WASHINGTON – Republican senators were split on President Donald Trump’s decision Monday to push back protesters from an area surrounding the White House so he could visit a historic church across the street to take a photo with a Bible.
“I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., in a statement. While there is no right to riot or destroy property, he said, there is a “fundamental — a Constitutional — right to protest.”
The split reaction from Republicans came after another day of protests in the nation’s capital and across the country over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in the custody of Minneapolis police May 25. Former police officer Derek Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death.
During a Monday speech, the president threatened to send the military if cities and states did not put an end to violent protests. As he spoke from the White House, police outside forcibly removed protesters gathered in Lafayette Square with riot shields, flash bangs and chemical agents. A few minutes later, Trump walked through the park andposed for photos with a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, which suffered slight damage after it was set on fire by protesters late Sunday night.
Many Democrats criticized the event as a stunt while some GOP lawmakers joined them in condemning Trump’s actions.
Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s sole black Republican, said he did not approve of the move.
“As it relates to the tear gas situation and the Bible… it’s not something that I thought was helpful or what I would do without any question,” he told Politico. “If your question is: Should you use tear gas to clear a path so the president can go have a photo op? The answer is ‘no.'”
Even close confidants of the president, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also questioned the decision.
“I don’t know what the point the president was trying to make,” he said. “Trying to restore order is a good thing. Attack on a church is a terrible thing. I don’t think it advanced the ball one way or another.”
But other Republicans applauded the president, arguing it sent a message to the rest of the country that the president was going to restore order and keep Americans safe.
“I thought what the president did in visiting the church was not only appropriate, it was needed,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters. “It sent a message to the American people that its government is going to protect the innocent.”
Some Republicans pointed to violence that has broken out in recent days, including in front of the White House, and accused protesters of provoking authorities.
“They know that the police have to move forward on them. That will trigger the use of tear gas. And it plays right into the imagery that they want,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “That was provocation that was created deliberately for national television.”
House Democrats are demanding information about the chain of events that led to peaceful protesters being forcibly removed from the park.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, asked the director of the Secret Service to appear before the committee to brief them on the incident, writing that he was “stunned, disturbed, and furious at the sight of federal authorities tear-gassing peaceful protesters.”
Asked Tuesday whether the president’s conduct merited censure, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said he believed it did warrant such a move but noted the full Democratic caucus had not discussed taking that step. Censuring Trump was discussed last year in the House as an alternative to impeaching him, but Democrats ultimately decided against censure, which is a formal statement of disapproval.
“It is certainly an action worthy and appropriate to censure and to criticize. It was a terrible act,” Hoyer said on a call with reporters Tuesday. “It was an act indicating the total lack of understanding and empathy with the anger and frustration and cry for justice that was being put out simply to facilitate a photo op obviously designed for political purposes, not designed to bring the country together.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo speak during a news conference alongside Mayor Bill de Blasio. | Getty Images
NEW YORK — A visibly shaken Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded with community and religious leaders to help curb the destruction that has begun to spiral out of control in recent days as his longtime adversary Gov. Andrew Cuomo chastised the NYPD’s response and openly speculated about removing the mayor from office.
On the fifth night of demonstrations in New York City, images of looters and police being attacked splashed across social media into the early hours Tuesday morning, even as the city imposed its first curfew in decades and large groups of protesters peacefully demonstrated. The more chaotic elements of the evening drew recriminations hours later from the White House to Albany with President Donald Trump tweeting “CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD” and Cuomo calling for more police presence amid what he saw as a failed response.
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“I am disappointed and outraged in what happened in New York City last night,” Cuomo said during a news briefing Tuesday. “The police in New York City were not effective at doing their job last night. Period. They have to do a better job.”
Cuomo has put state police and 13,000 members of the National Guard on standby and even mused about invoking his statutory power to remove the mayor, but said the police had the capacity to handle the situation on their own.
De Blasio — at a tense news conference during which he snapped at reporters and called on local leaders to take a more active role in the protests — forcefully denounced the idea of allowing organized troops onto city streets, arguing their presence would only ratchet up tensions and heighten the chaos he is trying to tamp down.
“Someone needs a history lesson: When outside armed forces go into communities, no good comes of it,” he said.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea lit into Cuomo later in the day when asked about the governor’s comments during an interview on Fox News.
