# data[].attributes.headline
“That is too much power for a man to have”  - White cop  

# data[].attributes.subject
“That is too much power for a man to have”  - White cop  

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
PROVIDENCE - The streets of Providence erupted into chaos early Tuesday morning over the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died last week in Minneapolis after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Mayor Jorge Elorza on Tuesday morning said 65 people were arrested, 35 of them were from the city, while five were from out of state; the rest were from other cities or towns in Rhode Island. The police had earlier reported 40 arrests.

Several Providence police officers and state troopers were hit by bricks, according to Rhode Island State Police Col. James Manni. Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven M. Paré said Tuesday morning that four to five Providence officers were injured and four to five state troopers were injured, some were treated and released from hospitals, other "weren't even treated," he said.

At around midnight, more than 300 people, most of them youth, gathered in front of the Providence Place mall where they blocked Francis Street and faced off with dozens of Providence police officers and state troopers.

A police cruiser was set on fire, sending a giant, swirling plume of black smoke into the air.

Protesters hurled objects at the mall windows and some of them gained entry into the building. At one point, flashing alarms began to go off inside the mall.

Elorza issued the following statement on Tuesday morning: "Last night's incidents were devastating for our community who has already experienced so much unrest and pain. Violence is never the answer and we need collective action- one that is productive, not destruction of our small businesses, who have been impacted so much already and by putting others safety at risk.

"Now is the time to focus on finding safe ways to be allies with our Black neighbors and to come together to support our business community as they rebuild and we all recover," Elorza said.

The tumultuous morning fell in line with a pattern many cities have seen in recent days of peaceful protests by day and destructive riots after dark that are the result of mounting of anger over the repeated killings of black Americans by police. A peaceful protest in Providence on Saturday organized by Black Lives Matter Rhode Island drew about 2,000 people to the State House and concluded with no arrests.

The actions early Tuesday morning were not organized by Black Lives Matter Rhode Island. A flier of unknown origin reading "Providence Looting 12:00 AM Tonight! (Expletive) The Police" circulated on social media the previous day.

At one point Tuesday morning, a protester held up her cellphone to a line of Providence police officers and asked them one-by-one, "Would you have intervened in George Floyd's death?"

The situation in front of the mall grew more tense as protesters pushed in closer to the building and officers tried to force them back. Officers handcuffed some protesters.

A tactical unit in riot gear arrived before 2 a.m. and law enforcement began to fire what appeared to be tear gas canisters into the crowd.

Many young people then ran from the scene, some of them with watering eyes. One young woman knelt to the ground in front of the Amtrak station and pulled a sweatshirt over her face.

An ambulance arrived just after 2 a.m.

Even as the crowd in front of the mall began to disperse, the early morning hours continued to be punctuated by the sounds of fireworks exploding, glass shattering and police sirens wailing.

Throughout downtown Providence, windows of apartment buildings, hotels and businesses were smashed and shattered glass covered the sidewalks.

Protesters broke windows and "ransacked" the bar at Cafe Nuovo, a restaurant at One Citizens Plaza, the restaurant said in a Facebook post.

The William E. Powers building, which houses the state Department of Administration, was among the buildings damaged. The building, located across from the Rhode Island State House, is closed on Tuesday morning.

As of 3 a.m., large groups of officers in full tactical gear were patrolling the streets in formation.

- With reports from Journal Staff Writer Tom Mooney.

mlist@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7121

On Twitter: @madeleine_list

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
65 arrested, 8 to 10 police injured in Providence protest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
PROVIDENCE - The streets of Providence erupted into chaos early Tuesday morning over the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died last week in Minneapolis after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.Mayor Jorge Elorza on Tuesday morning said 65 people were arrested, 35 of them were from the city, while five were from out of state; the rest were from other cities or towns in Rhode Island.

