Police: Dozens Looted Target Store in St. Paul, Minnesota
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St. Paul police on Thursday responded to a group of alleged looters at the Midway Target as protests spread over the death of George Floyd, according to local reports.
The Star Tribune reports:
Officers responded to the area around 11:30 a.m. and found between 50 and 60 people grabbing merchandise off the shelves without paying, said St. Paul police spokesman Steve Linders. Many dropped the goods and ran when authorities arrived.A fight broke out in the parking lot between a pedestrian and a driver, who reportedly tried to run down the person with their car. The motorist missed and hit another vehicle. No injuries were reported.
At the Target on University Avenue, someone just threw a glass bottle at police protecting the store. #georgefloyd pic.twitter.com/OddtoYoESm— Matt McKinney (@_mattmckinney) May 28, 2020
At St. Paul Target. #GeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/sJ6UBfTNHS— Matt McKinney (@_mattmckinney) May 28, 2020
Huge crowd outside Target in St Paul – line of law enforcement stands guard in front of entrances pic.twitter.com/fmC9wDvFNi— Sarah Danik (@Sarah_Danik) May 28, 2020
Some in the crowd throwing carts at police vehicles and others throwing water bottles at police at St Paul Target on University pic.twitter.com/STiZqzmWtx— Sarah Danik (@Sarah_Danik) May 28, 2020
Several other nearby stores opted to close out of caution due to the looting, according to CBS Minnesota.
Law enforcement said no arrests have been made at this time.
The incident comes one day after dozens of looters stole televisions and groceries from the Target store near Minneapolis Police’s 3rd Precinct building as protests turned to riots Wednesday.
Fox 9 reporter Karen Scullin shared several videos showing the looting occurring at the Target store on Lake Street, which took place after a tense standoff with officers boiled over.
Target is being looted pic.twitter.com/GCGteCG8gV— Karen Scullin FOX9 (@kscullinfox9) May 27, 2020
Stealing TV’s and groceries, clothes pic.twitter.com/pxkBl9UO7L— Karen Scullin FOX9 (@kscullinfox9) May 27, 2020
Target is getting cleaned out pic.twitter.com/0OGSHY132k— Karen Scullin FOX9 (@kscullinfox9) May 27, 2020
The protests that began late Wednesday and stretched into Thursday morning were the most destructive yet since the death of Floyd, who was seen on video gasping for breath during an arrest in which an officer kneeled on his neck for almost eight minutes. In the footage, George pleads that he cannot breathe before he slowly stops talking and moving.
Mayor Jacob Frey sought calm. “Please, Minneapolis, we cannot let tragedy beget more tragedy,” he said on Twitter.
Protests also spread to other U.S. cities. In California, hundreds of people protesting Floyd’s death blocked a Los Angeles freeway and shattered windows of California Highway Patrol cruisers.
Pockets of looting continued Thursday at Minneapolis stores where windows and doors were smashed. Television station KSTP reported some fires at businesses burned with no firefighters on the scene. A liquor store employee displayed a gun as he stood among the debris of broken bottles and beer cans inside the business.
Amid the violence, a man was found fatally shot Wednesday night near a pawn shop, possibly by the owner, authorities said.
The AP contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: The photo accompanying this story is of the Minneapolis Target store ransacked in Wednesday night’s demonstrations. It is illustrative and not a literal depiction of the events in this article.
National Guard Activated to Respond to Minneapolis Violence
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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called in the National Guard on Thursday as looting broke out in St. Paul and a wounded Minneapolis braced for more violence after rioting over the death of a handcuffed black man in police custody reduced parts of one neighborhood to a smoking shambles.
The Minneapolis unrest ravaged several blocks in the Longfellow neighborhood, with scattered rioting reaching for miles across the city. It was the second consecutive night of violent protests following the death of George Floyd, who gasped for breath during a Monday arrest in which an officer kneeled on his neck for almost eight minutes. In footage recorded by a bystander, Floyd can be heard pleading that he can’t breathe until he slowly stops talking and moving.
Another protest was announced for Thursday evening near county offices in downtown Minneapolis. Some stores in Minneapolis and the suburbs closed early, fearing more strife. The city shut down its light-rail system and planned to stop all bus service out of safety concerns.
Around midday Thursday, the violence spread a few miles away to a Target in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood, where police said 50 to 60 people rushed the store attempting to loot it. Police and state patrol squad cars later blocked the entrance, but the looting then shifted to shops along nearby University Avenue, one of St. Paul’s main commercial corridors, and other spots in the city.
