Protesters Say ‘Violent Riots the Only Way to Get George Floyd Justice’

By Staff, RT

The wave of protests and violence triggered by the killing of George Floyd has touched every corner of the US.

The death of Floyd, an unarmed black man who was pinned to the ground and choked out by a police officer, resonated with many protesters, even outside Minneapolis where the tragedy happened.

"I got little brothers, I got nieces, nephews,” a protester named Briana Jenkins told Ruptly in Brooklyn, New York. “I'm scared for them to go out in the public and not be with one of us, you feel me. You don't even want your child going to the store real quick because you don't know what could happen."

Jenkins was one of several hundred protesters who gathered in Brooklyn to show their anger. Though the demonstration there began peacefully, police officers eventually pepper-sprayed and tackled unruly protesters who broke through the barricades. Several people were arrested in the clashes.

"They murdered that man and they need to be prosecuted and go to jail,” one woman in Dallas, Texas, added. “If I kill somebody, I am going to jail; there is not going to be a trial first. They aren’t going to do 'innocent until proven guilty,' they are going to do 'guilty until proven innocent.’”

“I guarantee there’s not going to be a row of cops to watch my home while they figure out if I did it or not,” she stressed, referring to the lines of riot police deployed outside Chauvin’s home between Floyd’s death and the officer’s arrest on Friday.

In Minneapolis, the epicenter of the rage, protest marches have degenerated into full-blown riots. Police stations have been burned to the ground, and the rioters ignored a National Guard-enforced curfew on Friday night to continue the pillaging of the Minnesota city.

Many feel they don’t have a choice. In Los Angeles, as crowds of demonstrators took to the streets and squared off with armored riot police, one protester said "there's really nothing else we can do at the moment but let our voices be heard.”

“Although I'm a staunch anti-gun advocate, what else do you do if you're being killed by the police?" he added.

Atlanta, Detroit, Denver, Portland and several other cities all saw similar outpourings of anger overnight. While Floyd’s death has been universally condemned, the breakdown of law and order has put pressure on the government to respond. The Pentagon is reportedly drafting plans to deploy military police to Minneapolis, after the National Guard was unable to contain the rioting on Friday night. National guardsmen have also been deployed in Georgia “to protect people and property in Atlanta.”