The 4000 men of the National Guard dispatched yesterday by the governor are struggling to control the situation.
On Saturday evening, the situation was still very tense in Minneapolis, the city from which the race riots started in the United States. It was there that a 46-year-old black man, George Lloyd, was killed by a white policeman Derek Chauvin, who suspected him of having wanted to buy cigarettes with a fake 20 dollar bill. The videos taken by witnesses are damning for the officer, and the city has been at war ever since.
Some buildings were literally ransacked, such as the El Nuevo Rodeo restaurant-disco, which was still smoldering yesterday afternoon. On the side of Cup Foods, the convenience store where George bought his cigarettes and in front of which the tragedy took place, the street was crowded with people. On one side of the store front, an artist painted George’s portrait, in very vivid colors. The ground is covered with bouquets of flowers.
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To be African-American is to be African without memory and American without privilege
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Locals came to meditate, their faces closed. “To be African-American is to be an African without memory and an American without privilege,” read a sign. A quarter of an hour from there, in front of the police station of the 5th “precinct” (district), the demonstrators organized a sit-in in front of a large sign calling for “Justice for George”.
At 8 p.m., they should have left, under the curfew imposed in the city. “We have every intention of staying as long as possible,” Rod, a 28-year-old black man, told us. “What happens now was inevitable.” People have had enough and refuse to endure, especially during this Covid pandemic where the police are supposed to protect us, not kill us ”.
Suddenly, we see in the distance a cone of black smoke escaping from a building probably burned down. A few minutes later, we see the flashing lights of approaching police cars and the helmets of some of the 4000 men of the “national guard”, a reserve military force dispatched that very morning by the governor of the State.
The National Guard was dispatched to Minneapolis the same morning by the Governor of Minnesota. © Olivier O’Mahony / Paris Match
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If they surround us, stay peaceful
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Impressive scene: the police throw tear gas, the demonstrators respond with stones and projectiles that look like firecrackers. Everyone runs off, except a young girl in a white t-shirt and red jacket who is standing with her arms raised to the sky, facing the wall of soldiers advancing towards her in a halo of white smoke.
“If they surround us, stay peaceful”, launches a young man in a gas mask to the demonstrators. Some erect barricades using barriers and signs left on a nearby construction area. The police are ruthless, some journalists are arrested, the objective is clearly to create a vacuum and evacuate everyone. Except that at the stroke of midnight, we still felt a strong smell of burning and deafening grenades were still being heard …
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