“Any comments placing the blame for where we are with this situation on the backs of the men and women of this police department that are putting their lives on the line … I think is disgraceful and he should be ashamed of himself,” Shea said. “There is politics and there is what is right. And that is a disgraceful comment.”
Shea also defended de Blasio’s handling of the situation and said more political leaders should show similar support for the NYPD.
“I can tell you definitively that he has the backs of the men and women of this police department,” Shea said. “It is an extremely difficult time. You heard him on the news and you may have heard his comments denouncing the actions of those attacking the cops. And again, what we need is probably less press conferences by many people and more support and more coming out and making difficult decisions that may not be the most popular.”
The mayor has shifted his tone multiple times since the start of the protests, which have been accompanied by violence from the NYPD, attacks on officers and increasingly destructive break-ins on Sunday and Monday night along commercial strips. The mayor at first defended the police department and then chastised officers for an excess of force. He originally said the violence stemmed from “out of town” agitators, then conceded there were homegrown “anarchists” at work. He then on Tuesday blamed gangs and “career criminals” for exploiting protests that have flooded streets and parks in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.
On Tuesday, de Blasio seemed desperate for community leaders to take control of protests and channel more peaceful forces while exiling anyone looking to incite violence.
“Members of the clergy, come out now. I’m calling you out. Civic leaders, block associations, come out now and stand up for peace, stand up for anyone who would do looting, stand up against anyone who would attack a police officer,” he said.
It was unclear whether the administration had laid any of the groundwork to coordinate gatherings before de Blasio’s plea. The mayor’s office has a community affairs unit dedicated to forging and maintaining relationships with residents and organizations across the five boroughs.
Gwen Carr, whose son Eric Garner was killed in a chokehold at the hands of a police officer in 2014, demanded Tuesday that protesters remain peaceful and chided those seeking to exploit the situation.
“This is our movie, and we’re not going to be an extra in our movie,” she said during a press conference. “I am mad and angry about what happened to George Floyd, I am not mad about the protests. I am mad about the looters.”
De Blasio also slammed news outlets and politicians for focusing on looting over peaceful protesters who advocated against destruction. He snapped at the suggestion that police were looking the other way as looters targeted the Macy’s flagship store in Midtown, as well as other commercial strips. He said the NYPD is fully capable of preventing the break-ins and thefts that swept through the city and that a curfew beginning at 8 p.m. Tuesday will be extended through Sunday, the day before the city is set to begin the first phase of reopening.
“There is no such thing as being able to loot with impunity. I am so sick of these efforts to mischaracterize reality,” he told one reporter who asked about images of cops standing by while looters ransacked businesses. “I’ll go right back at you and everyone else who wants to mischaracterize reality.”
With the coronavirus pandemic still raging, de Blasio encouraged protesters to stay home, assured them that their message had been heard and said that reforms are already in motion. The police department would be hastening the disciplinary process and shifting it to identify officers who should not be in a particular location or on the force altogether, though the mayor did not go into detail about what exactly those changes would entail.
When asked about reforms being weighed by the city council to curb police aggression, specifically making it illegal for cops to use the deadly chokehold that killed Garner in 2014, de Blaiso said that he would work with lawmakers and would support legislation as long as it provided officers the ability to use the maneuver in life-threatening situations. The Council is planning to bring the measure, which would also ban other types of neck restraints, for a vote later this month, and earlier in the day Council Speaker Corey Johnson said that he had secured enough votes to override a veto — something the mayor threatened the last time the notion was proposed six years ago.
Cuomo said the mayor seemed out of touch with the gravity of the crisis.
“I believe the mayor underestimates the scope of the problem,” the governor said. “I believe he underestimates the duration of the problem and I don’t think they used enough police to address the situation.”
But to deploy additional troops, Cuomo said he’d have to dramatically reduce the power of the mayor’s office.
“Technically the governor could remove a mayor — you’d have to file charges,” Cuomo said, but added he’s not ready to take that step. “I believe in the inherent capacity of the NYPD if managed and if deployed. That’s what I think hasn’t worked. … That has to be fixed and that has to be fixed today.”
