Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held up a Bible during her press conference Tuesday, urging President Donald Trump to bring the nation together as riots over the death of George Floyd continue.
The president held up a Bible at St. John’s Episcopal Church Monday evening, after the historic church was attacked by rioters. Pelosi’s gesture was a reference to his.
NEW: statement from @usparkpolicepio – “No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park. “ pic.twitter.com/eZOD40MW0r
The United States Park Police (USPP) say neither they nor assisting law enforcement groups deployed tear gas to clear Lafayette Park of protesters ahead of President Donald Trump’s dramatic walk from the White house to St. John’s church Monday.
Trump came under fire for the walk after journalists alleged the police had used tear gas to clear peaceful protesters out of the way. The USPP now says that no tear gas was used and that the only irrtitants they used to disperse the crowd were smoke canisters and pepper balls.
#BREAKING NEWS: Pittsburgh Police say 20 year old Brian Bartels is the man who incited riots in downtown #Pittsburgh yesterday. This is video taken of him destroying a police cruiser. An arrest warrant has been issued. https://t.co/AFYsrV2vsD
Brian Jordan Bartels, a 20-year-old man who Pittsburgh police said is suspected of inciting violence during a protest, was escorted by his parents as he turned himself in Monday.
Local law enforcement were investigating the destruction of a police SUV when they received an anonymous tip from a co-worker at Amazon who recognized Bartels at the scene of the crime, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. The vehicle was set on fire after being tagged with spray paint Saturday, although police officers eventually arrived on horseback to disperse the rioters.
What the local sheriff says were two protest-related shootings in Las Vegas Monday night left a Las Vegas police officer on life support and resulted in the death of a suspect at another scene.
Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Joe Lombardo told reporters in an overnight briefing that the demonstrations “led to” both incidents.
He said officers were attempting to disperse a large crowd of demonstrators in front of the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino on the Vegas Strip and were being hit with rocks and bottles form the crowd. While trying to detain some people, Lombado said, “a shot rang out and our officer went down.” The officer was on life support and a suspect was in custody.
A California liquor store owner said he stood in front of his business in Santa Monica armed with an AR-15 to discourage looters.
The looting in Santa Monica came amid nationwide unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man who died last week after a white police officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.
The owner of the liquor store, who only identified as Joe, told CBSLA he and his friends stood in front of the business with guns to discourage potential looters.
“It was a good thing I had my customers and friends by my side, because it was pretty scary,” Joe told the station.
Joe said he and his friends helped nearby businesses discourage looters as well.
Civil rights leaders have criticised Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to take no action against a Facebook post from Donald Trump appearing to threaten to start shooting “looters”, after a Monday night meeting with the company’s executives ended in acrimony.
“We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robison said in a statement. “He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters.
“Mark is setting a very dangerous precedent for other voices who would say similar harmful things on Facebook.”
As many demonstrators gathered for a peaceful protest to condemn police brutality in Santa Monica, California on Sunday, a group of individuals broke into several stores in the area, shattering glass and looting merchandise.
While looters targeted various clothing stores in Santa Monica, one onlooker posted a video to social media showing a group of people breaking into an Amazon van, throwing objects at the vehicle to break its windows before gathering in the back as a larger group of people appeared to run away with packages.
The anniversary of the crackdown on the student-led democracy protests has a special poignancy this year, coming a week after Beijing gave the green light to move ahead with national security legislation for Hong Kong, which critics fear will crush freedoms in the former British colony.
“I can’t be silent. If people tell me to keep silent, I won’t,” said office worker Daisy Lam, 52, who has attended nearly every vigil since June 4, 1989, with her children.
Former Hong Kong student leader Chan Ching-wah, 56, was in Beijing on June 4, 1989, and recalled the kindness of a customs officer who let him to take a bag full of photos and video of the military crackdown when he left Beijing.
