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"These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen," the president wrote, referring to three days of protests in response to the death of a 46-year-old unarmed black man while in the custody of a white police officer. The protests have grown violent, marked by vandalism and arson. "Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Twitter put a gray box above the post to say that it violated the site's rules "about glorifying violence." Then the White House reposted the message. More significant than the president's escalating feud with the social-media company, however, is the provenance of Trump's tough-talking proclamation that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Then-Miami police chief Walter Headley first used that line in December 1967 to justify a brutal crackdown on crime against African Americans in what were then called the slums. At the same news conference, he said that "85 percent of all violent crimes involve Negroes." The chief added: "We don't mind being accused of police brutality. They haven't seen anything yet."
The next summer, a massive riot broke out in Miami a few miles from where Republicans were holding their national convention to nominate Richard Nixon for president. The "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" quote has been cited by historians as a factor in sowing the discontent that contributed to three days of deadly violence.
Trump described himself as the "law and order" candidate four times as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination at his adopted party's convention in Cleveland in 2016. The speech came a few weeks after a gunman killed five Dallas law enforcement officers at the end of a vigil to honor two black men who had been fatally shot by police in Louisiana and Minnesota.
Advisers said at the time that Trump's language was intended as an homage to Nixon, who ran very successfully on the law-and-order message during that tumultuous year of 1968, which included the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
The violence during the Democratic convention in Chicago that summer badly hurt Hubert Humphrey, who had become a national star by agitating for the party to include a desegregation plank in their platform during the 1948 convention - as the mayor of Minneapolis. Trump mimicked a lot of Nixonian rhetoric as he pursued the presidency, including the insistence that he, too, spoke for "the silent majority."
The 73-year-old Trump came of age as a 20-something amid the turbulence of the late 1960s, and he's always admired the brooding Nixon far more than the amiable Ronald Reagan. With the help of red-baiting Joe McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn, Trump battled a Justice Department lawsuit in the 1970s alleging racial discrimination against tenants in apartment buildings owned by the Trump family. As president, Trump has refused to apologize for the full-page ad he ran in 1989 calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty after the arrests of the Central Park Five and suggested the men might still be guilty, even though they were exonerated years ago.
Speaking to law enforcement officers on Long Island in July 2017, Trump appeared to sanction officers roughing up suspects after arresting them and while putting them into their vehicles. "Please don't be too nice," he said.
On Thursday afternoon in the Oval Office, Trump said he's ordered the FBI to "take a very strong look" at Floyd's death and referred to what was captured on video as "a very bad thing," but he declined to say whether he thinks the four officers involved - who were fired by the Minneapolis Police Department on Tuesday - should be prosecuted. The FBI and Justice Department said in a joint statement that an investigation into the circumstances of Floyd's death is a top priority.
On Friday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, D, decried Trump's tweets, blaming them for contributing to an "angry cycle" of violence. "Calling people thugs and calling on people to get shot stems from the same sort of attitude that resulted in the death of George Floyd," Ellison said on "CBS This Morning."
Trump seems eager to pick a fight with Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, who ordered the evacuation of the police station that was set on fire by protesters. "I can't stand back & watch this happen to a great American City," the president tweeted, referring to Frey as "the very weak Radical Left Mayor."
Frey seems game to become Trump's new foil. "Weakness is failing to take responsibility for your own actions. Weakness is pointing your finger at somebody else during a time of crisis," the mayor said at an early morning news conference. "Donald Trump knows nothing about the strength of Minneapolis. We're strong as hell."
Protests turned violent nationwide.
"Gunfire broke out in multiple cities, including Louisville, where police say seven people were injured in a shooting that sent dozens scattering," the Post reported. "Several hundred people there were protesting the March fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in her apartment, which police entered while she was asleep. . . . Protesters blocked buses, broke an arm off a statue of King Louis XVI outside of City Hall, and threw fireworks at police officers, WFPL reported. Then, around 11:30 p.m., gunfire erupted from within the crowd, police said. Of the seven people shot, at least two were in surgery and five were in good condition as of early Friday morning, said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, D, adding that no police officers fired their weapons. . . .
"More than 1,000 miles away, in Denver, shots rang out at about 5:30 p.m., close enough to the state capitol building to alarm lawmakers inside. . . . Protesters spray-painted 'Black Lives Matter' and Floyd's name on the capitol steps, footage from CBS Denver showed, while some smashed vehicles parked in the building's parking lot. Hundreds of others both blocked traffic on Interstate 25 and marched down one busy street against traffic. A viral video soon emerged showing one protester on the hood of a car before jumping off. The driver then circled back around to ram into the protester, who fell to the pavement before getting back up. Denver police spokesman Kurt Barnes said no arrests have been made in either the shooting or the apparent hit-and-run. . . .
