In New York, chaos

The agonizing silence, night and day, interrupted by ambulance sirens during the pandemic, has given way to scenes of war and chaos in the streets of New York. The first protest against police violence in Union Square in Manhattan just a week ago ended with several arrests, but there was no sign of such a follow-up. Despite New Yorkers’ difficult relationship with their police, all eyes turned to Minneapolis where the video of a black man, George Floyd, died after being held down for almost ten minutes by a white policeman, pressing his knee. on his neck, his hand in a pocket, horrified the whole country.

“No justice, no peace”

The painful case of Eric Garner who died of asphyxiation during his arrest on July 17, 2014 in Long Island, in southern New York, was not slow to resurface, however, motivating a second pacifist demonstration, this time the next day, Friday no. away from the World Trade Center. Faces protected by masks, thousands of demonstrators took their places, upwind, in stifling heat, in front of the Court of Justice under the watchful eye of hundreds of motionless police officers. “No justice, no peace” is one of the slogans that comes up most often in the mouths of demonstrators whose immense anger and determination speak volumes about the often tragic and endless history of racism in the United States. United. That day, the tension is again palpable when a group of young people try to prevent the departure of a police van after the arrest of some agitators. The insults that fuse for hours in close and often worrying face-to-face meetings trigger a few clashes, then a sit-in and chases, the demonstrators going so far as to follow the police van to the gates of the police station. near.

But what looks like common and recurring signs of protest does not suggest the worst.

New York, which has tragically become the epicenter of the coronavirus, is barely waking up from the pandemic which has severely affected African-American and Latino communities. Unemployment rages in the city that never sleeps where food is lacking in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, in front of closed schools as families continue to bury their dead in a climate of desperate confinement. Several store breaks were reported last Saturday in the upscale and trendy district of Soho in lower Manhattan. But the worst is yet to come.

During their daily press conferences established since the onset of the health crisis, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and State Governor Andrew Cuomo keeping an eye out for states that have already ignited, decide to strengthen the police presence in the City from Sunday evening. But it is still time for the finally encouraging assessment of the Covid-19 and now for the cautious, gradual and long-awaited reopening of the city’s businesses. “We must act intelligently, insists the governor before pressing for the wearing of the compulsory mask in the doorsteps. We have gone through a terrible ordeal. Let us protect ourselves and the others so as not to relive this nightmare.”

This time Brooklyn ignites.

After a new demonstration which is nevertheless always peaceful, Brooklyn ignites. The first images of the torched police cars shock residents. The violence they observed, aghast but far away, on social networks and on television, in Minnesota, where George Floyd lived, is now at their doorstep. Sunday evening, it is again Soho’s turn to suffer the attacks of those called the looters. A desaster.

Showcases exploded in a few minutes by dozens of thugs divided into small groups, leaving with their arms laden with clothes, sports shoes and all kinds of accessories on foot, by scooter or by car. Many young girls walk the streets, big bags in their hands when they are not piles of cardboard boxes in hand, all under the noses of police officers positioned in the middle of the streets.

“Why didn’t you intervene?”

The police cars, all blaring sirens, try to drive out the vandals, but hardly have they been moved when they attack other stores. Soho is foamed and entirely devastated before the eyes of horrified residents. “Why didn’t you intervene?” An old lady protests in despair, in the middle of the night, in front of a motionless squad while the windows shatter a few hundred yards away. The question is indeed posed given the political stakes to come and the presidential election scheduled for November, even if the police made 250 arrests before dawn.

However, a scenario is beginning to emerge. The long marches which grow bigger day by day through the financial capital automatically end in destructive sprees, visibly foreign to the demonstrations, and this, as soon as night falls.

Worse than at the time of the riots of the sixties

The use of a curfew, a first in New York’s history, did not take long despite the mayor’s hesitation. But once it is set up at 11 p.m. Monday, the following night will be the worst of all. The thugs are attacking this time the big brands in the upscale neighborhoods of Big Apple but also in the Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the United States where small businesses are found completely destroyed. Macy’s, the oldest and largest shopping center in the world, comparable to Galeries Lafayette, is taken by storm. The prestigious 5th Avenue stores in East Manhattan are also under attack. Unheard of in the city.

The situation is even considered much worse than at the time of the riots of the sixties linked to the assassination of Martin Luther King and to the Vietnam war to which many Americans were then fiercely opposed. No less than 700 people were arrested during the night.

To the chilling fear of the epidemic in the city of 8 million inhabitants is now added that of seeing your store looted, or of finding yourself attacked by delinquents, often very young and ultra-violent. From 11 p.m., the curfew was brought forward on Tuesday to 8 p.m. But there again, nothing helped, even if the results of the night promised to be less heavy than the previous nights.

After a monster demonstration, the protesters braved the curfew until more than midnight, leaving, in spite of themselves, scenes of rare violence in their path, particularly against a police officer attacked and thrown into the sky. ground by two men after receiving a projectile which made his helmet click on the asphalt. A Zara store had been looted minutes earlier as the procession passed the 9/11 Memorial.

Doubly bruised, the beautiful and dynamic Big Apple offers the distressing spectacle of broken windows immediately covered with large plywood squares sometimes even equipped with barbed wire, on kilometers of streets guarded by the police, vigils and even the mounted brigade.

New Yorkers have lost their smile as a new protest is yet to come.

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