terrorists
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As cities burned, Trump stayed silent — other than tweeting fuel on the fire
I don’t like the Palmer Report. But…
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There is rioting and looting right now in my city. I’ve never seen that before, and it doesn’t seem connected to either of the protests held here this weekend, not the one I went to yesterday or the one today. I am in a small college town 2 hours west of Chicago.
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FBI announced they would open an investigation into the murder of Breonna Taylor
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Looting is happening, or was, two blocks from where we are. I could go to the corner and see it. There’s video of Pastor Joe Mitchell trying to talk them down.
While some of what I hear is from agitators, these appear to be locals.
https://youtu.be/tbsWIp_ttDQ
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Oh shit!
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Fire set at historic St. John’s church during protests of George Floyd’s death
A fire was set in the basement of historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, across Lafayette Square from the White House, during demonstrations Sunday night expressing outrage at the death of George Floyd in police custody, police said.
Although the protests were largely peaceful in the afternoon and evening, small groups of people began setting fires and smashing windows once darkness fell.
Shortly after 10 p.m., someone tore down the American flag that hangs outside the butter-yellow church and appeared to toss the flag into a nearby fire. A glass door or window was shattered.
A person sprayed graffiti: “The Devil is across [the] street.”
D.C. police said a small fire was deliberately set in the basement; under police escort, D.C. firefighters quickly extinguished it. Fire department spokesman Vito Maggiolo said the blaze did not appear to cause any significant damage.
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My city, Los Angeles has been under siege all day - all areas of the city have been looted, and now the National Guard is out. Several areas have been affected, and curfew started at 4p. More protests tomorrow and one at the Federal Building in Westwood scheduled.
Wall-to-wall coverage covering several sections of the city (Santa Monica, Long Beach, Lakewood and Santa Ana)…fires, looting, injuries so it has been a scary day. 
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And so many cities all over this US were hit too again today and tonight.
and on Friday nite this is what happened in the WH - "Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump to an underground bunker Friday, as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the White House, some throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades just outside the executive mansion
WASHINGTON — Looting was rampant in downtown Washington and elsewhere in the city as protests over George Floyd’s death turned violent for a third straight night.
Protesters broke into a branch of Capital Bank, and empty jewelry boxes could be seen scattered on the sidewalk outside a Mervis Diamonds store.
After protesters started looting a La Colombe coffee shop, someone in the crowd yelled, “What are you looting a coffee shop for? You’re messing up the whole message.”
NEW YORK — The mayor of New York City’s own daughter is one of the nearly 790 people who have been arrested in the city since protests over the death of George Floyd began last week.
A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter tells The Associated Press that 25-year-old Chiara de Blasio was arrested Saturday night. An arrest report obtained by The New York Post says she refused to leave a Manhattan street ordered cleared by officers because people were throwing things.
Chiara de Blasio, who is black, was later given a court summons and released.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is white, didn’t mention the arrest in his Sunday press briefing. City Hall spokespeople didn’t have an immediate comment.
— By Michael R. Sisak
AUSTIN, Texas — Police fired rubber bullets and pepper spray late Sunday night at demonstrators who gathered outside the downtown police station in Austin.
Live television cameras on Spectrum News showed officers firing several shots into the crowd and several people on the ground. Some people could be seen throwing water bottles at police.
The officers were stationed above the crowd on the steps of the police station and a raised section of Interstate 35.
Unlike Dallas, where police made dozens of arrests to enforce a downtown curfew, Austin doesn’t have a curfew and demonstrators have been roaming downtown from the police station to the state Capitol several blocks away for nearly 10 hours. The crowd has ebbed and flowed from a few thousand to a few hundred.
Demonstrators could not get on the Capitol grounds, which were protected by a large police presence.
DENVER — Police fired tear gas and projectiles at demonstrators defying a Denver curfew Sunday night following a day of peaceful marching and chants of “Don’t shoot” alongside boarded-up businesses that had been vandalized the night before.
Dozens of demonstrators, some throwing fireworks, taunted police and pushed dumpsters onto Colfax Avenue, a major artery, in the sporadic confrontations that occurred east of downtown. The demonstration over the death of George Floyd came after turbulent protests that led to the arrest of 83 people Saturday night.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock called the behavior of unruly protesters “reckless, inexcusable and unacceptable.”
