WASHINGTON, June 3, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Leaders across the United States sought
ways Tuesday to stem mounting unrest over police racism, from extending
curfews to engaging protesters, as President Donald Trump dismissed fierce
criticism for deploying force to break up a peaceful rally.
Eight days after George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man, suffocated
beneath the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis, once-in-a-
generation demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality in
America show few signs of slowing down, despite Trump’s threats of a military
crackdown.
In Floyd’s hometown of Houston, tens of thousands gathered to pay tribute
to him Tuesday.
“Today is not about City Hall, it’s about George Floyd’s family, we want
them to know that George did not die in vain,” mayor Sylvester Turner told an
estimated 60,000 people in the Texas city where Floyd grew up and is set to be
buried.
Protests have been held in cities across the country, mostly peaceful but
many descending into mayhem as night falls, with both activists and officials
blaming rabble-rousers, and thousands arrested.
New York on Tuesday prolonged its first curfew since World War II for the
full week, while the military could be seen in the streets of the capital
Washington as peaceful protesters marched once again towards the White House.
Floyd died after he was pinned for nearly nine minutes under the knee of a
white police officer, Derek Chauvin, who ignored his haunting pleas for life.
“We must take this moment to change it all,” Minnesota’s Lieutenant
Governor Penny Flanagan said of structural discrimination.
She told reporters the state was launching a civil rights investigation of
the Minneapolis Police Department, examining possible violations going back 10
years.
In Los Angeles, one of dozens of cities hit by unrest, police officers and
Mayor Eric Garcetti dropped to their knees in a symbolic act of solidarity as
they met marchers led by African-American Christian groups.
“A black face should not be a sentenced to die, nor to be homeless, nor to
be sick, nor to be underemployed, nor to be under-educated,” Garcetti told
them, inviting the leaders into City Hall for a discussion about the issues.
Former president George W. Bush called on the US to examine its “tragic
failures” and to “listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and
grieving.”
– ‘People liked my walk’ –
In Washington, thousands returned to the streets Tuesday for a peaceful
“Black Lives Matter” march.
Three hours after the 7:00 pm curfew protesters could be heard chanting and
helicopters hovering above the streets near the White House, but the situation
still appeared to be calm.
“I’m just tired, essentially, of being scared of police, of not getting
justice,” said Jada Wallace, an 18-year-old protester outside the White House
earlier who said she was ready to risk arrest.
In the same place on Monday, federal police had abruptly opened tear gas
and fired rubber bullets to break up a non-violent protest, clearing a path
for Trump to stroll outside for a photo-op at a historic church damaged the
previous night.
The move was loudly condemned by religious leaders, the president’s
political rivals, and onlookers around the country.
But Trump, who has rejected the traditional presidential role of healer,
voiced glee on Twitter over the response in Washington and accused the
leadership of New York — led by the rival Democratic Party — of succumbing
to “Lowlife & Scum.”
“Overwhelming force. Domination,” he wrote, adding: “Washington, D.C., was
the safest place on earth last night!”
He pushed back against the criticism later on Twitter, writing: “You got it
wrong! If the protesters were so peaceful, why did they light the Church on
fire the night before? People liked my walk.”
Joe Biden, Trump’s presumptive Democratic rival in November elections,
denounced the crackdown on peaceful protesters as an abuse of power and
promised, if elected, to tackle the “systemic racism” in the country.
“Donald Trump has turned this country into a battlefield driven by old
resentments and fresh fears,” Biden said in a speech in Philadelphia, also hit
by violence.
The United States also faced unusual, if polite, criticism from some
international allies.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called the anti-racism protests
“understandable and more than legitimate.”
Germany, Britain and Australia voiced concern about the safety of the media
after a number of journalists were roughed up by police or occasionally by
rioters.
– Curfew extended in New York –
New York, the fabled “City that Never Sleeps” that had just been emerging
from weeks under lockdown over the coronavirus, extended a curfew through
Sunday that will start each night at 8.00 pm.
“We will take steps immediately to make sure there will be peace and
order,” Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has a fraught relationship with the police,
said with visible anger.
The curfew began Monday at 11.00 pm — too late to spare New York
widespread looting, with rioters smashing storefronts on posh Fifth Avenue.
Several thousand took to the streets Tuesday in Manhattan, kneeling and
shouting “George Floyd, George Floyd.”
Protester Nat Hooper, 27, an African-American bookseller, called
demonstrations “our civic duty” and hoped that Trump would be voted out in
November.
Thousands continued to march in the city after Tuesday’s curfew.
Minneapolis was relatively calm but violence spread elsewhere.
A Las Vegas officer was in “grave condition” Tuesday after being shot
during protests overnight. An armed Hispanic man was shot and killed by police
after raising his gun in a separate, nearby incident.
Four officers were also shot overnight in St. Louis. None of the injuries
was life-threatening.
But one retired St Louis police captain was shot dead early Tuesday outside
a ransacked store.
Trump tweeted that David Dorn, who was black, was “viciously shot and
killed by despicable looters.”