Germany street protests on US terrorism on black people marks 3rd day




Los Angeles Police Department commander Cory Palka stands among several destroyed police cars as one explodes while on fire during a protest over the death of George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Los Angeles. Floyd died in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
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BERLIN — Protests against the death of George Floyd continued for a third day in Berlin, though the gathering outside the U.S. embassy Monday was significantly smaller than earlier rallies.

Police said about 1,500 people took part in a march Sunday in the German capital’s hip Kreuzberg district, after about 2,000 people staged a protest in front of the embassy Saturday.

Paul Schreiner, 69 and originally from Wisconsin, was among a dozen people holding a vigil outside the embassy Monday. “It’s my duty, I feel, to be here,” he said. “There’s a very interesting phrase that ‘white silence is violence,’ and that moved me to make sure I came today.”

Holding a sign with the names of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and others, American citizen Carmen Osorio Rodrigues said she was concerned about the direction the United States is heading. “We have to confront these social injustices,” she said, adding: “We need clear leadership on how to act.”

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WASHINGTON — Evidence of the chaos that erupted around the White House was visible as people streamed to work Monday morning.

Plywood covered the windows of several shuttered businesses along one heavily traveled street leading to the White House, but a McDonald’s that Bill Clinton frequented as president remained open, albeit with plywood structures reinforcing its street-facing windows.

Blocks away, the windows of a major bank branch had been shattered and its exterior scrawled with expletive-filled graffiti expressing displeasure with such institutions.

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SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco police officers seized firearms and explosives and arrested at least 80 people Sunday night on violating a curfew and looting charges.

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said demonstrations that drew about 1,000 people carrying signs and chanting “George Floyd” and “Black lives matter” were overwhelmingly peaceful Sunday and the vast majority of demonstrators dispersed without incident before the 8 p.m. curfew.

But a relatively small number of “defiant individuals” who had gathered in the Civic Center area refused to disperse, threw bottles at officers and started trash fires, Scott said.

In response, officers and deputies with the sheriff’s office began making arrests, he said.

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INDIANAPOLIS — An overnight curfew imposed by Indianapolis’ mayor after two nights of violent protest over the death of George Floyd and police treatment of African Americans was followed by a night of relative calm after a weekend that left the city with widespread damage downtown, a police spokesman said Monday.

Officer William Young of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said the city “was relatively quiet” during the overnight curfew, in comparison to violent weekend protests during which demonstrators broke dozens of windows on downtown businesses and set fires. He said police planned to release a tally later Monday of arrests that occurred during the curfew that ran from 8 p.m. Sunday until 6 a.m. Monday. Curfew violators were subject to arrest and fines.

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MINNEAPOLIS — The attorney for George Floyd’s family was set to announce findings Monday of an independent autopsy into his death a week ago after a Minneapolis officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.

Floyd, a black man who was in handcuffs at the time, died after the white officer ignored bystander shouts to get off him and Floyd’s cries that he couldn’t breathe. His death, captured on citizen video, sparked days of protests in Minneapolis that have spread to cities around America.

An official autopsy last week said the combined effects of being restrained, potential intoxicants in Floyd’s system and his underlying health issues, including heart disease, likely contributed to his death. There were no other details about intoxicants, and toxicology results can take weeks. In the 911 call that drew police, the caller described the man suspected of paying with counterfeit money as “awfully drunk and he’s not in control of himself.”

The criminal complaint noted that the medical examiner’s report was preliminary, but said the autopsy “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”

Ben Crump, the attorney representing Floyd’s family, said last week that he was commissioning the family’s own autopsy.

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MADISON, Wisconsin — Fifteen people were arrested after a second night of violence erupted Sunday night in Madison, Wisconsin, with police firing tear gas as protesters again threw rocks and damaged store downtown stores following an afternoon peaceful protest over the death of George Floyd.

There were also protests in Milwaukee and Racine on Sunday night, continuing a weekend of unrest both in Wisconsin and across the country in reaction to Floyd’s death.

Madison police reported Monday that multiple stores were looted in the State Street area, a business corridor that connects the state Capitol to the University of Wisconsin campus.

One of the 15 people arrested was armed with a handgun, police said. There were multiple unsuccessful attempts to steal a police squad car, the police said. A protest Sunday night in Milwaukee was mostly peaceful, but a crowd that gathered outside of a city police station was dispersed with tear gas.

National Guard troops were deployed in both Madison and Milwaukee to assist local law enforcement.

In Racine, about 150 people marched to the police station where they threw rocks at police who were wearing riot gear. The crowd dispersed after police fired tear gas.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Authorities say the driver of a semitrailer who rolled into the midst of thousands of people marching on a closed Minneapolis freeway over the death of George Floyd has been arrested on suspicion of assault.

Authorities had said it appeared no one was hurt Sunday but some witnesses said a handful of people who were on Interstate 35W near downtown Minneapolis sought medical attention on their own. Authorities said they could not confirm that.