Republican Rep. Pete King chastised Cuomo in defense of the city’s response.
“Time for @NYGovCuomo to realize the NYPD is doing its job. Governor is failing in his,” King said in a tweet. “NYPD is on battlefield risking their lives to protect us. Cuomo sits back in sheltered world second guessing NYPD heroes. Shameful!”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday told employees that he was standing firm in the company’s decision not to moderate a post in which President Donald Trump said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Zuckerberg announced this to employees during a virtual all-hands meeting on Tuesday, according to The New York Times. The decision comes despite public criticism from dozens of employees, many of whom argue that the post from Trump violates Facebook’s community standards, which prohibit language that incites serious violence.
Brandon Dail, a Facebook user interface engineer, tweeted on Tuesday in criticism of Facebook’s leaders.
Zuckerberg’s decision not to moderate the post is in contrast to that of rival Twitter, which placed a label warning users about the president’s violent rhetoric, which they have to dismiss before they can view the tweet. Twitter is also preventing users from liking or retweeting the tweet.
Aside from criticism of the decision, at least two Facebook employees posted on social media that they were leaving the company as a result of the refusal to moderate Trump.
“I cannot stand by Facebook’s continued refusal to act on the president’s bigoted messages aimed at radicalizing the American public,” software engineer Timothy Aveni posted on LinkedIn.
Others in the tech industry also criticized the company for its inaction. Data scientist Ayodele Odubela on Tuesday tweeted a screenshot of her response to a Facebook recruiter, saying she refused to work for a company with policies that she fundamentally disagrees with.
“Your CEO refuses to do anything about the hate speech and violence glorified by our ‘president’ on Facebook,” she wrote.
Facebook has also been criticized by at least two of its partners.
After speaking with Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on Monday, Color of Change President Rashad Robinson tweeted that he was “disappointed and stunned by his incomprehensible explanations for allowing Trump’s incitement of violence against Black people to remain up.” Color of Change is a racial justice organization that has been working with Facebook on a civil rights audit of the social network.
“If regular citizens can get removed from social media sites for inciting violence … we have to have a standard for the most powerful person in the world whose harassments and attacks can lead to the deep levels of violence that we know,” Robinson told CNBC.
Talkspace, a company that provides online therapy, on Monday announced that it was ending a partnership agreement with Facebook after the company’s decision not to moderate Trump’s post.
Entrepreneur Mark Cuban explains importance of standing with the Dallas community against police brutality.
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban reacted on “America’s Newsroom” Tuesday to Joe Biden’s criticism of President Trump’s response to the violence that has erupted following the death of George Floyd while in police custody, saying that the presumptive Democratic nominee “took a page out of the Trump playbook.”
In a 20-minute speech that was carried live by all three major national cable news networks, the former vice president slammed President Trump as being “more interested in serving the passions of his base than the needs of the people in his care” and charged that the president “is part of the problem and accelerates it.”
“So the way I perceived it wasn’t so much as pointing fingers as much as just showing here’s the difference in what I can present versus what our current president is able to present,” Cuban said.
Protests were sparked by the May 25 death of Floyd, a Minneapolis man who died in police custody after an officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes in a moment caught on cellphone video. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired from the force and has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the case.
Crowds across the nation have seized on the racially charged incident to demand justice, but the protests have devolved into riots in many cities, culminating in days of carnage.
On Monday Trump said that he is taking “immediate action” to mobilize “all available federal resources” to stop riots and looting across the country, threatening to deploy the military if states don’t send in the National Guard to protests.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden suggested that police be trained to shoot individuals posing a threat to them “in the leg instead of the heart,” as the country grapples with its national outrage over the murder of George Floyd.
Biden brought up the idea while speaking to African American community leaders Monday at Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware.
The former vice president mostly sat and listened during the event, only speaking at the end to address the comments and concerns they raised.
“Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person coming at them with a knife or something, shoot them in the leg instead of in the heart,” Biden said, going on to argue that “There’s a lot of different things that can change” in police training.
The former VP also made a pledge to those in attendance to “deal with institutional racism,” as well as to set up a police oversight body within the first 100 days of his presidency.
The 2020 hopeful continued by saying that during the Obama-Biden administration, “We set up, in the Justice Department, the ability for the Civil Rights Division to go in and look at the practices and policies of police departments. That’s why we were able to stop stop-and-frisk.”