"Elsewhere, police in New York arrested at least 70 protesters at Union Square, NBC New York reported. In Columbus, protesters reportedly breached the Ohio Statehouse, breaking windows and running inside, according to WCMH. Police SWAT teams showed up to secure the area . . . Protesters in Phoenix resisted calls to disperse after the police declared the protest an unlawful assembly around 11 p.m., the Arizona Republic reported. Chanting 'I can't breathe,' dozens faced police in riot gear, who shot rubber bullets at protesters and used pepper spray on others, the Republic reported. Video footage showed some being arrested, but when reached by phone, a police spokeswoman declined to answer any questions."
In Chicago's South Side, about 100 people gathered at a street corner with a banner demanding justice for Floyd, the Post reported. "It's unfair how they treat us, that's why we walk around and drag it," said Sam Thomas, who walked from downtown to his neighborhood carrying an American flag. "We got to let our presence be known. We don't need this government which won't stand up for innocent people."
The situation in the Twin Cities remains tense.
Walz has deployed more than 500 members of the National Guard to restore order. CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and his crew were arrested this morning, while they were live on the air, by Minnesota State Police as they reported from in front of a liquor store that had been looted. Jimenez, who identifies as black and Latino, was seen and heard on camera before his arrest identifying himself clearly and presenting his press credentials. "Put us back where you want us," he said. "Just let us know." The journalists were later released, and Walz apologized to CNN chief Jeff Zucker for their treatment.
In St. Paul, across the Mississippi River, police clashed last night with looters who had been raiding a local Target store. "Up and down University Avenue, the towering dome of the Minnesota Capitol in the distance, store owners scrambled to protect their businesses. With smoke rising from a fire in the distance, workers were up on ladders frantically hanging plywood over their windows," the Post reported. "Scores of businesses had posted simple handmade signs, begging for mercy. 'This is a BLACK-OWNED BUSINESS,' one read. 'This is COMMUNITY-OWNED BUSINESS,' said another. Many stores were dark, but some owners remained, staying behind, on guard, because they weren't confident that anyone else would do it for them."
Minneapolis has been a powder keg waiting to explode. In 2015, local and federal officials declined to charge a Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old black man. In 2016, an officer from a nearby suburb shot and killed Philando Castile during a traffic stop. The office was charged with manslaughter but later acquitted.
In 2017, a Minneapolis police officer shot and killed Justine Damond, a white woman from Australia. He was convicted of her murder and sentenced to prison.
"What we've seen over the last two days ... is the result of so much built-up anger and sadness," said Frey, the Minneapolis mayor. "Anger and sadness that has been ingrained in our black community, not just because of five minutes of horror, but 400 years. If you're feeling that sadness, that anger, it's not only understandable, it's right. It's a reflection of a truth that our black community has lived."
Law enforcement leaders across America condemned the officers involved in Floyd's death.
Distgrict of Columbia Police Chief Peter Newsham said their actions were "nothing short of murder," the Post reported. Frey, the Minneapolis mayor, said the officers should be charged with murder. "But Hennepin County prosecutor Mike Freeman triggered uproar at a Thursday afternoon news conference when he said 'there is other evidence that does not support a criminal charge' against the involved officers. His office later issued a clarification, saying Freeman only meant 'it is critical to review all the evidence.' . . . Attempts to reach Chauvin and his attorney, Tom Kelly, on Thursday were unsuccessful. . . . Two of the most influential police organizations, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Major Cities Chiefs Association, issued statements denouncing the officers' actions. Even the National Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the world, which usually calls for deliberate consideration after an explosive police-related incident, weighed in against the killing of Floyd."
Floyd's brother, Philonise Floyd, called for the four officers to be "given the death penalty" as he choked back tears on CNN: "I want everybody to be peaceful right now, but people are torn and hurt because they're tired of seeing black men die constantly, over and over again."
A Minneapolis club owner said Floyd and Chauvin both worked security shifts for the business up to last year. "'Chauvin was our off-duty police for almost the entirety of the 17 years that we were open,' [said Maya Santamaria, owner of the building where El Nuevo Rodeo club was]. 'They were working together at the same time, it's just that Chauvin worked outside and the security guards were inside,'" KTSP reported. "Although the two overlapped working security on popular music nights within the last year, Santamaria can not say for certain they knew each other because there were often a couple dozen security guards, including off-duty officers."
Floyd's death will probably knock Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., out of contention to be Joe Biden's running mate by drawing attention to her strained relations with the black community as Minneapolis's chief prosecutor. "Chauvin was one of six officers who fired on and killed Wayne Reyes in 2006 after Reyes reportedly aimed a shotgun at police after stabbing his friend and girlfriend. While the death happened during Klobuchar's tenure at the helm of the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, the case did not go to a grand jury until after she left the office and became a senator," the Star Tribune reported.
"Klobuchar did not criminally charge other police involved in the more than two dozen officer-involved fatalities that occurred during her time as prosecutor. She left those decisions to a grand jury, a practice that was common at the time. Klobuchar said in a CNN interview Tuesday that the evidence is 'crying out for some kind of a charge' against the officers involved in Floyd's death. Michael Minta, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota who studies political representation and race, said that is a departure from her more cautious responses to past cases."
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