Showdown: Law-and-Order President vs. Rioters
American cities erupted in violence and destruction in a seventh straight night of unrest, with several police officers shot or run over, amid threats from President Donald Trump to send in troops to “dominate the streets.”
In New York, nonviolent protests Monday night were overshadowed by rioters smashing shop windows near Rockefeller Center and breaching the doors of Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street, littering the pavement with broken glass.
A vehicle plowed through a group of law enforcement officers at a riot in Buffalo, injuring at least two.
Demonstrations also broke out in such places as Philadelphia, where hundreds of protesters spilled onto a highway in the heart of the city; Atlanta, where police fired tear gas at protesters; and Nashville, where more than 60 National Guard members put down their riot shields at the request of peaceful protesters who had gathered in front of Tennessee’s Capitol to honor George Floyd.
For nearly a week since Floyd’s death, largely peaceful protests by day have turned to chaos at night.
“We have been sitting on a powder keg for some time and it has burst,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.
The unrest in Minneapolis appeared to stabilize on the same day Floyd’s brother made an impassioned plea for peace at the spot where a police officer knelt on the black man’s neck until he stopped breathing last week.
The death toll from the unrest rose to at least nine, including two people killed in a Chicago suburb.
The police chief in Louisville, Kentucky, was fired after a restaurant owner was killed by police and National Guard members 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; they were expected to recover.
More than 5,600 people nationwide have been arrested over the past week for such offenses as stealing, blocking highways and breaking curfew, according to a count by The Associated Press.
Trump, meanwhile, threatened from the White House Rose Garden to deploy “thousands and thousands” of U.S. troops.
The president warned that if governors don’t deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to “dominate the streets,” the U.S. military will step in to “quickly solve the problem for them.”
“We have the greatest country in the world,” the president declared. “We’re going to keep it safe.”
Federal law allows presidents to dispatch the military into states only to suppress an insurrection or if a state is defying federal law, legal experts said. But officials in New York and other states asserted that the president does not have a unilateral right to send in troops against the will of local governments.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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