It was an ugly night in Minneapolis, and at every turn Donald Trump, the city police force, and the state police seem to be working to make it worse. Protests over the brutalization and murder of 46-year-old George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers escalated again on the third night of protests after a series of confrontations with that same police force. By dawn, it seemed that no actions had been taken to defuse the situation and protesters were only left with more anger over aggressive police tactics. As a sad symbol of the whole event, viewers watched in real time on Friday morning as a black CNN journalist was arrested and led away in handcuffs, while his white colleague was left standing.
Meanwhile, Trump was ready to do what he always does—widen divisions and increase anger. Overnight Trump didn’t just claim that he was ready to send “the military” into Minneapolis, but called those protesting Floyd’s murder “thugs.” Trump followed with a demand for looters to be shot, and in doing so, he called back to a phrase, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” that comes from the darkest heart of police assaults on Blacks fighting for Civil Rights during the 1960s.
Overnight protests weren’t limited to Minneapolis. In cities across the nation, including Denver and New York, protesters gathered—in spite of concerns about COVID-19—to demand the arrest of the officers involved in Floyd’s death. Some of those protests became sites of additional confrontations and intensifying anger. In Denver, protesters blocked Interstate 25 in both directions for an extended period. In Minneapolis, over a dozen buildings burned.
In Louisville, hundreds gathered as part of ongoing protests against the police shooting of Breonna Taylor. On March 13, a plainclothes narcotics team from the Louisville police smashed through the door of Taylor’s apartment without warning and shot her eight times. She was in bed after working a double shift fighting the pandemic. No drugs were found. What started as peaceful protests there on Thursday night ultimately ended in a series of confrontations with police in body armor and face shields that seemed to mirror events in Minneapolis. As anger increased, there were a series of arrests, tear gas was sprayed along the streets, and at least seven people were shot and wounded. As of Friday morning, police provided little information on who did the shooting, who was shot, and how many people were arrested.
Rather than provide any leadership, calling for an independent investigation into police actions, or making any move toward mediation, Donald Trump spent the night belittling the mayor of Minneapolis and calling for more violence. The line that Trump used, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts," dates to 1967, when it was used by then Miami Police Chief Walter Headley. Headley called for “a crackdown on slum hoodlums” and used guns, dogs, and threats against Blacks that he said were "taking advantage" of Civil Rights. Trump’s use of the phrase, especially following his all-caps use of the word “thugs” to describe protesters, is absolutely not coincidental. Trump is, after all, the same man who took out a full page ad calling for murder of the Central Park Five, and continued to call for their death even after he knew they were innocent.
Trump’s call for violence generated a response from Twitter, which did not remove the tweet but put a warning over it. Trump again responded by threatening more regulation of Twitter. The White House account then repeated Trump’s tweets, including the call for shooting.
The actions in Minneapolis overnight were chaotic and often difficult to understand. At some points police insisted on pushing forward and clearing areas even when protests were going on peacefully. At others police seemed to completely abandon whole regions of the city—including the area around the police station where the four officers most directly involved in Floyd’s death had been stationed. Protesters set fire to that station, and portions of the building collapsed in flames. The whole scene was made even more surreal when fireworks were tossed into the burning building. The presence of more than 500 National Guard members and large numbers of state police seemed to have made the response to the situation still more erratic.
Unlike the “reopen” protesters who threatened lawmakers with semi-automatic rifles and invaded state buildings with impunity across the nation, Black protesters in Minneapolis and elsewhere are being confronted by police in riot gear and armor, by shots of tear gas, and by demands that they take their anger over police violence and just swallow it. Again. These protests aren’t happening because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’re happening in spite of it. They’re happening even though those involved know the additional risks involved. They’re happening because six years after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the only thing that seems to have changed is that the list of names and locations keeps growing.
On Friday morning, there is no sign that this is over. Because it’s not. In Minneapolis, none of the officers involved in Floyd’s death has been charged.