PHOENIX — Protests held Sunday night in downtown Phoenix appeared to be peaceful, according to local media reports.
An hour before a curfew went into effect, activist Armonee Jackson told protesters in the parking lot of an art gallery downtown that they should avoid any violence, The Arizona Republic reported.
“Listen to me: We are not ending in violence. I refuse to end in violence,” Jackson told the crowd.
David Riutta told the newspaper that he came out to protest police brutality and wants to see a panel of civilians investigate officers’ use-of-force cases.
WASHINGTON — As demonstrations continued past an 11 p.m. curfew, D.C. police said they were responding to multiple fires that were “intentionally set” around the city. One was at St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is located across Lafayette Park from the White House.
The church says every president beginning with James Madison, “until the present,” has attended a service at the church, giving it the nickname, “the church of presidents.”
The first services at the church were held in 1816, according to its website.
WASHINGTON — The entire Washington, D.C., National Guard — roughly 1,700 soldiers — is being called in to help with the response to protests outside the White House and elsewhere in the nation’s capital, according to two Defense Department officials.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said Sunday she had requested 500 Guardsman to assist local law enforcement. Later on Sunday, as the protests escalated, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy ordered the rest of the Guardsman — about 1,200 soldiers — to report.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
The D.C. National Guard did not reply to a request from The Associated Press for comment.
- By James LaPorta
WASHINGTON — Protesters started fires near the White House as tensions with police mounted during a third straight night of demonstrations held in response to the death of George Floyd at police hands in Minnesota.
An hour before the 11 p.m. curfew, police fired a major barrage of tear gas stun grenades into the crowd of more than 1,000 people, largely clearing Lafayette Park across the street from the White House and scattering protesters into the street.
Protesters piled up road signs and plastic barriers and lit a raging fire in the middle of H Street. Some pulled an American flag from a nearby building and threw it into the blaze. Others added branches pulled from trees. A cinder block structure, on the north side of the park, that had bathrooms and a maintenance office, was engulfed in flames.
As the curfew hit, police sealed the perimeter of the park. Shortly beforehand, police pushed a crowd of about 300 demonstrators several blocks with a series of charges with batons and riot shields.
Enraged protesters screamed, “Who do you serve? Who do you protect?” Police shot pepper powders point black at several protesters.
Several miles north, a separate protest broke out in Northwest D.C., near the Maryland border. The Metropolitan Police Department says there were break-ins at a Target and a shopping center that houses Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue Men’s Store, T.J. Maxx, a movie theater and specialty stores. Police say several individuals have been detained.
At least 4,100 people have been arrested over days of protests across the country since George Floyd’s death Monday, according to a tally compiled by The Associated Press.
Arrests ranged from looting and blocking highways to breaking curfew.
The arrest figures as of 11 p.m. EST on Sunday included those from demonstrations in New York and Philadelphia on the East Coast, Chicago and Dallas in the Midwest and Southwest, and Los Angeles on the West Coast as protests take place all over the county.
In Dallas, police began sweeping downtown streets with arrests to enforce a curfew that went into effect at 7 p.m.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michael Jordan is “deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry.”
With protesters taking to the streets across the United States again Sunday, Jordan released a statement on George Floyd and the killings of black people at the hands of police.
“I am deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry,” the former NBA star and current Charlotte Hornets owner said in the statement posted on the Jordan brand’s social media accounts and the team’s Twitter account.
“I see and feel everyone’s pain, outrage and frustration. I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough.
“I don’t have the answers, but our collective voices show strength and the inability to be divided by others. We must listen to each other, show compassion and empathy and never turn our backs on senseless brutality. We need to continue peaceful expressions against injustice and demand accountability. Our unified voice needs to put pressure on our leaders to change our laws, or else we need to use our vote to create systemic change. Every one of us needs to be part of the solution, and we must work together to ensure justice for all.
“My heart goes out to the family of George Floyd and to the countless others whose lives have been brutally and senselessly taken through acts of racism and injustice.”
BELLEVUE, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee activated 200 more National Guard troops to respond to looting and vandalism in Bellevue, east of Seattle.
