George Floyd protests: White House sends in National Guard to protect Washington DC monuments
The Trump administration has reportedly called in the National Guard to protect Washington’s monuments as more historical statues are torn down and protests continue across the US.
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The Trump administration has activated the National Guard to protect monuments during anti-racism protests in Washington, according to a report.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt requested the deployment this week, Fox News first reported, citing a senior US defence official.
The move follows the toppling on Friday of Washington DC’s only statue of a Confederate leader, Albert Pike, near the city’s police headquarters. On Monday, protesters unsuccessfully tried to topple a statue of President Andrew Jackson facing the White House, reports the New York Post.
Mr Trump called the assault on Jackson’s statue, which was lassoed with ropes, a “sneak attack” and warned activists they face up to 10 years in prison under the Veterans’ Memorial Preservation Act.
The number of people protesting against racism and police brutality in Washington has diminished since an initial wave of protests in late May and early June against the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police.
But significant across the US protests continue, including an unsuccessful effort on Monday to establish a “Black House Autonomous Zone,” or BHAZ, outside the White House.
During initial protests over Floyd’s death, large demonstrations near the White House gave way to widespread property damage and looting.
It’s not immediately clear how many National Guard members will be deployed, or if the local DC National Guard will be aided by out-of-state guardsmen.
Out-of-state troops would be controversial. Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser this month demanded that out-of-state guardsmen invited by Mr Trump leave, and House Democrats will vote Friday on DC statehood to back local autonomy.
The Pentagon, the White House and the DC National Guard did not immediately offer comment.
During the initial wave of protests over Floyd’s death, National Guard members bolstered Secret Service and Park Police ranks near the White House and guarded the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial and other sites on the National Mall.
Any effort to guard federal statues in DC would be daunting. The National Park Service controls traffic circles and parks across Washington, many dedicated to men who owned slaves.
CONTROVERSIAL SOUTH CAROLINA STATUE REMOVED
Several hundred people have gathered in Marion Square, in the historic South Carolina city of Charleston, to watch the removal of a statue of former vice-president and slavery advocate John C. Calhoun.
Officials voted unanimously to remove the statue from the downtown square, the latest in a wave of actions arising from protests against racism and police brutality against African-Americans.
Crews in bucket trucks soared more than 30-metres in the air to the top of the pedestal, where they strapped the statue around its shoulders in preparations for its removal using an even taller piece of equipment that appeared to have pulleys attached.
Council members approved the measure 13-0 at a late-day meeting.
The resolution authorised the removal of the statue of the former US vice-president and senator from South Carolina.
City officials said eventually that the Calhoun statue will be placed permanently at “an appropriate site where it will be protected and preserved.
It comes as Joe Biden scores a 14-point lead over Mr Trump ahead of the November election as some Republican-leaning voters reproach Mr Trump for his response to the coronavirus crisis, a poll showed on Wednesday.
In one of Mr Trump’s worst poll showings for the 2020 race, Mr Biden garnered 50 per cent of the vote compared with 36 per cent for the president, according to a survey by the New York Times and Siena College.
CROWDS TEAR DOWN STATUES, STATE SENATOR ‘ATTACKED’
It comes as crowds outside the Wisconsin State Capitol tore down two statues, attacked a state senator, threw a molotov cocktail into a government building and unsuccessfully tried to break into the Capitol building amid protests following the arrest of a black man who shouted at restaurant customers through a megaphone while carrying a baseball bat.
Police officers inside the Capitol used pepper spray against protesters who were trying to gain entry into the historic centre of state government, successfully repelling them, Madison police said.
Governor Tony Evers on Wednesday (local time) said he was prepared to activate the Wisconsin National Guard to protect state properties in the wake of the violence.
“What happened in Madison last night presented a stark contrast from the peaceful protests we have seen across our state in recent weeks, including significant damage to state property,” Gov. Evers said in a statement.
The violence in Madison on Tuesday started after Madison police arrested a protester who came to a restaurant across the street from the Capitol talking through a megaphone with a baseball bat on his shoulder.
Video released by Madison police shows the man talking through the megaphone while walking around the restaurant’s outdoor patio.
He goes inside and paces through the restaurant with the bat on his shoulder, saying he’s “disturbing” the restaurant and talking about God and the police before walking out.
Protesters chanting for the release of the man who had been arrested also broke glass at the Tommy Thompson Centre, named after the state’s former Republican governor, and smashed windows and lights at the state Capitol.
Early on Wednesday (local time), police in riot gear worked to clear a crowd of about 100 people that remained in the area.
One of the statues that was toppled, decapitated and dragged into a lake about 1km away was of Civil War Colonel Hans Christian Heg.
He was an antislavery activist and leader of an anti-slave catcher militia in Wisconsin who fought for the Union and died from injuries suffered during the Battle of Chickamauga.
