pretty ugly in many instances in these cities and i've got to say that in many years of reporting in the united states i've never seen this kind of nationwide explosion of protest sometimes violent protest i think you'd have to go back to 968 and the reaction to the assassination of dr martin luther king to find something that is this widespread. all right rob reynolds that live for us in los angeles covering events there rob thank you. hello i'm darren jordan this is al jazeera bringing you extended coverage of the unrest right across the united states over the death of george floyd in minneapolis protests have spread to more than a dozen cities from new york to los angeles where we have reporters standing by in

5 major cities the 1st let's take a look at what's happening across the country the mayors of los angeles that land denver and portland have announced nighttime curfew is in an effort to stop more violent demonstrations minneapolis announced the measure on friday off the shots were looted and cars and buildings set on fire. but no protests have broken out in los angeles where a police cruiser was set on fire all the demonstrations have been held in miami and chicago and in minnesota where george floyd died the governor says he's fully mobilizing the national guard for the 1st time in the state's history but warns he still doesn't have enough troops. president trump says the oath already is then need to get tougher on his offer to send in the national military. police officer derek sjodin has been charged with george. but there are other officers who were present to be charged over his death let's go 1st to new york and talk to gabriel

elizondo you've been following these protests all day this is day 3 now all of those protests in new york just bring us up to date with what you've been seeing there on the streets. you know we've seen tens of thousands of mostly young people but not all on the streets of all over new york all the way from above central park in the harlem area they've marched all the way down to times square and then down to where we're at the brooklyn bridge it's mostly dispersed here several 1000 of the protesters went over the brooklyn bridge and you see behind me there as you can see there some are officers still sort of milling around. around here some other protesters have left to go more back north to the city but it's mostly at least in this area dispersed but what we saw was huge huge crowds late this afternoon of people all out here wanting their voices heard protests that we haven't seen in new york city for years i want to bring in one of the protesters to talk to now her

name is carolyn nixon how are you think that various parts let me ask you why why did you why are you here today protesting the murders of george floyd and brianna taylor. what particularly you said about george ford's word or you feel you have to be here today well i think that america is sick and we have to root out racism and i think that white people need to stand up and do something instead of sitting on their couch and posting on their instagram stories a lot of people out here you're 22 it's a lot of young people right what particularly is driving you here is such a young person wanting to be here. well this is i mean new york city this is not my city and i feel like we as young people need to step up this is our time and if you're missing out on it i feel like you're not doing your duty this is simply like my duty like everyone should be doing it's not heroic it's not great it just needs to be done you're obviously caucasian white do you feel there's

a lot of people out here from all different backgrounds or in this city's. do you feel that you are giving a special meaning to your protest here or no not at all like i'm just part of everyone else and i just wish that more white people would show up and use their privilege and their platform forget their signs what does it say what does it mean racism is by race what do you mean by that it means that. racism is like penetrating every element of our society and to this point it feels like it's like like overwhelming and really the virus instead of front of us although i heard a virus say it like it acts like black people specifically here more intensely because of racism so racism is the true virus last question how long are you going to stay out here protesting in the coming i was here yesterday i got pepper sprayed in the face by. these police officers. my friends

were beat with clubs. so i'm going to stay. here as long as i can. thank you very much a no he's talking out of here so you just heard one perspective there young woman 22 years old from california has lived here in new york for a year out on the streets by herself to take part in really what are becoming these historic protests not only here in new york but throughout the united states we know that new york city has been battling with the coronavirus will sort of the official response and we've seen from the man from the governor and all the single police on the streets now. well we certainly are seeing more police are seeing some here behind me if i pivot around you can see another caravan or another few bands of police this is just a small portion of the police that are spread out throughout the city right now so the short answer is yes we are seeing more police but they don't necessarily want

to instigate anything either as we saw some of that on friday night in brooklyn where it seemed like the police were using very heavy handed tactics as you heard from carol in there a few minutes ago in terms of coronavirus it's still very much an issue here in new york city oh see most people are wearing masks the mayor and the governor while they are supporting these protests they say and they too want justice for george floyd according to the mayor the governor they are saying be careful we need to social distance as well so it's really remarkable that we're dealing with these historic protests why don't we hear about the u.s. at a time of a pandemic that we haven't seen in 100 years in the u.s. so so you're seeing young people saying we care about the coronavirus an epidemic but we care more about their words justice and that's why you're seeing them saying we are going to gather by the thousands to march through the streets because they're saying they cannot be silent just because there's been this pandemic going on in terms of the mayor and the governor they both say they support these protests