Biden said he would “re-establish that with more teeth in it, because we also have to fundamentally change the way in which police are trained.”
Joe Biden speaks during a visit to the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware.
Protests and riots erupted across the nation over the weekend in a show of outrage over the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by white police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis last week.
Biden has been dogged throughout his 2020 campaign for his support of the 1994 crime bill, the tough-on-crime legislation that has been blamed for widespread targeting and imprisonment of racial minorities.
Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker praised President Donald Trump for visiting a church across the street from the White House on Monday after law enforcement used tear gas and shields to clear an area of peaceful protesters.
“Hard to imagine any other @POTUS having the guts to walk out of the White House like this,” Walker tweeted along with a black-and-white photo of Trump striding toward St. John’s Episcopal Church along with Secret Service agents and administration officials.
Trump spoke to reporters from the White House Rose Garden Monday as police cleared protesters from Lafayette Park outside. Trump declared himself “your president of law and order” before walking to St. John’s, which sustained fire damage and vandalism on Sunday. Outside the church, he posed for photos while holding a bible aloft.
Trump’s stroll was intended as a show of strength in the face of protests that have shaken Washington and cities across the nation after the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who died when a Minneapolis police officer held him down with a knee on the back of his neck. The protests have culminated in violence in many cities, including Washington, where demonstrators have clashed with police and set fires outside the White House.
Though Walker was awed by the boldness of Trump’s walk, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde told CNN she was “outraged” by it.
“The president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese without permission as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our churches stand for,” she said.
Many commentators have similarly accused the president of attacking the protesters – 30 minutes before Washington’s curfew began – for the sake of a photo-op. And they were quick to heap scorn on Walker for his tweet.
“You’ve got a really messed up idea of what courage looks like,” said NBC News legal contributors Katie Phang said in reply to Walker’s tweet.
“Such bravery,” tweeted historian and author Kevin Kruse along with a photo of Trump flanked by police officers in riot gear.
“Is this a joke?” asked former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. “There were police and Secret Service everywhere. They moved a peaceful crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets for him to take a phony picture. And you think that showed bravery? Sick.”
In response to Walker’s inability to think of any other president who could have matched Trump’s bravery, CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out two previous White House occupants, Dwight Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush, served in World War II.
“Ike was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and JFK and Bush Sr were war heroes during WWII,” Tapper noted. More than two dozen other presidents also served in the military during wartime.
“Somewhere, Ulysses Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, and Abraham Lincoln are looking at this tweet, and scratching their heads,” said journalist Casey Michel.
Rory Cooper, who served as communications director for former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said, “This moment will memorialize one of the darkest decisions by a modern president, and this tweet will memorialize a larger problem within the party.”
At least one user noted that former President Richard Nixon once left the White House and spoke with people protesting the Vietnam War at the Lincoln Memorial.
Others shared footage of occasions when former President Barack Obama walked out of the White House and interacted with people on the streets.
Protests have gripped the US over the past week following the death of George Floyd, an African American man while in police custody.
The Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter but demonstrations have continued in spite of curfews and fears of coronavirus transmission.
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A White House spokesman declined to comment on Biden’s remarks. The Trump campaign accused Biden of using “the politics of racial division” while defending the president’s response to the protest. “President Trump is restoring the nation to order and is clearly the leader we need to return the country to peace and prosperity,” said campaign advisor Katrina Pierson.
As coronavirus lockdowns across the country are lifted, the 2020 presidential campaign is poised to enter a new phase, more closely resembling a traditional campaign with both candidates giving speeches and personally appealing to voters.
As of Tuesday, Biden held a 6-point lead over Trump in the Real Clear Politics average of national presidential polls. Trump is the underdog in his reelection race, having trailed Biden in every major national poll since early February.
Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, has previously said that he decided to run for the White House after hearing Trump say there were “very fine people on both sides” of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched in 2017.
On Tuesday, Biden placed Trump’s leadership squarely in the category of “enemies” confronting the United States.
“We’re facing formidable enemies. They include not only the coronavirus, and the terrible impacts to the lives and livelihoods, but also the selfishness and fear that have loomed over our national life for the last three years,” said Biden.