# data[].attributes.body
Film/Book

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An emotional Terrence Floyd demanded that rioters stop violence and protest his brother George Floyd's killing peacefully as he visited the scene in Minneapolis where George was asphyxiated by police officers.

Crying, kneeling, and praying at the intersection where his older brother died, Terrence Floyd told supporters on Monday that rioting and acts of violence "will not bring my brother back".

More:

"I understand you're upset ... but if I'm not over here wildin' out, if I'm not over here blowing up stuff, if I'm not over here messing up my community - then what are y'all doing? Nothing, because that's not going to bring my brother back at all," Floyd said angrily over a loudspeaker.

"So let's do this another way. Let's stop thinking that our voice don't matter and vote ... because it's a lot of us and we still going to do this peacefully."

Floyd then led the crowd in a chant of, "Peace on the left and justice on the right."

Nationwide peaceful protests - which have descended into violence and rioting at times and have been met at times with excessive force by authorities - continued for a seventh day on Monday with calls for justice for Minnesota resident Floyd who died on May 25.

'Dominate the streets'

US President Donald Trump threatened to deploy the military to states if their governors did not stamp out violent protests over police brutality, which have swept the country following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in police custody.

His announcement on Monday came as police under federal command forced back peaceful demonstrators with tear gas so he could walk to a nearby church and pose with a Bible.

Trump said he was recommending that governors deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to "dominate the streets" and if they failed to do so, he said he would deploy the US military and "quickly solve the problem for them".

"We cannot allow the righteous cries of peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob," he said at a White House briefing. "The biggest victims of the rioting are peace-loving citizens in our poorest communities and, as their president, I will fight to keep them safe."

Minutes before Trump began speaking, police and National Guard soldiers began aggressively forcing back hundreds of peaceful protesters who had gathered in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, where they were chanting against police brutality and Floyd's death in Minneapolis.

As Trump spoke, tear gas canisters could be heard exploding.

With the area clear outside the White House, Trump then made an unexpected walk from his residence, across Lafayette Park - where protests have taken place for days - to the historic St John's Episcopal Church, which was damaged during unrest the night before.

He paused for an apparent photo-op, posing with members of his administration, and holding up a Bible.

Al Jazeera's Mike Hana, reporting from Washington, DC, said: "The timing and sequence of events point to one possible interpretation, that a peaceful protest was disrupted to allow the president of the United States a photo opportunity."

The president is calling out the American military against American citizens.

He used the military to push out a peaceful protest so he could have a photo op at a church.

It's all just a reality TV show for this president.

Shameful.
- Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 1, 2020

The moment was quickly decried by Trump's critics as well as the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington who said she was "outraged" by the the president's visit.

"He took the symbols sacred to our tradition and stood in front of a house of prayer in full expectation that would be a celebratory moment," the Reverend Mariann Budde said in an interview with AP.

Autopsy reports

Anger is running high across the country since Floyd died last week after being pinned to the pavement by a police officer who put his knee on the handcuffed Black man's neck until he stopped breathing.

Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on Floyd's neck, has been fired and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Demonstrators are demanding the arrest of the three other officers involved in the incident, who have been fired.

The state and private autopsy reports released on Monday both ruled Floyd's death a homicide.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner said he died of "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual restraint, and neck compression", according to a Minneapolis television station.

Al Jazeera's Jonh Hendren, reporting from Minneapolis, said the county coroner's findings were "slightly contradicted" by the independent autopsy report that was also released on Monday.

"That one was much stronger; it said he died directly as a result of force placed upon his breathing tube by the police officers and not just the one that has a knee on the neck, the other two who were sitting on his back also choked the air out of him by collapsing his lungs - according to that report, confirming the homicide."

Violence continues

In St Louis, four police officers were hit by gunfire after protests that started peacefully on Monday became violent overnight, with demonstrators smashing windows and stealing items from businesses and fires burning in the downtown area.

The police department tweeted early Tuesday the officers were taken to a hospital with wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening. It was unclear who had fired the shots.