Inslee had previously deployed 400 members of the guard to help contain protests in Seattle. On Sunday evening, Bellevue’s mayor declared an emergency because of the violence and said she was enacting a 5:30 p.m. curfew for the downtown area.
Bellevue Police said dozens of people broke into Bellevue Square, a large shopping mall. Officers entered the facility and chased looters out. Mayor Lynne Robinson said people were stealing merchandise from storefronts.
Bellevue’s downtown is home to large offices of many tech companies, including Microsoft and Amazon.
Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett said at an evening news conference that authorities learned earlier that a criminal gang planned activity in the city Sunday afternoon. He said there was widespread looting and assaults, and the criminal element “swelled very quickly.”
“They were there to destroy,” Mylett said. “We welcome peaceful protest … this is something different.”
Mylett said he was disgusted at what happened to George Floyd, who was killed when a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck, but that violence overshadows legitimate protests.
BOSTON — A Sunday afternoon of mostly peaceful protests in Boston broke at nightfall when protesters clashed with officers, throwing rocks and lighting a police vehicle on fire.
Thousands of mostly mask-wearing demonstrators marched peacefully through Boston in several protests during the day, lending their voices to the nationwide anger over the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.
The largest protest of several thousand started Sunday night in the historically black neighborhood of Roxbury. Protesters, carrying “Black Lives Matter” signs and chanting, “The people united will never be defeated,” made their way slowly for several miles to the Massachusetts Statehouse. The diverse crowd was flanked by police officers on bikes and was peaceful.
But as the march ended around 9 p.m., protesters clashed with police in downtown Boston. At least two police cruisers were heavily damaged — including one whose rear window was smashed by a skateboarder. Police also tweeted that their officers were pelted with bricks, rocks and glass bottles. Several storefronts, including a bank, were damaged.
Protesters appeared to be clearing by about 10:30 p.m.
ATLANTA — Riot police firing volleys of tear gas dispersed hundreds of demonstrators as a curfew took hold Sunday night, scattering a crowd that had protested for hours in downtown Atlanta over the deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.
Hundreds of police, National Guard troops and other forces lined up in positions around downtown Centennial Park, a focal point of the weekend of protests.
An overnight curfew took hold at 9 p.m. as some on the fringes of what was a largely peaceful afternoon protest were setting off fireworks and burning construction materials near the park. An Associated Press photographer saw police then begin firing many 40 millimeter canisters of tear gas toward the crowd. People were choking, gasping and some throwing up as they scattered, leaving only a few still in the streets.
As police and National Guard troops took up positions with plastic shields on major streets, crowds melted away. WSB-TV showed footage about an hour later of officers taking people who lingered in the streets into custody, using plastic ties to handcuff them on street corners.
WASHINGTON — Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump to an underground bunker Friday, as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the White House, some throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades just outside the executive mansion.
That’s according to a Republican close to the White House not authorized to publicly discuss private matters and confirmed by another official. The abrupt decision by the agents underscored the rattled mood inside the White House, where the chants from Lafayette Park could be heard all weekend and Secret Service agents and law enforcement officers struggled to contain the crowds.
The Friday protests, triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after he was pinned at the neck by a white Minneapolis police officer, turned violent and appeared to catch officers by surprise. It sparked one of the highest alerts on the White House complex since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. In the days since, security at the White House has been reinforced by the National Guard and additional personnel from the Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police.
On Sunday, the Justice Department also deployed members of the U.S. Marshals Service and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration to supplement national guard troops outside the White House, according to a senior Justice Department official. The official could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
— By Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller
The Latest on the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck:
WASHINGTON — Looting was rampant in downtown Washington and elsewhere in the city as protests over George Floyd’s death turned violent for a third straight night.
Protesters broke into a branch of Capital Bank, and empty jewelry boxes could be seen scattered on the sidewalk outside a Mervis Diamonds store.
After protesters started looting a La Colombe coffee shop, someone in the crowd yelled, “What are you looting a coffee shop for? You’re messing up the whole message.”
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NEW YORK — The mayor of New York City’s own daughter is one of the nearly 790 people who have been arrested in the city since protests over the death of George Floyd began last week.
A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter tells The Associated Press that 25-year-old Chiara de Blasio was arrested Saturday night. An arrest report obtained by The New York Post says she refused to leave a Manhattan street ordered cleared by officers because people were throwing things.
