Trump threatens to send in military to end protests

Trump has said that if cities and states had failed to get in control of the protests and “defend their residents”, then he would deploy the army in order to “quickly solve the problem for them”

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has threatened to send in “heavily armed soldiers” to bring an end to the growing civil unrest in the US as protests against police brutality an ongoing throughout the nation

This comes after protesters all across the US have clashed with police at protests following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who pleaded with a white officer who was kneeling on his neck during an arrest, saying that he could not breathe.

Footage of the arrest that led to the death of Mr Floyd was shared widely across social media after a bystander filmed the police officer pinning the shirtless suspect, George Floyd, to the ground in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The George Floyd killing has reignited deep-seated anger over the killings of black Americans at the hands of the police, as well as accusations of systematic racism within the police and Government. This comes after the high-profile cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York and many other lives lost that have driven the Black Lives Matter movement throughout the US.

Four police officers meanwhile have reportedly been shot and injured in St Louis, Missouri, and two people have reportedly been killed amid unrest in Chicago.

Curfews have now been enforced in Minneapolis, as well as other places across the country, including Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco, as thousands of National Guard soldiers and airmen have begun to show up in those areas to deal with the protests.

Mr Trump said “all Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd” but said his memory must not be “drowned out by an angry mob”.

The 45th President described the acts of looting and violence in the capital on Sunday as “a total disgrace” before he then pledged to further increase the city’s defences.

“I’m dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property,” he said.

Mr Trump then more widely addressed the nation regarding the national protests, which he blamed on the anti-fascist group Antifa and “professional anarchists”. On Sunday, he said in a tweet that he intended to designate the Antifa anti-fascist movement as a terrorist organisation.

Donald Trump called on cities and states to deploy the National Guard, the reserve military force that can be called on to be used during domestic emergencies, “in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets”. Around 16,000 National Guard troops have been deployed to deal with the protests so far.

Mr Trump added:

“If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary… then I’ll deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”

“I want the organisers of this terror to be on notice that you’ll face severe criminal penalties,” he said.

This comes after the President of the United States spent almost an hour in an underground shelter beneath the White House on Friday, according to an anonymous source.