Violent protests over George Floyd death spread beyond Minneapolis

Anger over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man in police custody, spread beyond Minneapolis on Thursday (May 28), with looting and fires set along a major St. Paul street and protesters returning to a neighbourhood already ravaged by violent protests.

It was the third consecutive night of violent protests following Floyd’s death on Monday.

In footage recorded by a bystander, Floyd can be seen pleading that he can’t breathe as Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneels on his neck. As the minutes pass, Floyd slowly stops talking and moving.

Dozens of businesses across the Twin Cities were boarding up their windows and doors Thursday in an effort to prevent looting, with the Minneapolis-based Target announcing it was temporarily closing two dozen area stores. Minneapolis shut down nearly its entire light-rail system and all bus service through Sunday out of safety concerns.

In St. Paul, clouds of smoke hung in the air as police armed with batons and wearing gas masks and body armour kept a watchful eye on protesters along one of the city’s main commercial corridors, where firefighters also sprayed water onto a series of small fires.

At one point, officers stood in line in front of a Target, trying to keep out looters, who were also smashing windows of other businesses. Hundreds of demonstrators returned Thursday to the Minneapolis neighbourhood at the center of the violence, where the nighttime scene veered between an angry protest and a street party.

At another point, a band playing in a parking lot across from the police’s third Precinct, the focus of the protests, broke into a punk version of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song. Nearby, demonstrators carried clothing mannequins from a looted Target and threw them onto a burning car. Later, a building fire erupted nearby. But elsewhere in Minneapolis, thousands of peaceful demonstrators marched through the streets calling for justice.

Earlier Thursday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called in the National Guard to try to stem the violence. Floyd’s death has deeply shaken Minneapolis and sparked protests in cities across the U.S. Local leaders have repeatedly urged demonstrators to avoid violence. “Please stay home. Please do not come here to protest. Please keep the focus on George Floyd, on advancing our movement and on preventing this from ever happening again,” tweeted St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who is black.

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Erika Atson, 20, was among thousands of people who gathered outside government offices in downtown Minneapolis, where organisers had called a peaceful protest. Many protesters wore masks because of the coronavirus pandemic, but there were few attempts at social distancing.

Atson, who is black, described seeing her 14- and 11-year-old brothers tackled by Minneapolis police years ago because officers mistakenly presumed the boys had guns. She said she had been at every single protest since Floyd’s death and worried about raising children who could be vulnerable in police encounters.

“We don’t want to be here fighting against anyone. We don’t want anyone to be hurt. We don’t want to cause any damages,” she said. “We just want the police officer to be held accountable.” Hennepin County Sheriff David Hutchinson said the rally had been peaceful and there had been no arrests by late evening.

The governor’s order did not say how many Guard members were mobilised or whether they would be in service Thursday night. After calling in the Guard, Walz urged widespread changes in the wake of Floyd’s death. “It is time to rebuild. Rebuild the city, rebuild our justice system and rebuild the relationship between law enforcement and those they’re charged to protect,” Walz said.

Much of the Minneapolis violence occurred in the Longfellow neighborhood, where protesters converged on the precinct station of the police who arrested Floyd. In a strip mall across the street from the 3rd Precinct station, the windows in nearly every business had been smashed, from the large Target department store at one end to the Planet Fitness gym at the other. Only the 24-hour laundromat appeared to have escaped unscathed.

WHY US? demanded a large expanse of red graffiti scrawled on the wall of the Target. A Wendy’s restaurant across the street was charred almost beyond recognition. Among the casualties of the overnight fires: a six-story building under construction that was to provide nearly 200 apartments of affordable housing.

“We’re burning our own neighborhood,” said a distraught Deona Brown, a 24-year-old woman standing with a friend outside the precinct station, where a small group of protesters were shouting at a dozen or so stone-faced police officers in riot gear.

“This is where we live, where we shop, and they destroyed it. No officers could be seen beyond the station. What that cop did was wrong, but I’m scared now,” Brown said. Others in the crowd saw something different in the wreckage.

Protesters destroyed property because the system is broken, said a young man who identified himself only by his nickname, Cash, and who said he had been in the streets during the violence. He dismissed the idea that the destruction would hurt residents of the largely black neighborhood.