Chiara de Blasio, who is black, was later given a court summons and released.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is white, didn’t mention the arrest in his Sunday press briefing. City Hall spokespeople didn’t have an immediate comment.
— By Michael R. Sisak
AUSTIN, Texas — Police fired rubber bullets and pepper spray late Sunday night at demonstrators who gathered outside the downtown police station in Austin.
Live television cameras on Spectrum News showed officers firing several shots into the crowd and several people on the ground. Some people could be seen throwing water bottles at police.
The officers were stationed above the crowd on the steps of the police station and a raised section of Interstate 35.
Unlike Dallas, where police made dozens of arrests to enforce a downtown curfew, Austin doesn’t have a curfew and demonstrators have been roaming downtown from the police station to the state Capitol several blocks away for nearly 10 hours. The crowd has ebbed and flowed from a few thousand to a few hundred.
Demonstrators could not get on the Capitol grounds, which were protected by a large police presence.
DENVER — Police fired tear gas and projectiles at demonstrators defying a Denver curfew Sunday night following a day of peaceful marching and chants of “Don’t shoot” alongside boarded-up businesses that had been vandalized the night before.
Dozens of demonstrators, some throwing fireworks, taunted police and pushed dumpsters onto Colfax Avenue, a major artery, in the sporadic confrontations that occurred east of downtown. The demonstration over the death of George Floyd came after turbulent protests that led to the arrest of 83 people Saturday night.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock called the behavior of unruly protesters “reckless, inexcusable and unacceptable.”
PHOENIX — Protests held Sunday night in downtown Phoenix appeared to be peaceful, according to local media reports.
An hour before a curfew went into effect, activist Armonee Jackson told protesters in the parking lot of an art gallery downtown that they should avoid any violence, The Arizona Republic reported.
“Listen to me: We are not ending in violence. I refuse to end in violence,” Jackson told the crowd.
David Riutta told the newspaper that he came out to protest police brutality and wants to see a panel of civilians investigate officers’ use-of-force cases.
WASHINGTON — As demonstrations continued past an 11 p.m. curfew, D.C. police said they were responding to multiple fires that were “intentionally set” around the city. One was at St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is located across Lafayette Park from the White House.
The church says every president beginning with James Madison, “until the present,” has attended a service at the church, giving it the nickname, “the church of presidents.”
The first services at the church were held in 1816, according to its website.
WASHINGTON — The entire Washington, D.C., National Guard — roughly 1,700 soldiers — is being called in to help with the response to protests outside the White House and elsewhere in the nation’s capital, according to two Defense Department officials.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said Sunday she had requested 500 Guardsman to assist local law enforcement. Later on Sunday, as the protests escalated, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy ordered the rest of the Guardsman — about 1,200 soldiers — to report.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
The D.C. National Guard did not reply to a request from The Associated Press for comment.
- By James LaPorta
WASHINGTON — Protesters started fires near the White House as tensions with police mounted during a third straight night of demonstrations held in response to the death of George Floyd at police hands in Minnesota.
An hour before the 11 p.m. curfew, police fired a major barrage of tear gas stun grenades into the crowd of more than 1,000 people, largely clearing Lafayette Park across the street from the White House and scattering protesters into the street.
Protesters piled up road signs and plastic barriers and lit a raging fire in the middle of H Street. Some pulled an American flag from a nearby building and threw it into the blaze. Others added branches pulled from trees. A cinder block structure, on the north side of the park, that had bathrooms and a maintenance office, was engulfed in flames.
As the curfew hit, police sealed the perimeter of the park. Shortly beforehand, police pushed a crowd of about 300 demonstrators several blocks with a series of charges with batons and riot shields.
Enraged protesters screamed, “Who do you serve? Who do you protect?” Police shot pepper powders point black at several protesters.
Several miles north, a separate protest broke out in Northwest D.C., near the Maryland border. The Metropolitan Police Department says there were break-ins at a Target and a shopping center that houses Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue Men’s Store, T.J. Maxx, a movie theater and specialty stores. Police say several individuals have been detained.
At least 4,100 people have been arrested over days of protests across the country since George Floyd’s death Monday, according to a tally compiled by The Associated Press.