do not want anything to turn violent most of the young people we talk to don't want to hear much from our politicians right now a lot of them feel they need to. issue here all right there on the streets all right i gave is on the gate thank you very much indeed for the update there from new york let's cross over to los angeles now and talk to rob reynolds again rob we were talking to you earlier about there was some violence on the streets there we know a police cruiser was overturned and burned set on fire what more have you been hearing there. yeah more cars have been set on fire police cruisers about 5 of them are have been damaged or set on fire derren. at least one police officer has been injured. and taken away for medical treatment a number of protesters have been arrested we don't know exactly how many at this point it does not appear that any buildings have been set alight by the protesters this is taking place primarily in an area of los angeles to the west of downtown

known as the fairfax district it's an upscale entertainment and shopping area that is very popular or at least was popular when there was entertainment and shopping before the coronavirus pandemic hit but it is sort of symbolic i think of of wealth and these protests also took place in beverly hills which is synonymous with wealth so i think that clearly was was was by design the protesters are facing off at various intersections with police the mayor of los angeles eric garcetti is emphasizing that the police are showing restraint the same thing coming from michael moore the police chief in los angeles and they're trying not to exacerbate the situation by any show of heavy handed force but there is a concern for safety of course these vehicles that you see burning there could be

exploding tires there could be other kinds of dangers fumes coming from them and just look at that crowd of people as as gave was saying just a moment ago we're in the middle of a pandemic response to be socially distancing but that huge crowd of people all packed together i fear for the consequences of some of those people in that crowd if they are exposed to the pandemic virus but again. as gabe did point out a lot of these young people primarily young people but not all believe that this is a cause that they must turn out on the streets for to protest even at the risk of their to their health which is which is very real there and rob you were telling us earlier that los angeles has seen race related protests in the past i mean how did that how did these current. how does this kind of unrest compare to those riots

from from some years ago. there were the watts riots in the 1960 s. they were caused again by police killing a black person. in the course of the police activity there were the 1992 riots so-called rodney king riots rodney king was a motorist who was led police on a high speed chase and was dragged from his vehicle and then beaten on camera for 15 minutes by white police officers when those white police officers were acquitted of any crime in 1902 the city experienced a enormous spasm of violence so you could see the through line here it is related to the interactions deadly sometimes interactions between police and black residents of american cities and that that is the the the

the scarlet thread if you will that runs through this fabric of civil unrest all right to robin is there live for us in los angeles rob thank you for the update let's cross over now to the scene in minneapolis and talk to al jazeera has john hendren john so many are police things have been pretty quiet behind you now but but we know that they're probably gearing up for another night of protests just bring us up to date of what's happening on the streets there where you are. that's right there and it's a peaceful scene here now you can see behind me people are gathering there listening to people speak there you know there are people handing out food to each other water that sort of thing it's a very calm and peaceful scene this afternoon but don't let that fool you last night it was a raucous scene here there was a confrontation barricades were erected just over there under that office depot sign there were police on one side those police were standing in a line trying to make sure the protesters would go any further the protesters dared them and then from about 50 yards or so apart as the protesters moved forward the

police fired tear gas and pushed them back we got a whiff of that as we were nearby but managed to avoid the worst of it and then there were fires set numerous fires wouldn't be able to see them now but. just over my left shoulder there is a building about $100.00 yards back just under that bridge and it was fully engulfed in flames flames that lit up the electrical wires and out of camera view there's also a kmart department store here that was looted last night that was probably lucky to have escaped yet another fire and those fires were so bad and the demonstrators had such control of the ground the fire trucks simply couldn't get to them and that's one of the reasons why the governor is calling in a 1000 extra net national guard troops because he felt that they were overwhelmed he said they simply couldn't they didn't have the manpower to escort those fire

trucks to the fires and that meant that the protesters were really in control of a large part of the city and having covered a number of these events in new york chicago ferguson missouri elsewhere i got to tell you i've rarely seen protesters have this strong control of the ground there are a number of different agendas some are peaceful demonstrators most of them i would say are some of them are doing damage to property and then you've got the looters who seem to just be op. tunis but they've certainly got control of this territory tonight will be another test with a curfew and with a 1000 extra national guard troops as to who controls this turf yeah john i was in a saying you know the governor says he is fully mobilizing the national guard for the 1st time in the state's history but it's not likely do you think to inflame the situation even more particularly in the nighttime hours. that's a very good question and we won't know until the end of the evening but certainly having a 1000 extra national guard troops will cause some confrontations there is definitely