St. Paul spokesman Steve Linders said authorities have been dealing with unrest in roughly 20 different areas throughout the city.
“Please stay home. Please do not come here to protest. Please keep the focus on George Floyd, on advancing our movement and on preventing this from ever happening again. We can all be in that fight together,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter tweeted.
Walz called for widespread changes in the wake of Floyd’s death.
“It is time to rebuild. Rebuild the city, rebuild our justice system, and rebuild the relationship between law enforcement and those they’re charged to protect. George Floyd’s death should lead to justice and systemic change, not more death and destruction,” Walz said.
By Thursday morning in Minneapolis, smoke rose from smoldering buildings in the Longfellow neighborhood, scene of the worst violence. In a strip mall across the street from the police’s 3rd Precinct station, the focus of the previous night’s protests, the windows in nearly every business had been smashed, from the large Target department store at one end to the Planet Fitness gym at the other. Only the 24-hour laundromat appeared to have escaped unscathed.
“WHY US?” demanded a large expanse of red graffiti scrawled on the wall of the Target. A Wendy’s restaurant across the street was charred almost beyond recognition.
“We’re burning our own neighborhood,” said a distraught Deona Brown, a 24-year-old woman standing with a friend outside the precinct station, where a small group of protesters were shouting at a dozen or so stone-faced police officers in riot gear. “This is where we live, where we shop, and they destroyed it.”
“What that cop did was wrong, but I’m scared now,” Brown said.
But others in the crowd saw something different in the wreckage.
Protesters destroyed property “because the system is broken,” said a young man who identified himself only by his nickname, Cash, and who said he had been in the streets during the violence. He dismissed the idea that the destruction would hurt residents of the largely black neighborhood.
“They’re making money off of us,” he said angrily of the owners of the destroyed stores. He laughed when asked if he had joined in the looting or violence: “I didn’t break anything.”
The protests that began Wednesday night and extended into Thursday were more violent than Tuesday’s, which included skirmishes between offices and protesters but no widespread property damage or looting.
Mayor Jacob Frey appealed for calm. “Please, Minneapolis, we cannot let tragedy beget more tragedy,” he said on Twitter.
Protests also spread to other U.S. cities. In California, hundreds of people protesting Floyd’s death blocked a Los Angeles freeway and shattered windows of California Highway Patrol cruisers. Memphis police blocked a main thoroughfare after a racially mixed group of protesters gathered outside a police precinct. The situation intensified later in the night, with police donning riot gear and protesters standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of officers stationed behind a barricade.
Amid the violence in Minneapolis, a man was found fatally shot Wednesday night near a pawn shop, possibly by the owner, authorities said.
Fire crews responded to about 30 intentionally set blazes during the protests, including at least 16 structure fires, and multiple fire trucks were damaged by rocks and other projectiles, the fire department said. No one was hurt by the blazes.
There was no sign of police at the destroyed shopping center, though a couple dozen were outside the precinct house. One man standing outside the building was using a bullhorn to shout. “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. Mama, I can’t breathe,” repeating some of Floyd’s pleas for relief.
Across from the precinct, someone had spray-painted the sidewalk in red: “Where’s humanity?”
The 46-year-old Floyd died as police arrested him outside a convenience store after a report of a counterfeit bill being passed. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI in Minneapolis said Thursday they were conducting “a robust criminal investigation” into the death and making the case a priority. The announcement came a day after President Donald Trump tweeted that he had asked an investigation to be expedited.
The FBI is also investigating, with a probe focused on whether Floyd’s civil rights were violated.
The officer who kneeled on Floyd and three others were fired Tuesday. The next day, the mayor called for him to be criminally charged.
Frey appealed to Gov. Tim Walz to activate the National Guard, a spokesman confirmed Thursday. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Walz tweeted for calm Wednesday night, calling the violence “an extremely dangerous situation” and urging people to leave the scene.
The last time the Minnesota National Guard was called out to deal with civil unrest was in a backup role during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The most comparable situation to the current disturbances happened when the Guard was called up to deal with the riots in Minneapolis in 1967, a summer when anger over racial inequalities came to a boil in many cities across the country.
The Minnesota National Guard was also called out during protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s and during a 1986 strike by Hormel meatpackers in Austin.