“I wish I could say that hate began with Donald Trump and will end with him. It didn’t, and it won’t. American history isn’t a fairy tale with a guaranteed happy ending,” Biden said.
“The battle for the soul of this nation has been a constant push and pull for more than 240 years. A tug of war between the American ideal that we’re all created equal, and the harsh reality that racism has torn us apart.”
“The honest truth is both elements are part of the American character. Both elements. At our best, the American ideal wins out. But it’s never a rout. It’s always a fight. And the battle is never fully won,” Biden continued.
“But we can’t ignore the truth that we’re at our best when we open our hearts, rather than clench our fists. Donald Trump has turned this country into a battlefield riven by old resentments and fresh fears. He thinks division helps him. His narcissism has become more important than the nation’s well-being that he leads,” he added. “I ask every American. Look at where we are now, and think anew. Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be?”
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Protests Monday night turned violent leaving a Las Vegas police officer fighting for his life and a suspect in a second shooting dead.
Metro police sources confirm to 8 News Now that a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer who was shot in the head near Circus Circus late Monday night is on life support at UMC.
According to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo who held a news conference at 3 a.m., police were attempting to disperse protesters in front of Circus Circus Hotel & Casino when people in the crowd began throwing bottles and rocks at the officers and the officers began to take some people into custody.
A source told 8 News Now, as one officer was in a struggle with a protester, another person walked up and shot the officer in the back of the head. The shooting suspect was taken into custody around 2 a.m.
“This is a sad night for our LVMPD family and a tragic night for our community,” Lombardo said.
A separate shooting involving police left a man dead near the Lloyd George Federal Building on Las Vegas Boulevard.
According to Sheriff Lombardo, “At approximately 11:22 p.m., officers encountered a subject who was armed with multiple firearms and appeared to be wearing body armor,” Lombardo said. “During the interaction the subject reached for a firearm and the officers engaged him The suspect was struck by gunfire and transported to the hospital where he was pronounced deceased.”
Gov. Steve Sisolak tweeted out that his office is monitoring the situation, writing, “My Office has been notified that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is currently working two separate incidents in Las Vegas. The State is in contact with local law enforcement and continues to monitor the situation.”
My Office has been notified that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is currently working two separate incidents in Las Vegas. The State is in contact with local law enforcement and continues to monitor the situation.
In posts on Twitter and Facebook on Friday, Trump addressed protests over the killing of George Floyd while in police custody, saying, “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” While Twitter flagged the tweet with a warning that it violates the company’s rules about “glorifying violence,” Facebook took no action.
Trump and Zuckerberg had a productive call on Friday, people on both sides of the matter told Axios. CNBC confirmed the call. In a Facebook post that day, Zuckerberg said he personally has “a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric” but defended the decision to maintain
“We’re grateful that leaders in the civil rights community took the time to share candid, honest feedback with Mark and Sheryl. It is an important moment to listen, and we look forward to continuing these conversations,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.
In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley,” Robinson of Color of Change said Monday’s call was not the first time he has engaged directly with Facebook, saying he’s communicated with the company of the years and even had dinner at Zuckerberg’s house. He accused the company of failing to abide by the policies it has created.
“I think it’s important for those who are watching to know that this is not some knee-jerk reaction in the middle of a crisis, this is a representation of work that we had thought we had done together and then when the crisis hits, some of the things that we had achieved, some of the policies that we had moved, have been thrown out the window,” Robinson said. “Mark Zuckerberg talked to Donald Trump right before he decided not to actually remove the content from Facebook’s platforms that Donald Trump had put out around shooting protesters. He didn’t call civil rights leaders on the other side and have conversations about the civil rights implication. When we’ve had conversations about voting rights and discrimination, what becomes clear a couple of steps in is that Mark Zuckerberg probably knows as much about civil rights and about voter suppression as I know about the sort of deep intricacies of coding and building the sort of technological backend of a social media platform.”
Facebook declined further comment further on Robinson’s remarks.
This is not the first time Facebook has been criticized for its approach to civil rights issues. At a congressional hearing last year, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, chair of the Financial Services Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee, grilled Zuckerberg on Facebook’s record on diversity and civil rights. Beatty told Zuckerberg at the time, “It’s almost like you think this is a joke when you have ruined the lives of many people, discriminated against them.”
