" Do not burn, please, children live upstairs ": the statement posted on a barricaded shop in Minneapolis will not have prevented looters from making their way there.
Read also: The death of George Floyd during his muscular arrest ignites Minneapolis
The looters did not hesitate to enter the stores. JOSH EDELSON / AFP
The deployment of 500 National Guard soldiers and the imposition of a curfew did not prevent the big city of Minnesota from igniting for the fourth consecutive night. The soldiers and riot police fired tear gas and smoke bombs to prevent this police station from suffering the same fate as another, burned the previous evening after having been deserted by its occupants.
Police use tear gas to disperse the protesters. CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP
A few hundred meters from a besieged police station, a whole district of this big city in the north of the United States was shaken by convulsions during the night from Friday to Saturday. " The only reason we are here is because the police continue to kill black people all over the country, " said a young African American who does not want to reveal his name.
Read also: In Minneapolis, "the man with the umbrella", embodiment of distrust of the police
His face covered with a mask (to protect himself from coronavirus or tear gas?), He claims to have come to demonstrate " peacefully " with friends, despite a curfew imposed by the authorities after the first three nights of riots. But, while a bank is burning a stone's throw away, the young man justifies the anger that is sweeping over the United States since the death of George Floyd, Monday, just after a muscular arrest. " We are in 2020 and we are facing the same problems as in the 1960s ... I believe Minnesota has reached its breaking point ."
Protesters, hands in the air. CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP
" There have been lots of other George Floyd in every city, " added Jerry, a 29-year-old white man who came "out of solidarity ". " What are we supposed to do: sit down and cash?" "
Protesters sing in front of the fifth police station on the fourth night of protests. NICHOLAS PFOSI / REUTERS
In fact, more than a thousand people died from police bullets in the United States last year, according to a Washington Post count. Blacks are overrepresented and there are few condemnations. In the case of George Floyd, the agent who, according to a video that has gone viral, kept him on the ground with a knee on his neck, was arrested on Friday and charged with manslaughter. But the protesters want to see the three other police officers involved in the tragedy behind bars.
"Lose everything"
As helicopters fly over the sky, detonations echo in the distance and a pungent smell fills the atmosphere. " It's scary, but it's necessary, " says a young black student, for whom the peaceful demonstrations have led to nothing. " Sometimes it takes evil for good, " she adds.
Riot police clear Avenue Nicollet outside the fifth police station. NICHOLAS PFOSI / REUTERS
But others do not believe that violence is more successful. " They're making matters worse, they're just going to give the police new reasons to shoot us ," said cowardly exasperated Phae, a 34-year-old black woman who lives nearby.
It could even alienate sections of the population. " I was sympathetic to the cause but I don't want to lose all my belongings, " says a young woman who lives above a barricaded shop and panics at the idea that she may be burned.
Local authorities, who had been very understanding in the early days, have also raised their voices since Thursday and have resolved to appeal to the National Guard. " It has to stop, " begged the town mayor Jacob Frey, visibly tried, during an improvised press conference in the middle of the night. Among the businesses burnt down, some belong to black families, added the governor of Minnesota Tim Walz, by denouncing the violence. " It has nothing to do with the death of George, with the inequalities that are very real. It's just chaos . "
Other demonstrations were organized in other cities of the United States, in particular in New York.
A vandalized New York police vehicle is seen in the morning after a protest overnight Friday to Saturday. ANDREW KELLY / REUTERS