President Donald Trump has placed the army on notice for possible deployment to check the raging violence trailing last Wednesday killing of a black man by policemen in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The protests have already spread to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, Boston and Dallas, among others.
The White House itself was not spared.
The protesters battled with Secret Service agents and burned American flags outside the executive residence.
Trump said the protesters would have faced dogs and weapons had they breached the fence.
He later went on Tweeter to declare that “crossing state lines to incite violence is a FEDERAL CRIME! Liberal Governors and Mayors must get MUCH tougher or the Federal Government will step in and do what has to be done, and that includes using the unlimited power of our Military and many arrests. Thank you!”
One Federal Protective Service officer was shot dead in one of the protests in Oakland, California, on Friday.
A 19-year-old protester was similarly shot dead in Detroit on Friday night, while soldiers in North Carolina and in New York were ordered to be ready to move in within four hours and troops in Colorado and Kansas within 24 hours.
The move to put the Army on a short-term notice comes after President Donald Trump asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper for military options in tackling the escalating civil unrest spreading across America, according to sources.
The National Guard was activated in Georgia late Friday night with as many as 500 troops deployed to Atlanta and a state of emergency issued after rioters destroyed the CNN HQ and looted a luxury shopping mall.
The family of George Floyd have hired a pathologist after official autopsy showed that he died of “police restraint combined with heart disease and potential intoxicants in his system” as against the initial suspicion that he succumbed to asphyxiation or strangulation by officer
The family said it “does not trust anything” from the local police department
