George Floyd

Night of flames and fury as Minneapolis swells with outrage over George Floyd killing

The 3rd precinct station was not the only building that burned overnight, as furious protesters’ demand for justice intensified

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The moment the convoy of police cars crashed through the locked gates out of Minneapolis’s 3rd precinct station and made a dash for safety, the crowd knew that the area was theirs.

Young men climbed on to barriers police had erected in a futile attempt to protect the station, and chanted the name of the African American man whose death at the hands of a white officer from the precinct had set in motion furious protests across Minneapolis and in cities across the country.

George Floyd.

The chant swept the crowd as protesters piled up debris inside the station and set it on fire. Before long, flames licked up the front of the building. A huge cheer went up. Someone let off fireworks.

“No justice, no peace,” came the cry. “Fuck the police.”

But there were no police in sight. A large area around the 3rd precinct, including the Minnehaha shopping mall and streets of businesses, was effectively under the control of the protesters without challenge overnight on Thursday.

By the time the empty police station went up in flames, a handful of other buildings around it were already well ablaze. Others were comprehensively looted as outrage over Floyd’s death drew a widespread peaceful protest to demand justice – in particular the arrest of the officers involved – and an outpouring of anger that turned to destruction.

“Damn right I’m angry,” said Brian Long, an African American man who worked as a mechanic until the coronavirus cut his job. “That cop suffocated George Floyd right there on camera for everyone to see. It was like strangling him with his bare hands. He knew people were watching. He knew he was being filmed.

“He carried on because he had that mindset that the police can kill us and there ain’t nothing we can do about it. Fuck the police.”

Melvin Carter, the mayor of St Paul, which neighbours Minneapolis and saw its own unrest, tweeted an appeal to end the violence and to “keep the focus on George Floyd … and on preventing this from ever happening again”. But many of the protesters were not in the mood.