MINNEAPOLIS, (Reuters) – The full Minnesota National Guard was activated for the first time since World War Two after four nights of civil unrest that has spread to other U.S. cities following the death of a black man shown on video gasping for breath as a white Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said the deployment was necessary because outside agitators were using protests over the death of George Floyd to sow chaos, and that he expected last night’s demonstrations to be the fiercest so far.
From Minneapolis to several other major cities including New York, Atlanta and Washington, protesters clashed with police late on Friday in a rising tide of anger over the treatment of minorities by law enforcement.
“We are under assault,” Walz, a first-term governor elected from Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, told a briefing on Saturday. “Order needs to be restored. … We will use our full strength of goodness and righteousness to make sure this ends.”
He said he believed a “tightly controlled” group of outsiders, including white supremacists and drug cartel members, were instigating some of the violence in Minnesota’s largest city, but he did not give specific evidence of this when asked by reporters.
As many as 80% of those arrested were from outside the state, Walz said. But detention records show just eight non-Minnesota residents have been booked into the Hennepin County Jail since Tuesday, and it was unclear whether all of them were arrested in connection with the Minneapolis unrest.
The Republican Trump administration suggested civil disturbances were being orchestrated from the political left.
“In many places, it appears the violence is planned, organized and driven by anarchic and left extremist groups – far-left extremist groups – using antifa-like tactics, many of whom travel from outside the state to promote violence,” U.S. Attorney William Barr said in a statement.
In an extraordinary move, the Pentagon said it put military units on a four-hour alert to be ready if requested by Walz to help keep the peace. Defying a curfew imposed by the city’s mayor, protesters took to Minneapolis streets for a fourth night on Friday – albeit in smaller numbers than before – despite the announcement hours earlier of criminal charges filed against Derek Chauvin, the policeman seen in video footage kneeling on Floyd’s neck on Monday.
Chauvin was arrested on third-degree murder and manslaughter charges, and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
Three other officers fired from the police department with Chauvin on Tuesday are also under criminal investigation in the case, prosecutors said. The graphic video of Floyd’s arrest – captured by an onlooker’s cellphone as he repeatedly groaned, “please, I can’t breathe” before becoming motionless – triggered an outpouring of rage that civil rights activists said has long simmered in Minneapolis and cities across the country over persistent racial bias in the U.S. criminal justice system.
As peaceful protests took place on Saturday in several major cities, including Philadelphia, Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the mood was somber in the Minneapolis neighborhood of Lyndale where dozens of people surveyed damage while sweeping up broken glass and debris from the night before.
“It pains me so much,” said Luke Kallstrom, 27, a financial analyst, standing in the threshold of a post office that had been burned to the ground. “This does not honor the man who was wrongfully taken away from us.”
As he spoke, several military vehicles rolled by, loaded with soldiers.
Some of Friday’s most chaotic scenes were in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where police armed with batons and pepper spray made more than 200 arrests in sometimes violent clashes. Several officers were injured, police said.
In Washington, police and Secret Service agents deployed in force around the White House before dozens of demonstrators gathered across the street in Lafayette Square.
President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he had watched the whole thing, and, if the demonstrators had breached the fence, “they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen.”
Writing on Twitter, he also appeared to call his supporters to rally outside the executive mansion on Saturday evening.
In Atlanta, Bernice King, the youngest daughter of slain civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., urged people to go home on Friday night after more than 1,000 protesters marched to the state capitol and blocked traffic on an interstate highway.
The demonstration turned violent at points. Fires burned near the CNN Center, the network’s headquarters, and windows were smashed at its lobby. Several vehicles were torched, including at least one police car.
Rapper Killer Mike, in an impassioned speech flanked by the city’s mayor and police chief, also implored angry residents to stay indoors and to mobilize to win at the ballot box.
“Make sure you exercise your political bully power,” he said. “But it is not time to burn down your own home.”
Protesters also took to the streets in other cities including Denver, Houston, Oakland and Louisville, Kentucky.
Authorities in Minneapolis had hoped Chauvin’s arrest would allay public anger. Late on Friday, officers opened fire with tear gas, plastic bullets and concussion grenades to disperse protesters. Still, Friday night’s demonstrations were far smaller and less unruly than the night before, when some two dozen buildings were set ablaze and looting was widespread.
Floyd, a Houston native who had worked security for a nightclub, was arrested on suspicion of trying to pass counterfeit money at a store to buy cigarettes on Monday evening. Police said he was unarmed. An employee who called for help had told a police dispatcher that the suspect appeared to be intoxicated.