The other statue taken down from its pedestal and dragged in the street outside the Capitol represents Wisconsin’s motto of “Forward.” The statue had been previously vandalised in past protests with paint thrown on it and graffiti spray painted on and around it.
“Forward” was first installed 125 years ago, but replaced with a bronze replica in 1998. It is placed prominently outside the Capitol, facing the University of Wisconsin campus and the street lined with bars, restaurants and small businesses. That corridor has been the target of much of the vandalism since the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25 in Minneapolis after a white police officer used his knee to pin down the handcuffed Black man’s neck even after Floyd stopped moving.
I took this pic- it got me assaulted & beat up. Punched/kicked in the head, neck, ribs. Maybe concussion, socked in left eye is little blurry, sore neck & ribs. 8-10 people attacked me. Innocent people are going to get killed. Capitol locked- stuck in office.Stop violence nowPlz! pic.twitter.com/Zw2hdfYG66
— Tim Carpenter (@TimCarpenterMKE) June 24, 2020
The destruction followed similar unrest nationwide following Floyd’s death, but in other cities statues of Confederate soldiers and other symbols of slavery were destroyed.
Late on Tuesday in Madison, Democratic state Senator Tim Carpenter was assaulted after taking a mobile phone video of protesters.
Sen. Carpenter posted video he was recording before being assaulted.
“Punched/kicked in the head, neck, ribs,” Sen. Carpenter tweeted around 4am (7pm AEST).
“Maybe concussion, socked in left eye is little blurry, sore neck & ribs. 8-10 people attacked me. Innocent people are going to get killed. Capitol locked – stuck in office. Stop violence nowPlz!”
BUBBA WALLACE ‘P***ED” AT INTEGRITY QUESTIONS
NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace says he’s “p***ed” people are questioning his integrity after the FBI said a noose found in his garage stall was there before his team moved in.
“I’m mad because people are trying to test my character and the person that I am and my integrity,” he told CNN in the US.
NASCAR said it launched an investigation after a crew member discovered the noose last weekend at the Talladega Superspeedway.
In a statement earlier this week, NASCAR said it was “angry and outraged” and called in the FBI to investigate.
Federal authorities then ruled the rope had been hanging there since at least last October and was not a hate crime.
US lawyer Jay Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp Jr. said the investigation determined “nobody could have known Mr Wallace would be assigned” to that same stall. NASCAR said it was the lone garage stall with a pull down rope that resembled a noose.
NASCAR has defended its reaction and insisted it would call the FBI again. A defiant Mr Wallace said there is no confusion and the rope had been fashioned into a noose.
“I wanted to make sure this wasn’t just a knot,” Mr Wallace said on CNN. “It was a noose. Whether it was tied in 2019 … it is a noose.”
PROTESTERS AT ARMED SHOOTING SITE WON’T ‘ALLOW’ COPS
Armed protesters near the Atlanta site where Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot during his arrest earlier this month say police are no longer allowed in the area — which residents say is getting increasingly dangerous, according to new reports.
One man, joined by two others on Tuesday night (local time) near the Wendy’s restaurant in Atlanta where the June 12 shooting occurred, told FOX News that he was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun.
“It’s for me and the rest of our peaceful people, to protect us and also me, because as you guys know, there is no police presence here,” said the man.
“There’s no one else to protect us, so me and my fellow brothers are here to protect each other.”
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“The police aren’t allowed here because they aren’t here to protect us,” he added. “They’re not here to serve and protect anymore.”
If a patrol car does roll up to the site, according to one of the other men, “he’s going to have to leave.”
A third man said protesters will “calmly discuss and converse” with the officers, telling them they aren’t moving and they are peaceful.
A Fox News reporter observed a roadblock with no police in sight.
The Atlanta Police Department told Fox News early on Wednesday (local time) that the department “is monitoring the situation and plans to co-ordinate with community leaders and the Wendy’s property owner to address security issues and help preserve peace for this community as soon as possible.”
Police arrested Natalie White, 29, accused of torching the Wendy’s where Brooks was gunned down by police.
White was granted bond on Wednesday but must wear an ankle monitor and remain at home. She appeared in court by video from the Fulton County jail, where she has been held on a first-degree arson charge since she turned herself in on Tuesday.
The arrest warrant accuses her of setting fire to the Wendy’s restaurant using a torch made with a lighter and some type of can.
Before he was shot, Brooks told officers three times that he had been with a girlfriend named Natalie White that night.
White’s lawyer confirmed that his client is the person Brooks was talking about but has declined to comment further on their relationship, saying only that they were close.
Brooks, 27, was fatally shot by an Atlanta police officer during a foot chase with police in the restaurant’s parking lot. After he failed a sobriety test, he took off running with an officer’s Taser.
As Brooks fled, he turned back and pointed the Taser at officer Garrett Rolfe, who then opened fire.
Rolfe, 27, was fired from the department and charged with murder. The second responding officer, Devin Brosnan, 26, was placed on administrative duty and charged with aggravated assault in connection with the death.