Klobuchar Previously Declined to Prosecute Officer Involved in George Floyd’s Death
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), as a Minnesota county prosecutor in the early 2000s, refused to prosecute the police officer now at the center of the controversy surrounding the death of George Floyd.
Klobuchar, who served as the chief legal officer of Hennepin County, Minnesota, before ascending to the United States Senate, declined to charge Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for his role in the shooting death of Wayne Reyes in October 2006.
Reyes allegedly “stabbed his girlfriend and a male friend,” before fleeing in his vehicle and setting off a chase by law enforcement, according to a report on police brutality from the Minneapolis-based Communities United Against Police Brutality.
Chauvin, who at the time had been on the Minneapolis police force since 1999, was one of six officers involved in the pursuit. When Reyes was eventually stopped, Chauvin and the other officers claimed he aimed a shotgun towards them in a threatening manner. Reyes’s alleged burnishing of the weapon resulted in all six officers opening fire and killing him.
The incident, which was reported by The Guardian on Thursday, elicited widespread concern among Minneapolis residents at the time of Reyes’s death for what was seen as too strong a use of force. As such, Klobuchar, who was running for the U.S. Senate at the time of the shooting, was pressured by the local black community in Minneapolis to prosecute the officers involved.
In the weeks following the shooting, however, Klobuchar declined to act on the matter. Instead, having won her Senate race, she spent the remaining three months of her tenure between November 2006 and January 2007 planning for her transition to Washington, DC. The case eventually went to a grand jury in 2008, which opted not to charge the officers with any wrongdoing for their conduct.
Chauvin would continue to serve on the Minneapolis police force for the next decade and a half. It would not, though, be his last brush with controversy. In 2011, Chauvin would be placed on temporary leave after he and four other officers shot a Native American man, who was later charged with felony second-degree assault. Overall, Chauvin would face at least ten civilian complaints throughout his tenure with the force. Three of those, which arose because of his use of “derogatory language” and “demeaning tone” towards suspects, would result in oral reprimands.
His career officially came to an end earlier this week when he was fired for his involvement in Floyd’s death. The firing came after a video went viral showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck while attempting to arrest the man for alleged forgery. In the video, Floyd is heard pleading for help, claiming he cannot breathe, as Chauvin stands over him. Tou Thao, Chauvin’s partner who also has a record of police brutality complaints, is seen in the video refusing to intervene.
Since the video went viral, protests have arisen across Minnesota and other parts of the country from activists hoping to shine a light on what they see as the failures and inequities of the criminal justice system. Although most of the protests have been non-violent, several riots broke out in Minneapolis and neighboring Saint Paul on Wednesday and Thursday.
The attention drawn by both the protests and the riots has brought Klobuchar’s 2006 decision to not prosecute Chauvin back into the spotlight. Such scrutiny, however, comes at an inopportune moment for the senator, who leads the short-list to be former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate this November.
Even though Klobuchar was always going to face criticism for the law and order image she cultivated as a county prosecutor, the current situation in Minnesota disqualifies her in the eyes of many black Democrats and activists. The sentiment was perhaps best summed up by Sunny Hostin during an episode of ABC’s The View on Wednesday.
“We’re seeing that black people in Minneapolis are arrested at nine times the rate of a white person for nonviolent offenses,” Hostin said. She added “that this is why the black community has said that Amy Klobuchar is a nonstarter for them, because … she declined to prosecute over two dozen cases involving police killings of unarmed people.”
Minneapolis Mayor: Technique Used in Floyd Arrest ‘Not Authorized’ – Arresting Officer Needs to Be Charged
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During a press conference on Wednesday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said there isn’t a good answer for why the arresting officer in the death of George Floyd is not behind bars and called for the arresting officer to be charged. He also stated that the technique that was used on Floyd during his arrest isn’t allowed by the Minneapolis police and its officers are not trained to use it.
Frey stated, “Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail? If you had done it, or I had done it. We would be behind bars right now. And I cannot come up with a good answer to that question. And so, I’m calling on Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to act on the evidence before him. I’m calling on him to charge the arresting officer in this case.”
Frey later added, “We watched, for five whole, excruciating minutes, as a white officer firmly pressed his knee into the neck of an unarmed, handcuffed black man. … By the way, there — that particular technique that was used is not authorized by the MPD. It is not something that officers are trained in — on. And it should not be used, period.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
1:18
During a press conference on Wednesday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said there isn’t a good answer for why the arresting officer in the death of George Floyd is not behind bars and called for the arresting officer to be charged. He also stated that the technique that was used on Floyd during his arrest isn’t allowed by the Minneapolis police and its officers are not trained to use it.