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As thousands across the US take to the streets for another day of protests demanding justice for George Floyd, more than 17,000 members of the National Guard are standing ready to support local law enforcement.
On top of the District of Columbia, the 23 states that have activated the National Guard are: Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
Jones, 23, a lifelong District resident, joined the third day of protests over police use of force and the killing of George Floyd around lunchtime Sunday. He came to march and chant, to pour his own rage and sorrow into a cause where, he hoped, it might be useful.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Protests Monday night turned violent leaving a Las Vegas police officer fighting for his life and a suspect in a second shooting dead.
Metro police sources confirm to 8 News Now that a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer who was shot in the head near Circus Circus late Monday night is on life support at UMC.
According to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo who held a news conference at 3 a.m., police were attempting to disperse protesters in front of Circus Circus Hotel & Casino when people in the crowd began throwing bottles and rocks at the officers and the officers began to take some people into custody.
A source told 8 News Now, as one officer was in a struggle with a protester, another person walked up and shot the officer in the back of the head. The shooting suspect was taken into custody around 2 a.m.
“This is a sad night for our LVMPD family and a tragic night for our community,” Lombardo said.
A separate shooting involving police left a man dead near the Foley Federal Building on Las Vegas Boulevard.
According to Sheriff Lombardo, “At approximately 11:22 p.m., officers encountered a subject who was armed with multiple firearms and appeared to be wearing body armor,” Lombardo said. “During the interaction the subject reached for a firearm and the officers engaged him The suspect was struck by gunfire and transported to the hospital where he was pronounced deceased.”
Gov. Steve Sisolak tweeted out that his office is monitoring the situation, writing, “My Office has been notified that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is currently working two separate incidents in Las Vegas. The State is in contact with local law enforcement and continues to monitor the situation.”
My Office has been notified that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is currently working two separate incidents in Las Vegas. The State is in contact with local law enforcement and continues to monitor the situation.
Civil rights leaders have criticised Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to take no action against a Facebook post from Donald Trump appearing to threaten to start shooting “looters”, after a Monday night meeting with the company’s executives ended in acrimony.
“We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robison said in a statement. “He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters.
“Mark is setting a very dangerous precedent for other voices who would say similar harmful things on Facebook.”
The three activist leaders – the heads of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Color of Change – met Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, and its chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, on Monday night. They discussed Trump’s Thursday night post, which urged the military to intervene in Minneapolis with the words “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.
The message, originally sent by Trump as a tweet before being cross-posted to Facebook, was restricted on Twitter after the platform decided it broke rules about glorifying violence. On Facebook, Zuckerberg personally intervened to leave the message up, arguing that the company has a policy to allow warnings of the use of force by state actors.
Zuckerberg’s decision led to a “virtual walkout“ of Facebook staff on Monday, with hundreds of employees downing tools in protest. A number of Facebook employees publicly expressed their dissent on rival social networks such as Twitter, and were quickly supported by senior managers at the company.
“We recognise the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our black community,” a Facebook spokesperson told the Guardian. “We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership.” The company would not require walkout participants to take paid time off, Facebook said.
On Monday night, fresh detail about those internal discussions emerged, after the Verge obtained recordings of Zuckerberg speaking at an internal meeting on Friday night.
“How to handle this post from the president has been very tough,” said Zuckerberg. “It’s been something that I’ve been struggling with basically all day, ever since I woke up … This has been personally pretty wrenching for me.
“My first reaction [to Trump’s post] was just disgust,” he added. “This is not how I think we want our leaders to show up during this time. This is a moment that calls for unity and calmness and empathy for people who are struggling.”
Zuckerberg also told employees Facebook would review the policies that allowed Trump’s post to stay up. “There is a real question coming out of this, which is whether we want to evolve our policy around the discussion of state use of force. Over the coming days, as the National Guard is now deployed, probably the largest one that I would worry about would be excessive use of police or military force. I think there’s a good argument that there should be more bounds around the discussion around that.”
The Facebook walkout was followed by sanctioned events at other technology companies. A number of YouTube executives, including the company’s chief business officer and its global head of music, told their teams they could take Tuesday off to participate in the protests, according to the Information.
