Protests, fires rage through the night in Minneapolis

Fires raged through the night in Minneapolis after a group of demonstrators swarmed a police station, which officers had been ordered to abandon as protests intensified in a city rocked by the death of a black man in police custody. Demonstrators breached a door and entered the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct station as fires spread, resulting in destruction and further upheaval.

President Trump called the protesters “THUGS,” while suggesting military intervention and warning in a tweet that there could be additional violence if the chaos continued. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” the president wrote. Trump’s tweet was later flagged by Twitter for “glorifying violence.”

The scene in Minneapolis came at the end of a day in which hundreds of peaceful protesters demanded that four now-fired officers be arrested in a case that has generated nationwide outrage. Video captured a white police officer pressing his knee into George Floyd’s neck in a banned maneuver as Floyd repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.” Floyd later died. Continue reading.