resentment among the demonstrators here as to what they see as the military occupancy of this area and a 1000 more troops are going to do any good but from the city's perspective they're trying to protect property and they've simply lost control and the governor said yesterday they were overwhelmed and so they felt that they had to do something in order to stop all of this property damage the protesters are really calling for the arrest of all 4 of those officers who were involved in the death of george floyd one of them has been arrested and charged with murder it's very serious charge in a rare charge against a police officer but there are 3 others and they and many in the crowd that we've spoken to say they won't rest until all 4 of those officers have been arrested and charged and lord knows even after that i mean these protests of have spread across the country it's hard to say when this movement will end or has john hendren there live for us in minneapolis john thank you notes call someone out to chicago and talk to to natasha good name matushka so things for the moment seem pretty quiet

behind you that tell us what's been happening. well from what i understand things are calm now that wasn't the case several hours ago after overnight protests and clashes between protesters and police this afternoon once again protesters clashed with police there was a protest that began at the federal plaza about midday afternoon at one point it's estimated there were about $3000.00 people people began marching downtown group splintered off another group began protesting in front of the trump tower we understand that 3 police officers were injured though those injuries appear to be minor but there were scenes of 2 police cars break painted with profanity protesters rocking back a police van reports of protesters hurling water bottles and firecrackers another one burning a flag so again it's clear that there is still quite

a lot of anger and tension you have to bear in mind that there has been a stay at home order that is still in place in chicago even though the rest of the state is starting to open up that is because the chicago area has a pretty consistent and increasing rate of coded 1000 cases the mayor here in chicago her name is lori lightfoot she is also the city's 1st female african-american mayor has said that she understands that the death of george floyd has quote an earth generations of pain and anger over african-americans and communities of color and their interactions with police but she is asking people to be peaceful she says she understands that people want to express their outrage but they need to do so without endangering property she's also reminding people that because of the pandemic people need to wear masks and they need to social distance

as i said overnight more than 100 people were arrested again. dozen police officers were injured about a dozen squad cars or damage so it would be interesting to see derren were about what maybe an hour away from sunset to see if protestors returned this evening it's worth mentioning that to try to choke off the protesters marching in dispersing. throughout the downtown area at one point the illinois illinois state police did shut down access to several exits along the highway natasha you mentioned lori lightfoot the mayor of chicago talking earlier we have a sound bite from a listening to what she had to say. his goal is to polarize to destabilize local government and inflame racist urges and we can absolutely not let him prevail. and i will code what i really want to say to donald trump it's 2 words

it begins with f. and it ends with you. i will not remain silent while this man cynically tries to turn this incredibly painful moment into one for his own political gain. so some very strong words there from the like for the mayor of chicago of course you were telling us earlier that chicago has a big effect on american community what is the underlying feeling there you've been talking to people what are they saying to you. i'll get to that a minute but i do want to put that comment into a little bit more of contacts for our viewers the mayor has said friday and said today that she believes that president donald trump is quote inciting violence she made that very choice rebuke in response to aids by president probably i'm sorry just give me as i get to wait for this these motorcycles to go by. he tweeted

that quote when the looting starts the shooting starts now that has racial undertones because it was a comment made by a miami police chief during the civil rights movement describing how the police would respond to violence in african-american community now trump walked back that tweet and said he did not know about its history you're asking me how people are feeling and what they're saying there's clearly a lot of empathy and understanding with the outrage over the death of george floyd in minneapolis in many respects i think a lot of urban areas in the united states have there's george floyd moment in the case of chicago the game is like kwan mcdonald he was a 17 year old african-american who is shot and killed by the police in 2014 the initial description of what occurred was that he lunged with

a knife at police more than a year later a dash cam on a police car was released and it showed that macdonald was shot multiple times as he walked away from the police there were massive protests here and outrage a chicago police officer was charged with 2nd degree murder he is serving about a 7 year sentence and at that time the illinois state attorney general in the department of justice initiated a civil rights investigation in. soumik donald's death and at the end the report said that the chicago police department had a quote a culture of excessive violence particularly toward minority suspects the chicago police department was ordered to put a total plan in place to provide better training and to improve the relationship that the chicago police department has with communities of color and since then in the intervening years the police department has said that his work hard to try to rebuild the trust with communities of color origin atocha going to embed reporting

