New York City Will Be Under Curfew As of Monday Due To Riots Raised By Police Death Of George Floyd, Mayor Bill De Blasio And Governor Andrew Cuomo Announced .
“I spoke to (New York) governor Andrew Cuomo and for everyone’s safety, we have decided to put in place a curfew for New York City tonight: it will come into effect at 11:00 p.m. and be lifted at 5 am “, said in a tweet the mayor of the American economic capital, following in the footsteps of forty other cities that have already taken this measure.
The mayor and the governor, both Democrats, have also announced that they will “double the police presence” in the face of the protests that have rocked the first American metropolis since Thursday evening.
Confrontations between demonstrators and police have increased, with cars burned and this weekend looting of shops, especially on the main artery of Broadway in Manhattan.
“The protests have been generally calm. We cannot allow the violence to undermine the message of this moment,” said de Blasio, quoted in a statement.
He also promised that the police would be “held accountable” for further police brutality, and that the police chief would talk about it later today.
Governor Cuomo pointed out to him that there were “people who take advantage of this moment to make a personal profit”.
“The violence and looting that took place is bad for the city, the state and all this movement, undermining and diverting from a just cause,” he insisted.
The announcement comes as new protests start, with around 1,000 people already meeting in Times Square Monday mid-afternoon, pending further rallies scheduled for later in the Brooklyn and Queens districts.
Some demonstrators, however, immediately declared their intention of not respecting the curfew.
“People will not respect him,” Shina Moore, a 23-year-old black woman who works at a Starbucks café, told AFP.
“Cuomo is our governor, he does a good job but it is not his fight (…) These demonstrations will last as long as it takes – a day, a week, a month, a year”, a she said.
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