Arrests ranged from looting and blocking highways to breaking curfew.
The arrest figures as of 11 p.m. EST on Sunday included those from demonstrations in New York and Philadelphia on the East Coast, Chicago and Dallas in the Midwest and Southwest, and Los Angeles on the West Coast as protests take place all over the county.
In Dallas, police began sweeping downtown streets with arrests to enforce a curfew that went into effect at 7 p.m.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michael Jordan is “deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry.”
With protesters taking to the streets across the United States again Sunday, Jordan released a statement on George Floyd and the killings of black people at the hands of police.
“I am deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry,” the former NBA star and current Charlotte Hornets owner said in the statement posted on the Jordan brand’s social media accounts and the team’s Twitter account.
“I see and feel everyone’s pain, outrage and frustration. I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough.
“I don’t have the answers, but our collective voices show strength and the inability to be divided by others. We must listen to each other, show compassion and empathy and never turn our backs on senseless brutality. We need to continue peaceful expressions against injustice and demand accountability. Our unified voice needs to put pressure on our leaders to change our laws, or else we need to use our vote to create systemic change. Every one of us needs to be part of the solution, and we must work together to ensure justice for all.
“My heart goes out to the family of George Floyd and to the countless others whose lives have been brutally and senselessly taken through acts of racism and injustice.”
BELLEVUE, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee activated 200 more National Guard troops to respond to looting and vandalism in Bellevue, east of Seattle.
Inslee had previously deployed 400 members of the guard to help contain protests in Seattle. On Sunday evening, Bellevue’s mayor declared an emergency because of the violence and said she was enacting a 5:30 p.m. curfew for the downtown area.
Bellevue Police said dozens of people broke into Bellevue Square, a large shopping mall. Officers entered the facility and chased looters out. Mayor Lynne Robinson said people were stealing merchandise from storefronts.
Bellevue’s downtown is home to large offices of many tech companies, including Microsoft and Amazon.
Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett said at an evening news conference that authorities learned earlier that a criminal gang planned activity in the city Sunday afternoon. He said there was widespread looting and assaults, and the criminal element “swelled very quickly.”
“They were there to destroy,” Mylett said. “We welcome peaceful protest … this is something different.”
Mylett said he was disgusted at what happened to George Floyd, who was killed when a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck, but that violence overshadows legitimate protests.
BOSTON — A Sunday afternoon of mostly peaceful protests in Boston broke at nightfall when protesters clashed with officers, throwing rocks and lighting a police vehicle on fire.
Thousands of mostly mask-wearing demonstrators marched peacefully through Boston in several protests during the day, lending their voices to the nationwide anger over the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.
The largest protest of several thousand started Sunday night in the historically black neighborhood of Roxbury. Protesters, carrying “Black Lives Matter” signs and chanting, “The people united will never be defeated,” made their way slowly for several miles to the Massachusetts Statehouse. The diverse crowd was flanked by police officers on bikes and was peaceful.
But as the march ended around 9 p.m., protesters clashed with police in downtown Boston. At least two police cruisers were heavily damaged — including one whose rear window was smashed by a skateboarder. Police also tweeted that their officers were pelted with bricks, rocks and glass bottles. Several storefronts, including a bank, were damaged.
Protesters appeared to be clearing by about 10:30 p.m.
ATLANTA — Riot police firing volleys of tear gas dispersed hundreds of demonstrators as a curfew took hold Sunday night, scattering a crowd that had protested for hours in downtown Atlanta over the deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.
Hundreds of police, National Guard troops and other forces lined up in positions around downtown Centennial Park, a focal point of the weekend of protests.
An overnight curfew took hold at 9 p.m. as some on the fringes of what was a largely peaceful afternoon protest were setting off fireworks and burning construction materials near the park. An Associated Press photographer saw police then begin firing many 40 millimeter canisters of tear gas toward the crowd. People were choking, gasping and some throwing up as they scattered, leaving only a few still in the streets.
As police and National Guard troops took up positions with plastic shields on major streets, crowds melted away. WSB-TV showed footage about an hour later of officers taking people who lingered in the streets into custody, using plastic ties to handcuff them on street corners.
WASHINGTON — Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump to an underground bunker Friday, as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the White House, some throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades just outside the executive mansion.