Frey stated, “Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail? If you had done it, or I had done it. We would be behind bars right now. And I cannot come up with a good answer to that question. And so, I’m calling on Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to act on the evidence before him. I’m calling on him to charge the arresting officer in this case.”
Frey later added, “We watched, for five whole, excruciating minutes, as a white officer firmly pressed his knee into the neck of an unarmed, handcuffed black man. … By the way, there — that particular technique that was used is not authorized by the MPD. It is not something that officers are trained in — on. And it should not be used, period.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
28 May 2020
The condemns the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota and demands the prosecution of the police officers who are responsible for his death.
The killing of George Floyd is a horrific crime. Floyd, who was African American, died Monday after being pinned to the ground by four police officers in front of a crowd that was pleading that he be let go. Much of the crime was caught on bystander video and surveillance cameras.
One video shows officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, forcefully pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes as the 46-year-old pleaded for his life, crying out “I can’t breathe” and “You are going to kill me!”
George Floyd (Photo: Offices of Ben Crump Law)
Floyd was detained after a call from a local shop that he had attempted to use a forged ten-dollar bill. The store owner later told media that he did not know if Floyd even knew if it was forged. Police rushed to the scene, seized Floyd, pulled him from his vehicle, handcuffed him, and then held him in a chokehold until his body went limp.
The three other officers who helped restrain Floyd have been identified as Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng.
While the official police report stated that Floyd resisted arrest, surveillance video released Wednesday by a local restaurant owner makes clear that he did not struggle at any point as he was taken out of his car and handcuffed by police.
Despite his death being a clear murder in broad daylight without any justification, as of Wednesday evening Chauvin, Lane, Thao and Kueng remain free men. They were suspended without pay by the police department and then fired by Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey in response to popular anger Tuesday.
The killing and refusal to arrest Floyd’s killers has generated anger among workers of all races who have taken part in two days of demonstrations.
Thousands of workers and youth, both white and black, turned out Tuesday to protest at the intersection where Floyd was killed and at a nearby police station. Police unloaded round after round of tear gas and non-lethal rounds to disperse the angry demonstration. Further demonstrations were organized last night in Minneapolis and other cities throughout the US.
The murder of George Floyd is the latest in an unending string of deaths at the hands of US police. So far this year, according to killedbypolice.net, there have been 400 police killings. The number killed every year is more than 1,000.
It has been nearly six years since Michael Brown was shot to death in Ferguson, Missouri (August 9, 2014) and Eric Garner was strangled to death in New York City (July 17, 2014), sparking mass demonstrations against police violence. Some 6,000 people have been killed by police in the intervening period.
No doubt racism plays a role in incidents of police violence. While the greatest number of police killings is of whites, African Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately targeted for harassment, abuse, arrest and incarceration. The Trump administration has deliberately cultivated the most backward and reactionary layers, including among police officers. Trump has proclaimed that he likes watching footage of “rough” treatment of “thugs,” and has urged police not to be “too nice.”
The source of police violence, however, is not racial antagonism, but class oppression. The unifying characteristic among victims of police violence—black, white, Hispanic or Native American—is that they are poor and among the most vulnerable segments of the population.
The role of Black Lives Matter and other proponents of racial politics, in claiming that racism is the cause of police violence, is to promote the idea that hiring more black police officers or electing more black politicians will resolve the problem. Inevitably, this means channeling opposition behind the Democratic Party, one of the twin parties of Wall Street and the military. And the epidemic of police violence continues unabated.
This reign of terror raged under the watch of Democratic President Barack Obama and continues under the fascistic Republican Donald Trump. Regardless of whether a state has a Democratic or Republican governor, if the mayor or police chief is black, white, male, female, straight or gay, police killings continue unabated.
It is three years since a Somali-American Minneapolis police officer shot and killed Justine Damond, a white woman, in her back alley and four years since a Hispanic police officer in a nearby suburb killed Philando Castille, an African American man, during a traffic stop which was broadcast live on Facebook.
After a particularly brutal act of police violence is publicly exposed—inevitably because it chanced to be caught on film—the politicians, Democrat and Republican, engaged in handwringing and promises of an investigation. Almost always, these investigations fail to lead to prosecutions and convictions.
