A memorial service will be held today, Thursday, by George Floyd, after more than a week of massive demonstrations condemning the death of an African-American by suffocation during his arrest by a policeman in Minneapolis.

Rights activist Al Sharpton will lead the ceremony in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the place where Floyd died on May 25 after police arrested him, and the place has become a symbol of protests.

"Tomorrow we will define how to mobilize nationwide in the name of George Floyd, Amoud Arberry, Briona Taylor and others," Al Sharpton wrote on Twitter, referring to the black man who was shot dead while running jogging last February, and a black health worker killed by police in her apartment in Last March.

Protests and reinforcements
Meanwhile, protests continued despite the imposition of curfews and the deployment of the National Guard in many states, which is a component of the reserve army and is not considered a functioning armed force.

Federal and local security forces closed a street parallel to the White House, which witnessed protests over a week.

The authorities have pushed for additional security reinforcements from units of the Federal Forces, National Guard forces, and local police in Washington, to reinforce the security shield around the White House.

In New York, protesters gathered outside the President's Trump Tower to condemn the killing of Floyd. The protesters later marched through most of Manhattan to continue the protest.

New York police announced that one of its members had been shot, and that another policeman was stabbed in the Brooklyn neighborhood before midnight, but it was not clear if the attack was linked to the protests.

10 thousand detainees
The number of arrests during the protests condemning the killing of the American citizen George Floyd at the hands of the police exceeded ten thousand people throughout the states.

The Associated Press reported that the number of detainees increases in hundreds every day, with demonstrations continuing witnessing a heavy presence of security forces, and the application of curfews, noting that the city of Los Angeles witnessed about a quarter of the number of arrests, followed by New York, Dallas and Philadelphia.

The agency added that several detainees were charged with violating the curfew, at a time when hundreds were arrested on charges of pillage and pillage.

Esber and Trump
On the impact of these protests, a discrepancy emerged between the White House and the Pentagon over dealing with the turmoil in the country.

Defense Secretary Mark Esber has sought to distance himself from President Donald Trump's stances toward the protests, and he has not advocated activating a federal law authorizing the president to call in and deploy the armed forces in cities to establish order.

Esber's comments relate to the so-called 1807 rebellion law, which was last used in 1992 to quell riots that followed a brutal police assault on an African-American citizen, Rodney King.

The minister said he did not see the current situation as calling for the deployment of the army, and stressed that the working forces should be used only as a "last resort."

He believed that racism in the United States was "real", stressing the Defense Department's commitment to work to end it, and described Floyd's killing by police officers as a "horrific crime."

Esber said that the Pentagon faces a major challenge in trying to keep its position out of politics, with the presidential elections approaching.

The discrepancy between the White House and the Pentagon has sparked speculation that Trump wants to remove Esber from the post of defense secretary, but White House spokeswoman Kylie McKinney has denied knowledge of the president's position on the minister's statements about his refusal to implement the insurgency law.

New charges
On the other hand, on Wednesday, prosecutors filed new charges against the four Minneapolis city police officers who participated in Floyd's arrest.

Last Friday, the authorities arrested the officer Derek Chauven - who kneeled on his knees on the neck of Floyd (46 years old) - on charges of third degree murder and manslaughter.

But the prosecution yesterday brought Chauvin to the most serious charge of second-degree murder, joined the other three officers in the case, and issued arrest warrants against them on charges of aiding and abetting the commission of a second-degree murder.

The new charge carries a prison sentence of 40 years, which is 15 years longer than the maximum penalty for a third degree murder charge.

Internal criticism
In the context of the criticisms directed against the background of the protests, former Defense Secretary James Mattis - who resigned in protest against the withdrawal of his country's forces from Syria - launched an unprecedented attack on the president, accusing him of seeking to "divide" the United States.

"Trump is the first president of my life to try not to unite the Americans, but he does not even pretend that he is trying to do that," Mattis said in a statement posted on the magazine "The Atlantic" on its website. "Instead, he is trying to divide us."

Former President Barack Obama also spoke again about current developments, expressing his thanks to protesters across the country.

But he said - in a speech during an online seminar on police violence - that the protests were not enough, calling for a heavy vote during the upcoming elections.

"I heard some hadiths mentioning the vote in exchange for protest ... politics and participation versus civil disobedience ... Things are not going this way either this or that, it should be a combination of the two," Obama said.