NY Mayor: 8 p.m. Curfew All Week After Post-Protest Mayhem
Jun 2, 2020, 9:35 AM | Updated: 9:35 am
Police arrest a protester near Times Square after an 11pm curfew during a night of marches and vandalism over the death of George Floyd on June 1, 2020 in New York City. Thousands of protesters took to the streets throughout the city to express their anger after Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin was filmed kneeling on George Floyd's neck before he was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Floyd's death, the most recent in a series of deaths of black Americans at the hands of the police, has set off days and nights of protests across the country. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s mayor extended an 8 p.m. curfew all week in hopes of stopping destruction that continued overnight despite the city’s efforts to stop protests over George Floyd’s death from devolving into lawless mayhem.
“We’re going to have a tough few days. We’re going to beat it back,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Tuesday as he announced that an 8 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew would hold through Sunday.
The plan came after a night when chaos broke out in midtown Manhattan and the Bronx.
On Monday, an 11 p.m. curfew — the city’s first in decades — failed to prevent destruction as groups of people smashed their way into shops, including Macy’s flagship Manhattan store.
Police said nearly 700 people were arrested and several officers were injured during the chaos Monday night and early Tuesday.
As the day dawned, the city appeared to have made progress limiting violent clashes between police and large groups of demonstrators marching throughout the city over the death of George Floyd. Several big marches went off peacefully, with one hours-long demonstration in Brooklyn allowed to continue long after an 11 p.m. curfew.
But for a second night, roving bands of young people attacked businesses in Manhattan’s glitzy shopping districts and a poor neighborhood in the Bronx, where shops were looted and rubbish set on fire.
People rushed into a Nike store and carried out armloads of clothing. Storefront windows were smashed near Rockefeller Center and wreckage littered the inside of an AT&T store.
One officer was struck by a hit-and-run driver in the Bronx and was taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said. Another video showed a group of men hitting a police officer with pieces of wreckage until he pulled his gun and they ran.
“Some people are out tonight not to protest but to destroy property and hurt others — and those people are being arrested,” Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted late Monday. “Their actions are unacceptable and we won’t allow them in our city.”
The violence threatened to overshadow the anger over the death of Floyd, a black man who died on May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee on his neck until he stopped breathing.
Some officers in New York City and around the nation have sought to show solidarity with demonstrators protesting Floyd’s death while urging calm. New York City’s highest-ranking uniformed member, Chief of Department Terence Monahan, clasped hands with protesters and took a knee Monday in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park.
“The people who live in New York want New York to end the violence,” Monahan said.