State power, Lenin noted in his The State and Revolution is composed of “special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc. at their command.” Citing Friedrich Engels, Lenin noted that the state is fundamentally “a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms,” and that the power and violence of the state “grows stronger… in proportion as class antagonisms within the state become more acute.”
With the coronavirus pandemic, these class antagonisms are entering a new stage. The corporate and financial oligarchy, after doing nothing to protect the population, has used the pandemic to transfer trillions of dollars to itself, unanimously endorsed by the Democratic and Republican politicians.
This has been followed by a campaign to “reopen the economy” and force workers to endanger their lives to pay off Wall Street. At the same time, the ruling elite plans on using mass unemployment and the bankrupting of the state to increase exploitation, slash social programs and impoverish the population.
The conflict between the financial aristocracy and the working class is the fundamental source of the brutality and violence of the state. The same conflict creates the objective foundation for a political movement that can put an end to this brutality: the independent and united movement of the entire working class, to take political power into its own hands and put an end to the capitalist profit system.
Video: Fires Rage Across Minneapolis Overnight in George Floyd Protests
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Multiple buildings in Minneapolis burned through the night Wednesday as protesters turned to riots over the death of George Floyd, who died Monday after a police officer was seen on video putting his knee on his neck, according to reports.
Protesters set fire to businesses, including an Autozone and Cub Foods, while an apartment complex under construction was also reportedly damaged by flames.
Protesters have started a fire in the autozone next to the police precinct #GeorgeFloyd #Minneapolis @USATODAY pic.twitter.com/UI13FjXVEN— Zach Boyden-Holmes (@Boydenphoto) May 28, 2020
A fire was started at AutoZone. Some protesters attempted to extinguish it some posed for photos. pic.twitter.com/1EGwTPrUTq— Carlos Gonzalez (@CarlosGphoto) May 28, 2020
This was the scene in South Minneapolis about an hour ago. A multi-story apartment building under construction near the corner of Lake & Minnehaha caught fire, early Thursday Morning. The flames were visible from as far away as Bloomington. @KARE11 @MPRnews pic.twitter.com/45cjH5JNvH— Dave Peterlinz (@DPet_KARE11News) May 28, 2020
Building engulfed in flames as riots erupt in Minneapolis following the death in police custody of George Floyd. https://t.co/5MVr8yQIO0 pic.twitter.com/I1zsXRecBX— ABC News (@ABC) May 28, 2020
DRONE VIDEO: Fires still burning on East Lake Street in south Minneapolis after protests over death of #GeorgeFloyd devolved into rioting and looting overnight. https://t.co/GuJ4l0C4JP pic.twitter.com/5FjPuL5b3c— FOX 9 (@FOX9) May 28, 2020
Some photos of the Wendy’s near the 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis. pic.twitter.com/JxmeSiUT8P— Tony Webster (@webster) May 28, 2020
The neighborhood just north of the Minneapolis police 3rd precinct is still dystopian this morning. Ash drifting in the air, alarms sounding, hardly an intact window for blocks. pic.twitter.com/vIDLzHw3I1— Tim Nelson (@timnelson_mpr) May 28, 2020
In addition to several buildings being lit on fire, stores like Target store on Lake Street were ransacked by dozens of apparent looters who stole televisions and groceries, according to videos shared to social media by Fox 9 reporter Karen Scullin.
Target is being looted pic.twitter.com/GCGteCG8gV— Karen Scullin FOX9 (@kscullinfox9) May 27, 2020
Stealing TV’s and groceries, clothes pic.twitter.com/pxkBl9UO7L— Karen Scullin FOX9 (@kscullinfox9) May 27, 2020
The inside of the Target is smoky; people are trying to break into the cash registers. Alarm is blaring pic.twitter.com/qfd97sfNTr— Ricardo Lopez (@rljourno) May 28, 2020
Other reported looters were seen at Dollar Tree, a liquor store, and a tobacco store, reported ABC 5.
The protests came as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for the arrest of the police officer seen in a video kneeling on Floyd’s neck before his death.
The mayor urged Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to file charges against the officer, whom the city identified as Derek Chauvin. In a video taken by a witness, Chauvin can be seen kneeling and putting his weight on the neck of George Floyd, who struggled and said he could not breathe.
The Minneapolis Police Department fired Chauvin and three other officers involved in the arrest — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao.
“Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey asked during a news conference Wednesday. “If you had done it or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now and I cannot come up with an answer to that question.”
The mayor said his call for charges against Chauvin is based on the footage from the scene.
The UPI contributed to this report.
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