On Tuesday morning, Spotify followed suit, encouraging employees to join the day of action “by taking time to reflect and educate themselves”.
Twitter’s decision to restrict the Trump tweet – which was followed by a Trump executive order aimed at reducing the platform’s protections against civil claims – has won the backing of the European commission.
The EU executive branch’s vice-president, Věra Jourová, said in her response to the dispute that politicians should answer “criticism with facts, not with threats and attacks”.
“I support Twitter in their efforts to develop and implement a transparent, clear and consistent moderation policy,” Jourová said. “This is not about censorship. This is about flagging verifiably false or misleading information that may cause public harm, linking to reliable information, or flagging content violating their policies.”
Peaceful protesters spent hours in Van Nuys demonstrating against the death in police hands of George Floyd, but that scene was marred by looting that occurred nearby.
From 7:30 a.m. into the afternoon, a large group of protesters peacefully demonstrated at Van Nuys Boulevard and Sylvan Street, chanting Floyd’s name and asking for justice. Several protesters said they didn’t want looters around.
The majority of the protesters who spent the day at the intersection left just before L.A. County’s 5 p.m. curfew. Some remained and were prepared to be arrested.
Dozens of California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles Police Department officers stood side by side along Van Nuys Boulevard, some holding different types of nonlethal force, including bean bag launchers.
Eva Bandikian, the manager at Kovac’s Care Pharmacy, said looters broke the lock on the business and stole “everything,” including cash, the register, medicine and vitamins.
Bandikian watched from the store’s surveillance camera on a feed on her phone as about 10 young people stormed into the pharmacy.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with us,” she said. “They’re angry with the police and with the government.”
About two hours after the break-in, one of the looters walked back by the pharmacy, turned around and laughed, carrying a bag of stolen goods.
As protests sparked by the death of George Floyd entered their seventh night, President Trump made a Rose Garden address Monday in which he vowed to end “the riots and lawlessness” and said he would deploy the U.S. military to states if they can’t manage it on their own. That could be accomplished with a centuries-old law called the Insurrection Act. Here’s what the law involves:
President Donald Trump walks from the White House through Lafayette Park to visit St. John’s Church … [+] Monday.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
KEY FACTS
Signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807, the Act gives the commander-in-chief the ability to deploy the military to squash civil disorder, rebellion or insurrection within the U.S.
The Act was last used to suppress the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which took place after the acquittal of four white police officers in the savage beating of Rodney King, a black man, that was caught on video.
Governors have the ability to ask the federal government to send in troops to assist with squashing civil unrest, NBC News reported, but none have done so, opting instead to rely on local law enforcement and National Guard troops (which are Army and Air Force reserves).
A section of the act states that a president can deploy troops without a direct request in cases of rebellion or “unlawful assemblages” that make it impractical to enforce the law in a normal fashion.
Another law that works in tandem with the Insurrection Act, called the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, prohibits active-duty troops from being deployed to U.S. states for routine use as police forces.
In order to deploy troops without a governor’s go-ahead, Trump would have to issue a proclamation ordering “insurgents” to disperse and go home within a limited timeframe, according to NBC.
Chief critics
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told CNN that he would say “thanks, but no thanks” to the federal government’s offer to send in troops, while Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker told the network, “I reject the notion that the federal government can send troops into the state of Illinois.”
Key background
Other previous uses of the Insurrection Act occurred during the 1968 riots sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and to protect the Little Rock Nine in 1957. In an earlier press briefing with reporters Monday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany left open the possibility of Trump invoking the Act, saying “it’s one of the tools available, whether the president decides to pursue that, that’s his prerogative.” Trump’s Rose Garden address took place while protesters were being cleared by military police with tear gas and flashbangs from the vicinity of nearby St. John’s Church, church where presidents attend services. After his address, Trump, along with an entourage that included Attorney General William Barr, McEnany and daughter Ivanka Trump, walked outside the White House gates and across Lafayette Park to visit St. John’s. Once there, he posed for pictures outside holding up a Bible, and departed shortly thereafter.
Tangent
During the last usage of the Insurrection Act in 1992, Barr was also serving in as attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration.
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