The freeway was among many shut down in the Minneapolis area for the second night in a row as officials imposed an 8 p.m. curfew and sought to make it more difficult for protesters to move around.

Bystander video showed the crowd parting seconds before the semi rolled through, then the tanker truck gradually slowed and demonstrators swarmed the truck.

Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said Sunday that it initially appeared from traffic camera footage that the semitrailer was already on the freeway before barricades were set up at 5 p.m. State Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said at a later briefing, however, that the truck went around a traffic barrier to stay on the road.

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LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman says arrests and assaults on journalists covering protests in the United States are “very concerning.”

James Slack said Monday that “journalists all around the world must be free to do their job and to hold authorities to account without fear of arrest or violence.”

He said the violence of the past few nights was “very alarming. People must be allowed to protest peacefully.”

Slack said “the footage of George Floyd’s death was deeply distressing and our thoughts are with all those who have been affected.”

Noting that a police officer has been charged with murder, he said “we would hope and expect justice to be done.”

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The police chief of Louisville, Kentucky, says police officers and National Guard soldiers enforcing a curfew in Louisville killed a man early Monday when they returned fire after someone in a large group fired at them first.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad confirmed the shooting happened around 12:15 a.m. outside a business on West Broadway, where police and the National Guard had been called to break up a large group of people gathering in defiance of the city’s curfew.

Someone fired a shot at them and the officers returned fire, the chief said. It was unclear if the person killed is the one who fired at the law enforcers, he said.

Protests have erupted in Louisville over the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT was shot eight times by narcotics detectives who knocked down her front door, as well as the death of George Floyd.

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — South Dakota Gov. Governor Kristi Noem activated the National Guard after protests in Sioux Fall turned violent over the death of George Floyd.

The protest in South Dakota’s largest city started Sunday afternoon with a march downtown. Police said dozens of protesters later congregated at the Empire Mall and began throwing rocks at officers and breaking windows.

Police said protesters had dispersed by 11 p.m. Noem said about 70 Guard members are in Sioux Falls and will remain until they are no longer needed.

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PARIS — In France, family and friends of a French black man who died shortly after he was arrested by police in 2016 have called for a protest on Tuesday which will also pay homage to George Floyd.

The circumstances of the death of Adama Traore, a French 24-old-man of Malian origin, are still under investigation by justice authorities.

Calls for Tuesday’s protest in front of the Paris court come after some medical experts last week attributed the death to a cardiac problem, the latest in a series of conflicting medical assessments.

French police claimed Traore died of a heart attack due to pre-existing medical condition. His family said he died from asphyxiation from police tactics.

In a video message published on social media, Traore’s sister Assa Traore calls for protesters to express their indignation “at a time when the world, when France is outraged by the death of George Floyd.”

She said “they had the same words, their last words: ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.’”

She denounced the latest medical experts’ report as “racist” and “untrue.”

The family wants the officers in charge of Traore’s arrest to go on trial.

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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — A protest along the historic Route 66 into downtown Albuquerque turned violent early Monday after police reported demonstrators setting small fires and officers say they were fired upon.

Albuquerque police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos says officers reported shots fired at them in front of the historic Kimo Theater early Monday after a mostly peaceful demonstration disbanded. Gallego said there was damage to several properties in the area, including broken windows and some stealing from stores.

No injuries were reported.

Before the chaos, hundreds of people on Sunday marched down historic Route 66, protesting the death of George Floyd.

Protesters in New Mexico’s largest city held signs, wore masks and chanted, “Say his name: George Floyd” and “Hands up, don’t shoot.”

Activist Arthur Bell told protesters there will be another demonstration Monday evening in front of Albuquerque Police Department headquarters, but that rally will be “different.”

When The Associated Press asked Bell what he meant by “different,” he said: “A general never gives out his tactics.”

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SYDNEY — Fearful of conflict, organizers have canceled a peaceful protest planned for Sydney over the death of George Floyd in the United States.

A rally planned at Sydney’s downtown Hyde Park for Tuesday was canceled on Monday after people threatened to create “havoc and protest against the event,” an organizer said on social media.

The rally was presented as a peaceful protest against the overrepresentation of indigenous Australians in Australia’s criminal justice system as well as in solidarity for Floyd who was “brutally and inhumanly murdered.”

Organizers posted that “although Australia is far from where the murder took place, we have a voice.”

Thousands of protesters are expected at similar rallies planned for the Australian cities of Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide on Saturday.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Sydney Radio 2GB on Monday “there’s no need to import things … happening in other countries here to Australia,” referring to U.S. riots.

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TEHRAN, Iran — In Iran, which has in the recent past violently put down nationwide demonstrations by killing hundreds, arresting thousands and disrupting internet access to the outside world, state television has repeatedly aired images of the U.S. unrest.

Foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi urged the U.S. government and police to stop the violence against their own people during a press conference in Tehran on Monday.

“To American officials and police! Stop violence against your people and let them breathe,” Mousavi said and also sent a message to the American people that “the world is standing with you.” He added that Iran is saddened to see “the violence the U.S. police have recently” set off.

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