for us from chicago natasha thank you let's cross over now to washington d.c. and talk to my condo across one of the mikes or protest as we understand again taken to the streets outside the white house what are you hearing there about what's happening like. when it's been fairly restrained demonstrations in the course of the day there's been some sporadic clashes of violence between police and the demonstrators but generally it's being peaceful in most areas around the white house now the president in the course of the morning made a tweet that many interpreted as calling on his magnus supporters that make america great campaign the branding of his presidential campaign now he called it maybe tweet saying to mike what we might at the white house which many interpreted as him calling on his supporters to come and count to protest as who'd be the throughout

friday there again today but no sign of that no signs of that red mega caps in the crowd of demonstrators in washington d.c. but what has happened to darren is a real stress on the relationship between president trump and the mayor of washington d.c. muriel bauza now among his tweets president trump said that any protest that got through the secret service would be met with what he said were. ominous weapons and vicious dogs now mariel bows reacted very strongly to this tweet and what she said when he hides behind his fence afraid alone i stand with people peacefully exercising their 1st amendment rights after the murder of george floyd and hundreds of years of institutional racism the mayor continued they are vicious dogs and ominous weapons they are not there is just a scared man afraid and alone very strong words from the mayor of d.c.

she's kept quiet generally when president trump has regularly attacked the democrat officials of the district however here she's breaking out very strongly criticizing the president she was also incensed by the president's allegation that the d.c. police stood back and did not help the secret service during friday's demonstrations or the secret service issued a statement perche me immediately saying there was complete coordination with the d.c. police and also that the d.c. police had in fact offered secret service personnel right here there was a joint joint command between secret service and d.c. police so certainly the president claimed that the d.c. police were not involved in dealing with the demonstration is completely false according to his own secret service so while this demonstration does continue outside the white house peaceful at this particular time no sign of any supporters of president trump in their signature writ caps the tirade the fight between

president trump and the mayor of the district in which he lives is continuing strongly daryn let's talk about minneapolis for a 2nd mike because president trump said he's ready to send in the national army to the city but there are questions as to whether or not the president has the power to deploy the army at a local level. where there are questions indeed and there's also a great amount of legislation that says that the president can't certainly do. as an act of treating back to the early 19th century that plus a comma tartus which makes very clear that u.s. troops cannot be deployed on u.s. soil without the express authorization of congress there's another act which makes very clear that u.s. troops could be destroyed at the very narrow circumstances but that would have to be requested by the governors of the states in which the and restores occurring all by the state legislature it cannot be done so by the president so certainly any

idea that the president could unilaterally decide to deploy troops on u.s. soil is completely incorrect in terms of the country's own constitution that being said the pentagon has confirmed that it's got some troops on a 4 hour standby basis normally they are a 4 day deployment basis but the pentagon says some units have been put on a 4 hour basis these are believed to be military police units now if they are deployed that would have to be at the request of the governors of the state the governor of minneapolis for example making very clear that he has no interest at this stage in getting military involved he has deployed the national guard as you have heard but one last point as well daryn is that even if the troops are deployed they are done so and did very very stringent conditions as i said they need to be invited by the governors but they also have to be in a support role they cannot for example a rest people so they're very very limited in terms of military deployment which in

recent times in terms of unrest has not been done since 1902 or to mike hanna in washington d.c. michael no doubt come back to you throughout the course of the evening and the night my kind of there thank you let's cross over back to new york talk to gabriel elizondo gabe so it's day 3 of the protests in new york just bring us up to date with what's been happening there i mean you've been out with the protesters most of the day walking with them talking to them tell us what's been happening. yeah there are protests still going on in new york city in various parts of the city right now but they've mostly dispersed and we are seeing we've been hearing about one that's in brooklyn on the other side of the hudson river but right now at least where we are this just a few minutes ago all right should say about half an hour ago had a few 1000 protesters here and as you can see the streets of lower manhattan where i'm at right now are very very quiet but don't let that fool you there are still protesters out on the streets and they were out many have gone home but there are

