Nine days after the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a black man asphyxiated by a white police officer, the wave of historic protest knows no respite in the United States. More than a hundred American cities are concerned by the demonstrations of anger in the fifty states, with thousands of arrests and several deaths.
At least 60,000 people paid tribute to the deceased on Tuesday at a peaceful rally in Houston, the Texas city where he grew up and where he is to be buried next week. "We want them to know that George is not dead in vain," said city mayor Sylvester Turner.
In Washington, several thousand people, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, demonstrated until late in the evening, defying the curfew decreed by the municipality from 7:00 p.m. The surrounding area of the White House was blocked by metal barriers, preventing any direct confrontation with the police.
The US capital, where more than 300 protesters were arrested on Monday night, "was the safest place on the planet last night," Donald Trump said on Twitter as the president of "the law and the law". 'order". The American president also paid tribute, Tuesday evening, to a former police officer killed on a scene of looting in St-Louis (Missouri).
In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti posed with the police a knee on the ground, a symbol since 2016 of the denunciation of police violence against the African-American minority.
Calm reigned in Minneapolis, the epicenter of this surge of anger. "I want to be brought to justice because he was good, no matter what people think, he was a good person," George Floyd's partner Roxie Washington said in tears. a press conference.
In New York, where several department stores on famous 5th Avenue were looted Monday evening, the night curfew was brought forward at 8:00 p.m. and extended until Sunday. This did not prevent several hundred demonstrators, black and white, from protesting peacefully chanting "George Floyd, George Floyd" or "Black Lives Matter!" ("the life of blacks counts"), a rallying cry against police violence targeting African-Americans.
"Dominate the streets"
In a muscular speech, the American president announced Monday evening the deployment of "thousands of heavily armed soldiers" and police in Washington to put an end to "the riots" and "the looting". And he called on the governors to "dominate the streets" while threatening to send the army "to quickly resolve the problem for them" if they did not act according to his directives.
Just before his speech, the police had dispersed tear gas from many protesters around the White House to allow the president to walk to an emblematic church degraded the day before.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser protested the sending of the military "to the streets of America against the Americans", an attack resumed by many Democratic governors. Because the crisis, in a country already extremely divided, is taking an increasingly political turn.
Biden accuses Trump of turning country into "battlefield"
Democratic presidential candidate November 3, Joe Biden, accused Donald Trump on Tuesday of "turning this country into a battlefield plagued by old grudges and new fears". During a trip to Philadelphia, he promised to "heal the racial wounds that have plagued our country for so long".
Faced with protests, which occur in the United States where social and racial inequalities are already exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, Donald Trump has remained silent so far on the responses to the evils denounced by the demonstrators. And only very briefly mentioned the "revolt" of the Americans faced with the conditions of the death of George Floyd.
The 46-year-old man died on May 25 while repeating "I can't breathe", lying on the floor, handcuffed and with the neck under the knee of a police officer. Autopsies confirmed that the death was due to pressure on his neck.
With AFP
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