, urging police to “get tough” in a series of tweets on Wednesday, a day after his likely challenger former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden vowed to heal the nation’s racial divide.

In Atlanta, four police officers and two former officers were charged with using excessive force while arresting two students. Minneapolis launched an investigation into possible discriminatory practices in the police department over the last 10 years.

In New York, thousands of chanting protesters ignored the curfew to march from the Barclays Center in Flatbush toward the Brooklyn Bridge as police helicopters whirred overheard.

The crowd halted at an entrance to the Manhattan Bridge roadway, chanted at riot police: “Walk with us! Walk with us.”

New York state police arrested a 30-year-old woman Tuesday after she drove a car striking three police officers at a demonstration in Buffalo on Monday.

On Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, hundreds of people filled the street, marching past famous landmarks of the film industry. Others gathered outside Los Angeles Police Department headquarters downtown, in some cases hugging and shaking hands with a line of officers outside.

Los Angeles was the scene of violent riots in 1992, following the acquittal of four policemen charged in the beating of black motorist Rodney King, that saw more than 60 people killed and an estimated $1 billion in damage.

The past week’s demonstrations have reverberated outside America, and a growing chorus of companies, celebrities and athletes have also denounced Floyd’s death and urged change.

In Rome, Pope Francis called for national reconciliation in the United States, saying that while racism is intolerable, the street violence that has broken out is “self-destructive and self-defeating”.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday found a majority of Americans sympathize with the protesters.

The survey conducted on Monday and Tuesday found 64% of American adults were “sympathetic to people who are out protesting right now,” while 27% said they were not and 9% were unsure.

In Minneapolis, Roxie Washington, mother of Floyd’s six-year-old daughter, Gianna, told a news conference he was a good man.

“I want everybody to know that this is what those officers took from me …,” she said, sobbing. “Gianna does not have a father. He will never see her grow up, graduate.”

(Reporting by Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Anne Saphir, Brendan O’Brien, Nathan Layne, Brad Brooks, Diane Craft, Jonathan Allen, Sharon Bernstein, Dan Whitcomb, Aakriti Bhalla, Rich McKay and Philip Pullella; Editing by Nick Macfie and Paul Simao)

Five police shot during U.S. protests, Trump says he could bring in military

By Jonathan Ernst and Brendan O’Brien

WASHINGTON/MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – At least five U.S. police were hit by gunfire during violent protests over the death of a black man in police custody, police and media said, hours after President Donald Trump said he would deploy the military if unrest does not stop.

Trump deepened outrage on Monday by posing at a church clutching a bible after law enforcement officers used teargas and rubber bullets to clear the way for him to walk there after he made his remarks in the White House Rose Garden.

Demonstrators set fire to a strip mall in Los Angeles, looted stores in New York City and clashed with police in St Louis, Missouri, where four officers were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

An emotional St Louis police commissioner, John Hayden, said about 200 protesters were “jumping up and down like crazy people”, looting and throwing fireworks and rocks at officers.

“We had to protect our headquarters building, they were throwing fireworks on officers, fireworks were exploding on officers,” he told reporters. “They had officers with gas poured on them. What is going on? How can this be? Mr Floyd was killed somewhere else and they are tearing up cities all across the country.”

A police officer was also shot during protests in the Las Vegas Strip area, AP news agency said, quoting police. Another officer was “involved in a shooting” in the same area, the agency said.

It gave no details of the shootings or the officers’ condition. Police declined to comment to Reuters.

Trump has condemned the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died after a white policeman pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25, and has promised justice.

But, with anti-police brutality marches and rallies having turned violent after dark each day in the past week, he said rightful protests could not be drowned out by an “angry mob”.

“Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled,” Trump said. “If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”

Floyd’s death has reignited simmering racial tensions in a politically divided country that has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with African Americans accounting for a disproportionately high number of cases.

CRITICISM OF CHURCH VISIT

After his address, Trump posed for pictures with his daughter, Ivanka, and U.S. Attorney General William Barr at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House.

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church diocese in Washington D. C., Michael Curry, was among those who criticized Trump’s use of the historic church for a photo opportunity.

“In so doing, he used a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes,” he said on Twitter. The church suffered minor fire damage during protests on Sunday night.

The White House said it was clearing the area before a curfew.

A few hours later, thousands of people marched through Brooklyn, shouting “Justice now!” while some passing drivers honked in support.

Television images showed crowds smashing windows and looting luxury stores along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan before the city’s 11 p.m. curfew. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the curfew would be moved to 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

Two police officers were struck by a car at a demonstration in Buffalo, New York, on Monday night. Officials said the driver and passengers were believed to be in custody. It was not clear whether the incident was intentional.

In Hollywood, dozens of people were shown in television images looting a drug store. Windows were shattered at a nearby Starbucks and two restaurants.

AUTOPSIES

A second autopsy ordered by Floyd’s family and released on Monday found his death was homicide by “mechanical asphyxiation,” or physical force that interfered with his oxygen supply. The report says three officers contributed to his death.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner later released autopsy findings that also called Floyd’s death homicide by asphyxiation. The county report said Floyd suffered cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by police and that he had arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use.

Derek Chauvin, the 44-year-old Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on Floyd, was arrested on third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges. Three other officers involved in the arrest have not been charged.

Floyd’s death was the latest case of police brutality against black men that was caught on videotape and prompted an outcry over racism in U.S. law enforcement.

Dozens of cities are under curfews not seen since riots after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The National Guard deployed in 23 states and Washington, D.C.

 

(Reporting by Aakriti Bhalla, Subrat Patnaik, Lisa Lambert, Andy Sullivan, Maria Caspani, Peter Szekely, Lucy Nicholson, David Shepardson, Michael Martina, Brendan O’Brien, Sharon Bernstein, Lisa Richwine and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb and Nick Macfie; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Lincoln Feast, and Timothy Heritage)