still scattered groups throughout the city but this was a day that as you can see some more officers that are writing through it we've been seeing this all day you'll see police officers just kind of patrolling areas they're moving to wherever they're needed basically is what's going on but bottom line is that this has been a pretty historic day in new york thousands of protesters took to the streets here we saw them in harlem brooklyn in times square we were with them for part of the time and here in lower manhattan and as well a lot of anger quite frankly and it's mostly young people i'd say 18 to 25 years old they really want to hear their voices heard anger and saying that they really want justice for the death. of floyd in minneapolis and gave we know that new york has been caught up in in this coronavirus pandemic so what sort of official response then have we seen from the man in the government to the protests that unfolding on the streets. both the governor bill the mayor bill de blasio and the

governor andrew cuomo say they support these protests and the ideas behind them both the mayor and the governor said they too want justice for george ford and they understand the anger on the streets however they are saying they do not want any violence but bottom line is that this is a city and really a nation and as we all know the world that is still very much in the middle of the brunt of virus pandemic and new york and new york city is still very much the epicenter of it so you see a lot of people with masks i don't have mine on right now just because there's no one around us right now most of the protesters were wearing masks the bottom line is you have thousands of people packed in a very tight area of streets protesting and they basically say listen we care about coronavirus but we also care about justice and they said at some point we can't stay in our homes they tell me and just and just because of this pandemic they said that's why they had to get out on the streets to protest even with everything going

on yeah but we were talking earlier on about it about. you know remembering that new york has were cool they had a similar case back in 2014 when gonna also an unarmed black man was killed off the white policeman held him in a chokehold. that's right and that also sparked a nationwide protest as well a new 2014 black man here in new york was tackled by some n.y.p.d. cop he was choked and you could hear in this cell phone video him saying i can't breathe i can't breathe and that led really to the black black lives matter movement in the us it was 2014 so people in new york are very aware and very conscious. of these sort of situations and many of the young people we spoke to you know one girl was 19 years old i mean she was she was like 14 years old when eric garner was killed and she said i remember that she's young african-american girl she said i thought we were going to get justice back then she goes now here we are

i'm now 19 years old she told me and now here we're saying the same thing all over again and the same thing where a black man with a police officer on top of me says i can't breathe i can't breathe and he ends up dying so this is very rock or a lot of new yorkers and it hits home for a lot of people here as well and that's why you're seeing i think this real outpouring of real anger like we haven't seen on the streets in this city in a very very long time or a gable elizondo the just bring us up to date with things on the streets of new york gabe thank you for that will for more on this let's bring in tricia rose she's the director of the center for the study of race and ethnicity in america at brown university and joins us via skype from providence tricia rose let's talk 1st about the feelings within the black community in minneapolis i mean clearly people are extremely angry that yet another black man has been killed by white policeman how would you describe the underlying feelings then also in many of the u.s. cities where protests are taking place. yes i think you know it's very important

when we're thinking about the response to this incident where mr floyd was killed that we really understand how systematic and pervasive the deep violence that black people face at the hands of police have been all around the country and it's impossible to speak to what the community feels in minneapolis if we only think about what's happened there in isolation it's extremely important that we understand that this is a historical and ongoing factor and a nationwide factor this is not one rogue cop it's not wanted 2 or 3 rogue cops across new york as you were just mentioning eric garner but in fact assisted a systematic relationship where black people are considered threatening and worthy of extreme violence and this is a common practice so to to begin to understand this we have to put it both in historical context and in terms of

a collective black trauma around state sponsored violence that usually goes completely on punished and that's what you're also on or what was coming out of the conversation a moment ago with the young girl who at 14 expected that this would sort of stop happening after the case of eric garner in new york but she finds that it's still happening again and that's what i think we have to really understand about the underlying circumstances that people are expressing so let's talk about the official response and how perhaps some of that response has been militarized because the governor says well the government minneapolis says he will deploy the full national guard and president trump is threatening to send in the national army to stop the protests there is not likely do a thing to inflame the situation on the streets and make matters even worse. without a doubt this is what happened in ferguson right it was a full nearly a military response you know local police forces around the country have been. did

with military grade equipment the kinds of equipment you would normally see only in an international war context and there was extreme levels of containment and violence as if people exercising their civil rights to freedom of expression and to gather in public to protest a threat to the nation rather than the very rights that the nation is designed to protect but that's the logic of what it means to face violence when you're a black community even if whites and others are participating it's when it's understood as a racial crime that you begin to see this kind of extreme violent response that said it is my understanding that there are also many instigators involved in minneapolis and perhaps in other cities around the country as well and more data on that may come up as the weeks bear out but what that means is that you could have.