WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump vowed to deploy the military to “dominate the streets” of America and federal forces followed his lead, aggressively clearing a Washington park of protesters with tear gas so he could walk to a church and pose with a Bible. Across the nation, cities were engulfed in more violence and destruction.
In New York City, nonviolent demonstrations were punctuated by people smashing storefront windows near Rockefeller Center and breaching the doors into the storied Macy’s store on 34th Street, littering parts of Manhattan with broken glass. A vehicle plowed through a group of law enforcement officers at a demonstration in Buffalo, injuring at least two.
Demonstrations erupted from Philadelphia, where hundreds of protesters spilled onto a highway in the heart of the city, to Atlanta, where police fired tear gas at demonstrators, to Nashville, where more than 60 National Guard soldiers put down their riot shields at the request of peaceful protesters who had gathered in front of Tennessee’s state Capitol to honor George Floyd.
Bystander Sean Jones, who watched as people ransacked luxury stores in Manhattan’s chic Soho neighborhood, explained the destruction this way: “People are doing this so next time, before they think about trying to kill another black person, they’re going to be like, ’Damn, we don’t want them out here doing this … again.’”
The unrest in Minneapolis appeared to stabilize on the same day Floyd’s brother made an impassioned plea for peace at the location where a white police officer put his knee on the handcuffed black man’s neck until he stopped breathing last week.
The death toll from the unrest began to mount, including two people killed in a Chicago suburb. The police chief in Louisville was fired after a beloved restaurant owner was killed by police and National Guard enforcing a curfew.
An officer was shot shortly before midnight near the Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas. Police had no immediate word on the officer’s condition. Four officers were shot in St. Louis, Missouri, where police said they were expected to recover.
Trump, meanwhile, portrayed himself as a hard-nosed, law-and-order president, with police under federal command forcing back peaceful demonstrators with tear gas so he could pose with a Bible outside a damaged church.
Emerging after two days out of public view, he threatened from the White House Rose Garden to deploy “thousands and thousands” of U.S. troops. Then he made a surprise walk across Lafayette Park to a house of worship known as “The Church of the Presidents.”
The photo op was condemned by Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde.
“The president just used a Bible and one of the churches of my diocese as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for,” she said.
For nearly a week since Floyd’s death, largely peaceful protests by day have turned to chaos at night. Many express frustration that after years of seeking reforms, minorities still suffer and die in police custody. With so many aspects of society and the economy disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, people are demanding fundamental changes, nationwide.
“We have been sitting on a powder keg for some time and it has burst,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.
The president, seeking his second term in office, vowed to use more force to stop the violence.
If governors don’t deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to “dominate the streets,” Trump said, the U.S. military would step in to “quickly solve the problem for them.”