That’s according to a Republican close to the White House not authorized to publicly discuss private matters and confirmed by another official. The abrupt decision by the agents underscored the rattled mood inside the White House, where the chants from Lafayette Park could be heard all weekend and Secret Service agents and law enforcement officers struggled to contain the crowds.
The Friday protests, triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after he was pinned at the neck by a white Minneapolis police officer, turned violent and appeared to catch officers by surprise. It sparked one of the highest alerts on the White House complex since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. In the days since, security at the White House has been reinforced by the National Guard and additional personnel from the Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police.
On Sunday, the Justice Department also deployed members of the U.S. Marshals Service and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration to supplement national guard troops outside the White House, according to a senior Justice Department official. The official could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
— By Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller
MONTREAL — A protest in Canada demanding justice for George Floyd degenerated into clashes between Montreal police and some demonstrators.
About three hours after a march that snaked its way through downtown Montreal on Sunday afternoon had ended, Montreal police declared the gathering illegal after they said projectiles were thrown at officers who responded with pepper spray and tear gas. Some windows were smashed and some fires were set.
A bizarre scene unfolded in the Southern California city of Long Beach when people stealing from a clothing store became trapped.
A woman’s voice was heard screaming inside and then a man suddenly kicked his way out a window and dropped to the sidewalk. He was quickly followed by more than a half-dozen others, with one man throwing out an armload of clothes and then gathering them from off the ground and running off.
As the thieves clambered out, a group of police stood nearby but didn’t attempt to make arrests.
About a half-mile away, people swarmed into stores at The Pike Outlets to steal items. A large Forever 21 store was a favored target and a steady stream ran in and then emerged carrying armloads of clothing. Some brought garbage bags to carry the pilfered goods. A few stopped outside to change into stolen items.
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There is now a world wide movement in support of equality and justice
Here in NZ as well.
Speaking at the media briefing ahead of the march in Auckland, organisers told the crowd “This is not for clout”.
“We will stand in solidarity to show Black Lives Matter. It’s not only about George Floyd, the persecution of the black community is an ongoing issue.”
Many are wearing masks, which organisers asked those taking part to do as well as to keep a safe distance from each other.
More than 1500 people have indicated on social media that they plan to attend a Black Lives Matter March for Solidarity this afternoon, which will travel from Aotea Square to the US Consulate General on Customs Street, this afternoon.
The aim of the protest is simple: we want to put pressure on our government from the local level, right up to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to publicly condemn the acts of violence and state-sanctioned murder against African Americans in the United States."The event has been backed by celebrities, including mixed martial arts fighter Israel Adesanya, and choreographer and dancer Parris Goebel, who posted the event to her Instagram.
She said: “NZ stand up. If you are as frustrated and heartbroken as I am … will you get up and march with us?”
University of Auckland microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles used Twitter to urge participants to take Covid-19 precautions - including not attending at all if they showed any symptoms.
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Trump fled to bunker as protests over George Floyd raged outside White House | George Floyd | The Guardian
As protesters converged on the White House on Friday, the New York Times reports, “Secret Service agents abruptly rushed the president to the underground bunker used in the past during terrorist attacks.”
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no I’m sorry I have been trying to get it to work but no luck so far. There is a video on the local TV of the large protest marches here in support of Black lives Matter.
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Have given up on trying to get the video - the quotes above are from the TVNZ -one news website.
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The state of Minnesota’s “urban warfare” rhetoric is the inevitable consequence of this decades-long militarization of American police departments, Arthur Rizer, a policing expert at the center-right R Street Institute, told me late Saturday.
“You create this world where you’re not just militarizing the police—you equip the police like soldiers, you train the police like soldiers. Why are you surprised when they act like soldiers?” Rizer, a former police officer and soldier, said. “The mission of the police is to protect and serve. But the premise of the soldier is to engage the enemy in close combat and destroy them. When you blur those lines together with statements like that … It’s an absolute breakdown of civil society.”
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Trump Is Terrified of Protest
Violent demonstrations across the United States bring out a particular weakness in the 45th president
Presidents live within a protective cocoon built and continually fortified for one purpose: keeping them alive. But inside the White House compound these days, Donald Trump seems rattled by what’s transpiring outside the windows of his historic residence.