Demonstrations erupted from Philadelphia, where hundreds of protesters spilled onto a highway in the heart of the city, to Atlanta, where police fired tear gas at demonstrators, to Nashville, where more than 60 National Guard soldiers put down their riot shields at the request of peaceful protesters who had gathered in front of Tennessee's state Capitol to honour Floyd.

Two people were killed during protests in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, authorities said, but provided no details. In Louisville, Kentucky, riot police firing tear gas scattered several hundred protesters from downtown, violently capping a day of mostly peaceful protests.

A vehicle ploughed through a group of law enforcement officers at a demonstration in Buffalo, New York, injuring at least two.

In New York City, where nightfall has brought widespread scenes of destruction, large crowds rallied peacefully in Times Square and Brooklyn during the day. Then, in the early evening, looters rushed into a Nike store in Manhattan and protesters smashed storefront windows near Rockefeller Center.

New York joined other cities around the country in imposing a curfew after days of unrest.

Protesters have remained undeterred by curfews and the presence of the US National Guard in some cities.

More curfews were imposed on the nation's biggest city, New York, as well as Washington, DC as they brace for several more days of protests.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Another way': George Floyd's brother says violence must stop

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An emotional Terrence Floyd demanded that rioters stop violence and protest his brother George Floyd's killing peacefully as he visited the scene in Minneapolis where George was asphyxiated by police officers. Crying, kneeling, and praying at the intersection where his older brother died, Terrence Floyd told supporters on Monday that rioting and acts of violence "will not bring my brother back".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
MINNEAPOLIS - After a week of mushrooming protests and, in some cities, looting and violent clashes with police, the younger brother of George Floyd arrived Monday at the Minneapolis intersection where Floyd's life came to an end a week ago.

Terrence Floyd cried and knelt in prayer. He offered the crowd amassed around him the family's hopes for peaceful protests and additional arrests in connection with his brother's death. And he ultimately led the crowd through a series of chants, including "Peace on the left, justice on the right," as if to say the two must go hand in hand.

Floyd arrived at the intersection around 1 p.m., the first time a member of his family had visited the spot where George Floyd died after a police officer kept a knee on his neck for more than eight minutes.

When Terrence Floyd arrived, he was so emotional that two unidentified men stood on either side of him, and at points kept him from falling. George Floyd was a member of a religious Texas family. So his brother knelt, wept and prayed amid the flowers, protest signs, balloons, candles and other mementos left at the spot where George Floyd died.

Among the signs a few feet from a praying Terrence Floyd was one black and white placard bearing George Floyd's last words, "I Can't Breathe." Most who gathered to watch the somber moment were wearing masks, including Terrence Floyd. His mask bore his brother's image and the words, "WE CAN'T BREATHE."

Eventually the crowd began to yell, "Take a knee!" More than 50 people did.

"First of all, first of all," Terrence Floyd said. "If I'm not over here wilin' out, if I'm not over here blowing up stuff, if I'm not over here messing up my community - then what are y'all doing? Nothing, because that's not going to bring my brother back at all."

"So let's do this another way," he said. "Let's stop thinking that our voice don't matter and vote...because it's a lot of us and we still going to do this peacefully."

Terrence Floyd then lead the crowd in a chant of, "Peace on the left and justice on the right."

Floyd thanked the crowd for its support and implored people to continue to press for justice in connection with his brother's death. Then came a chant referring to the fact that only one of the four officers involved in the fatal encounter has been arrested and charged with a crime: "One down, three to go."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'That's not going to bring my brother back': George Floyd's brother calls for end to violence

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
MINNEAPOLIS - After a week of mushrooming protests and, in some cities, looting and violent clashes with police, the younger brother of George Floyd arrived Monday at the Minneapolis intersection where Floyd's life came to an end a week ago. Terrence Floyd cried and knelt in prayer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Malcolm X’s Fiery Speech Addressing Police Brutality