Army deployed to US streets for first time since 1992 LA riots as George Floyd protests kick off

An active duty military police battalion is deploying to Washington, DC, as more protests against police killings of black people kick off in the Capitol, Philadelphia, New York and other cities on Monday evening, just hours after violent riots broke out across the country. 

Between 200 and 250 military personnel from a unit at Fort Bragg in North Carolina are on their way to DC and could arrive as soon as tonight, three Pentagon officials told CNN.    

The deployment marks the first time that the Army has been sent in to patrol US streets in nearly 30 years since the 1992 Los Angeles riots sparked by the brutal police custody death of Rodney King. 

The troops are expected to provide security in the capital but will not perform law enforcement duties such as arrest and detention of protesters or rioters, per CNN.  

Hundreds of people gathered for a peaceful demonstration near the White House on Monday evening as President Donald Trump gave brief remarks in the Rose Garden. 

Trump told reporters his administration is ‘fully committed’ to serving justice for George Floyd, but said he believed the looters and violent protests are distracting from that goal. 

He declared himself the ‘president of law and order’ and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to mobilize ‘thousands and thousands’ of soldiers around the country to ‘end riots and lawlessness’.  

While Trump spoke, police were heard firing tear gas and deploying flash bangs in an effort to disperse protesters chanting: ‘Don’t shoot’ in Lafayette Park outside the White House.  

Meanwhile, police and protesters in Philadelphia clashed on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as officers used tear gas and sprayed chemicals into the crowds, causing them to scatter.  

And in New York City, large crowds convened in Times Square, with many protesters lying on the ground or kneeling with their arms behind their backs in a powerful message to law enforcement.    

The US has been rocked by six straight nights of tumult since George Floyd, a black man, was killed in Minneapolis after a white police officer pinned him to the ground by kneeling on his neck last Monday.  

Floyd, 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, has sparked days of protests in Minneapolis that quickly spread to cities across America.  

Speaking in the Rose Garden on Monday, Trump said: ‘All Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd.

‘My administration is fully committed that for judge and his family, justice will be served. He will not have died in vain. 

‘But we cannot allow the righteous cries of peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob. The biggest victims of the rioting is peace loving citizens in our poorest communities. And as their president, I will fight to keep them safe. I will fight to protect you.

‘I am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters. but in recent days, our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa and others.’ 

He then revealed his intention to invoke the Insurrection Act, saying: ‘I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them. I am also taking swift and decisive action to protect our great capitol, Washington, DC. What happened in this city last night was a total disgrace.’ 

‘Those who threaten innocent life and property will be arrested, detained and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I want the organizers of this terror to be on notice that you will face severe criminal penalties and lengthy sentences in jail.’

While many of the demonstrations around the country have been peaceful protests by racially diverse crowds, others have descended into violence – despite curfews in many cities across the US and the deployment of thousands of National Guard members over the past week. 

In Minneapolis on Monday, Floyd’s brother, Terrence, pleaded for peace at the site where the black man was pinned to the pavement by officer Derek Chauvin, saying violence is ‘not going to bring my brother back at all’. 

‘Let’s switch it up ya’ll. Let’s switch it up. Do this peacefully, please,’ Terrence Floyd said. 

The crowd chanted: ‘What’s his name? George Floyd!’ and ‘One down, three to go!’ in reference to the four officers involved in Floyd’s arrest. 

Chauvin has been charged with murder, but protesters are demanding that his colleagues be prosecuted too. All four were fired. 

Monday’s Minneapolis gathering was part rally and part impromptu eulogy as Floyd urged people to stop the violence and use their power at the ballot box.

‘If I’m not over here messing up my community, then what are you all doing?’ he said. 

‘You all are doing nothing. Because that’s not going to bring my brother back at all.’ 

The country has been beset by angry demonstrations for the past week in some of the most widespread racial unrest in the US since the 1960s. 

Spurred in part by Floyd’s death, protesters have taken to the streets to decry the killings of black people by police.

While police in some places tried to calm tensions by kneeling or marching in solidarity, officers elsewhere were accused of treating protesters with the same kind of heavy-handed tactics that contributed to the unrest in the first place.  

Around the country, political leaders girded for the possibility of more of what unfolded over the weekend: protesters hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails at police in Philadelphia, setting a fire near the White House and smashing their way into Los Angeles stores, running off with as much as they could carry.

At least 4,400 people have been arrested for offenses such as stealing, blocking highways and breaking curfew.

President Trump has berated most of the nation’s governors as ‘weak’ for not cracking down harder on the lawlessness that has convulsed cities from coast to coast.  

He told the nation’s governors in a video conference that they they ‘look like fools’ for not deploying even more National Guard members. 

‘Most of you are weak,’ he said.

‘You’ve got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll never see this stuff again.’

Over the weekend the Pentagon reportedly took the rare step of ordering the Army to put several active-duty US military police units on the ready to deploy to Minneapolis.

Soldiers from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Drum in New York had been ordered to be ready to deploy within four hours if called, according to three people with direct knowledge of the orders. 

Soldiers in Fort Carson, in Colorado, and Fort Riley in Kansas were also told to be ready within 24 hours. 

The people did not want their names used because they were not authorized to discuss the preparations.

The get-ready orders were sent verbally on Friday, after Trump asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper for military options to help quell the unrest in Minneapolis after protests descended into looting and arson in some parts of the city.

Trump made the request on a phone call from the Oval Office on Thursday night that included Esper, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and several others.

The president asked Esper for rapid deployment options if the Minneapolis protests continued to spiral out of control, according to one of the people, senior Pentagon official who was on the call.

‘When the White House asks for options, someone opens the drawer and pulls them out so to speak,’ the official said.

The person said the military units would be deployed under the Insurrection Act, which was last used in 1992 during the riots in Los Angeles that followed the Rodney King trial. 

Roughly 800 US soldiers would deploy to the city if called.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz ordered 500 of his National Guard troops into Minneapolis, St Paul, and surrounding communities.

But a Pentagon spokesman said Walz did not ask for the Army to be deployed to his state.

‘The Department has been in touch with the Governor and there is no request for Title 10 forces to support the Minnesota National Guard or state law enforcement.’ Title 10 is the US law that governs the armed forces, and would authorize active duty military to operate within the US.

Active-duty forces are normally prohibited from acting as a domestic law enforcement agency. But the Insurrection Act offers an exception.

The Insurrection Act will allow the military to take up a policing authority it otherwise would not be allowed to do, enforcing state and federal laws, said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas School of Law professor who specializes in constitutional and national security law.

The statute ‘is deliberately vague’ when it comes to the instances in which the Insurrection Act could be used, he said. 

The state’s governor could ask Trump to take action or Trump could act on his own authority if he’s determined that the local authorities are so overwhelmed that they can’t adequately enforce the law, Vladeck said.

‘It is a very, very broad grant of authority for the president,’ he added. 

Former President Barack Obama on Monday condemned the use of violence at nationwide protests over racial inequities and excessive police force while praising the actions of peaceful protesters seeking reform. 

The vast majority of protesters have been peaceful, but a ‘small minority’ were putting people at risk and harming the very communities the protests are intended to help, Obama wrote in an online essay posted on Medium. 

Obama said the violence was ‘compounding the destruction of neighborhoods that are often already short on services and investment and detracting from the larger cause.’ 

Obama’s latest remarks came three days after his first comments on the Floyd case, which called for justice but did not mention the violent nature of some protests. 

His shift in tone on Monday came as some protesters have set fires, smashed windows and looted stores, forcing mayors in large cities to impose nighttime curfews.