When Marine One deposited Trump on the South Lawn last night after his day trip to Florida, the president walked toward the entrance of the White House amid a cacophony of car horns and chanting protesters who flung themselves against barricades in an hours-long clash with police. Trump hasn’t seen demonstrations on this kind since he assumed office in January 2017. Protesters breached an outer checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue at one point yesterday afternoon. All day long, cars streamed toward the White House, with passengers leaning out the windows and chanting, “Black lives matter!” As one car passed a White House gate at 15th and E Streets, a group of men shouted at the guards: “Fuck you.” On sidewalks littered with soiled masks and empty water bottles, demonstrators pumped their fists in solidarity and demanded respect for African Americans—a community whom Trump says he “loves.”
As night fell, the protesters massed outside Lafayette Square, just north of the White House. A booming drum echoed in the heavy evening air and people chanted, “I can’t breathe!” in homage to 46-year-old George Floyd, who died Monday while pinned to the ground by Minneapolis police, straining for breath. (The three-word chant—which counted among the final words of Eric Garner, another black man who died at the hands of cops, six years ago this month—could be heard in protests across the country last night.) Some tossed water bottles and other projectiles at a line of police officers, who in turn fired pepper spray, causing the protesters to scatter briefly along H Street and then return to the area outside the White House.
Later, vandals shattered windows in nearby buildings and set fire to cars. Graffiti scrawled on the window of a Wells Fargo branch at 17th Street and Pennsylvania read: “capitalism is murder.”
Between the coronavirus and the protests, crisis layered upon crisis, the White House has come to resemble a fortress. I walked onto the grounds yesterday after officials checked my temperature at a security gate and inquired about any symptoms: Had I lost my sense of smell or taste? I made my way toward the briefing room, past a long line of heavily armed police officers preparing to take up positions.
Around 6 p.m., the North Lawn was freshly mowed, the campus quiet. Yet the mood was tense, with police checking their weapons and scanning the crowd growing outside the gates. As I prepared to leave, an agent asked me to wait: Protesters were marching south on 17th Street, and the Secret Service wanted them to pass first. “Are you sure you want to go out there?” another agent asked me as I exited the compound.
Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted about the “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” that shield him and make him safe. Young Secret Service agents were girding for a fight, he wrote.
Presidents don’t normally feel compelled to boast about their protection. Trump wrote in a tweet that Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser wouldn’t let the city’s police force assist during protests Friday. (That’s not the case; Secret Service said that city police officers were indeed on the scene.) In a tweet of her own, Bowser called Trump “a scared man. Afraid/alone.”
Trump has made known his disdain for protests that target him or his record. He tends to view them through a simple lens: as provocations that must be put down with unyielding force. Less important to Trump, it seems, are the grievances that give rise to the demonstrations in the first place. He’s described himself as a “law and order” president who admires practitioners of a certain rough justice. Yesterday, he tweeted praise for two generals from history: George Patton and Douglas MacArthur (he misspelled MacArthur). Both played a role in the government’s heavy-handed quashing of a protest in 1932 by war veterans who, in the midst of the Great Depression, wanted early payment of a bonus they were due.
Past presidents have sought to play a healing role when the nation is on edge, but Trump’s instinct is to plunge into combustible circumstances in ways that rouse his base. He encourages protests that align with his interests. Eager to see an economic revival, Trump last month egged on demonstrators who pressed Democratic governors to ease stay-at-home orders despite the coronavirus threat. “LIBERATE” Michigan, Virginia, and Minnesota, he tweeted. (Some protesters showed up in the Michigan state Capitol with guns and tactical gear).
At a campaign rally in December, he watched as security removed a protester. “Get her out,” he said from the stage. He faulted a security guard for being “politically correct” in his methods. “He didn’t do the greatest job,” Trump said. At a Las Vegas rally during the 2016 campaign, Trump said of a protester who’d shown up: “I’d like to punch him in the face,” and also criticized security personnel for treating the person too gingerly.
Early in his term, he picked a fight with NFL players who knelt in silent protest during the national anthem. He told his vice president, Mike Pence, to walk out of an Indianapolis Colts game in 2017 if members of the San Francisco 49ers took a knee. Pence obliged. The stunt cost taxpayers $325,000.