“I feel like I had never left because the danger that Hong Kong is facing, the repression it’s going to face is no small thing,” Chan told Reuters as he held a photo of himself in Tiananmen Square.
This is the flagship Macy’s store featured in Miracle on 34th St. Not a miracle anymore.
Cops running into Macy's at Herald Square as it was being looted. Hundreds of looters and rioters here with absolutely no concerns about cops being here pic.twitter.com/NItOU7POiL
There’s a “Trump’s afraid” narrative going around on the Left, and Democrat Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has done her best to try and reinforce that perception.
Hillary Clinton appears to have used the same photograph in her “compare/contrast” tweet of Obama vs. Trump:
An NYPD officer was struck by a hit-and-run driver in the Bronx early Tuesday, law enforcement sources said.
The officer was mowed down at the intersection of East 170th Street and Walton Avenue in Mt. Eden by the driver of a dark sedan, according to dramatic footage of the incident.
The officer was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was expected to survive, sources said.
The recording of the hit-and-run, which was posted to Twitter, shows the cop get launched into the air and hit another vehicle after being struck.
“That’s a f—ing cop,” a woman recording the footage says after impact. “Oh s–t!”
The officer lands in the middle of the intersection and several other people, presumably officers, rush over.
It was yet another night of rioting and looting. Granted, in some areas, the chaos was not nearly as bad as the previous night. Fox News’ Kevin Corke reported that while last night’s law enforcement response was not perfect, it wasn’t nearly as anarchic. That’s probably because every law enforcement agency and their mother were out to ensure the curfew was enforced. For Democrats out there struggling to figure out how to control their cities, a big police presence pretty much ensures law and order is re-established. Just saying. Yet, as the rioting intensified over the past couple of days, especially in Minneapolis, there was this ridiculous talking point that right-wing extremists, specifically white nationalist groups, were creating the chaos. That’s not true.
The reason why the nation is engulfed in flames right now is due to the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police. He was arrested for using a fake $20 bill at a local store. Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck for nearly ten minutes, which resulted in his death. It was a nonviolent crime. Floyd was unarmed. And now Chauvin has been fired and facing third-degree murder and manslaughter charges. The three other officers with him were also fired. All of this is captured on video, with Floyd crying out that he couldn’t breathe.
UFC star Jon Jones had zero tolerance for Sunday night rioters in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Jones posted an Instagram video early Monday morning of him stopping people with spray paint cans vandalizing the city. Riots and protests have spread across America in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
“Why the f**k are you punk ass teenagers destroying our cities!?? As a young black man trust me I’m frustrated as well but this is not the way, we are starting to make a bad situation worse,” Jones wrote on the Instagram video. You can watch the whole thing below.
HAPPENING NOW: New York – business owner shoots his gun to protect his business from looters as the police are nowhere to be seen again pic.twitter.com/t84eVHSZ9j
— CryptøManiac101 🅐 (@_Crypto_Maniac_) June 2, 2020
Kansas City police officers found bricks and rocks staged near protest sites around the city, stoking concerns that individuals or groups had pre-planned looting and destruction that hit the city over the weekend, the department said Sunday.
“We have learned of & discovered stashes of bricks and rocks in & around the Plaza and Westport to be used during a riot,” the department said in a tweet on Sunday.
As in most major cities across the United States, protesters gathered in Kansas City over the weekend over the police-involved death of George Floyd. The 46-year-old black man died May 25 after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 10 minutes during an arrest involving a non-violent incident, video showed.
Media reported some story about him being in a bunker, so just to prove that wrong and to lend support to the “presidents church across the street” he walked there in the open, after all the craziness from last night.
President Donald Trump walked out of the front of the White House and across the street Monday to St. John’s Church, which was set on fire by protesters Sunday night.
The move came just minutes after Trump gave a speech in the Rose Garden of the White House about the riots taking place across the country and about George Floyd’s death, who died while in police custody after an officer put his knee into the back of his neck for over five minutes while he was handcuffed and on the ground.