When Pence said last week that he supported people’s right to “peacefully protest,” he was mocked by the NBA coach Steve Kerr: “How do you have the gall to say this?” (Trump, too, said he supports “peaceful protesters.” At his appearance yesterday in Florida for the launch of the SpaceX craft, he also said: “I understand the pain that people are feeling. We support the right of peaceful protesters and we hear their pleas. But what we are now seeing on the streets of our cities has nothing to do with justice or with peace.”)
On Friday morning, Trump tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” suggesting that the people ransacking stores could be met with deadly force. (He later softened his comment, saying he meant only that he didn’t want to see violence escalate.) “President Trump has thrown a verbal Molotov cocktail into what is already an explosive, emotional situation,” Valerie Jarrett, a former senior aide to President Barack Obama, told me. “He should be doing the exact opposite. He’s playing to a very small part of his base for political purposes.”
In the face of civil unrest, some past presidents looking to defuse tensions granted protesters an audience. Obama met with activists in the Oval Office in 2014 amid demonstrations over the killing of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Richard Nixon was a self-styled law-and-order president, too, who in 1971 talked about hiring teamsters’ union “thugs” to rough up Vietnam War protesters. Yet Nixon also left the White House early one morning in 1970 and made a surprise trip to the Lincoln Memorial, where he spoke to students protesting the war. Nixon told them: “I know probably most of you think I’m an SOB. But I want you to know that I understand just how you feel.”
“He didn’t know how to connect with them, but he did try to empathize and build a bridge,” Timothy Naftali, a former director of the Nixon Presidential Library, told me. “It was an awkward effort, but it was an effort—a unique effort.”
On my way home, I met a couple from Virginia, Samuel and Elizabeth Chisolm, who wanted their two daughters to see the protest and learn something. The family stood on 16th Street, a couple of blocks north of the scrum at Lafayette Square, but close enough to hear the chants and see the police response.
“I’ve been alive to see Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and George Floyd,” Chelsea Chisolm, 17, told me. “I’ve never been in a major city in a protest. I’ve been the person behind the screen, yelling in their room: ‘No! No!’”
Last night, videos of two NYPD cruisers accelerating into a crowd of Brooklyn protesters exploded across social media. Trump saw fit to say something about police tactics: “Let New York’s Finest be New York’s Finest,” he tweeted. “There is nobody better, but they must be allowed to do their job!”
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Good that the Atlanta Mayor acted quickly and fired/or demoted those police officers for excessive force.
“Use of excessive force is never acceptable," Bottoms told reporters. Shields called the footage “really shocking to watch.”
The video, shown on TV as captured by local reporters, shows a group of police officers in riot gear and gas masks surround a car being driven by a man with a woman in the passenger seat. The officers pull the woman out and appear to use a stun gun on the man. They use zip-tie handcuffs on the woman on the ground. The couple did not appear to be fighting police.
TV reporters said the police had earlier broken glass on the car and flattened the tires.
Bottoms said the woman was released without charges. She said the man was released, too, and she’s ordering the charges against him dropped. She didn’t specify what charges he faced. She didn’t identify the students or the officers.
She said she’d delayed the news conference several hours to review all the body-camera footage because she and Shields wanted to be certain about what happened.
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Better reporting and lots of photos on the NZ protests in support here on Radio NZ
Nigerian-Kiwi Mary Adeosun drove up from Hamilton for the protest. She was in tears as she spoke to our reporter: “I really feel for my skin-folk, for the innocent lives that have been taken… I’m so far away in this country and I’m seeing people who look like me dying [in the US]”.
Mary Adeosun Photo: RNZ / Mabel Muller
Hobson Hohepa flew his Tino Rangatiratanga flag high at the protest: “[Racism] happens here in our country. It happens to us. It happens to me. I’ve had enough.”
Hobson Hohepa Photo: RNZ / Mabel Muller
Photo: RNZ / Leith Huffadine
Photo: RNZ / Mabel Muller
Ricky Wilkins is an African-American from Los Angeles, California. He’s been living in New Zealand for the past seven months. “I feel loved. Everybody wants to be us but no one wants to care for us. It’s just amazing to see in Aotearoa how people are representing and showing us love.”
Ricky Wilkins. Photo: RNZ / Mabel Muller
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