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A large law enforcement response near the White House after a protest was dispersed on Monday.

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For the second straight week, peaceful daytime protests in response to the murder of George Floyd have given way to widespread, violent police suppression and sporadic looting by nightfall. Even in the past five years, the United States has seen similar uprisings against police brutality and similar state-sanctioned violence against protesters. But many have commented that this time feels somehow different. With millions out of work, hundreds of thousands hungry, more than 100,000 dead because of the unchecked COVID-19 pandemic, and a president who douses the violence in tear gas, there are some obvious explanations for why 2020 is different from 2015, or 2014, or 1992, or 1968.

Racism and police violence existed long before Donald Trump became president, but hes further emboldened police forces across the country. In addition to aligning himself rhetorically with police who commit brutality, Trump methodically dismantled the already limited federal checks on abusive police departments in the years before the Floyd uprising. If it feels like police officers across the country are acting with virtually total impunity, its because they have been granted that impunity by federal officials.

There are three key ways that Trumps Department of Justice has eroded or outright dismantled checks on abusive police departments in the past 3 years: First, it has all but ended the Barack Obamaera practice of placing police departments that violate constitutional rights under court-supervised consent decrees. These court-monitored settlements have, according to experts, offered some deterrent to police chiefs who do not want to see their departments placed under federal supervision. Second, it ended a voluntary federal-state collaborative reform program, over the opposition of police chiefsincluding Republicanswho embraced the initiative. Finally, it reversed limits on a program that has provided billions of dollars of military-grade vehicles and weaponssuch as grenade launchers and bayonetsto local police departments. These reforms were either introduced or escalated in response to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 and the subsequent heavily armed police crackdown on Black Lives Matter protests. As soon as he took office, Trump has undone them one by one.

The political leadership of the Justice Department targeted the most effective parts of the police reform program and essentially prohibited them, said Chiraag Bains, the director of legal strategies for Demos and a former Civil Rights Division attorney who co-wrote the Ferguson report. I think you can see just how severe the absence of Justice Department oversight and intervention has been in the moment were in right now.

Its impossible, of course, to draw a causal link between the gutting of these programs and the current conflagration. Cities and states have much more direct control over police agencies than the federal government, and systemic racism has existed in this country since its founding. But weve seen recently how this presidents dismantling of seemingly minor systemic checks can have devastating consequences. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration closed the National Security Councils pandemic response unit, withdrew the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions China expert whose job it was to track novel disease outbreaks, shelved the previous administrations pandemic response playbook, and dismissed a transition briefing on pandemic danger. Preserving these programs might not have stopped COVID-19 from spreading to the U.S., but they could have helped the administration get an earlier handle on the problem, as many other countries did, and saved thousands of lives.

Like how Trumps dismantling of pandemic-response systems clearly exacerbated the coronavirus crisis, the impact of the DOJs dismantling of its own tools to rein in corrupt police departments is being felt today. The lack of oversight is obvious as police across the United States assault and arrest peaceful protesters, domestic and foreign journalists, people standing on their own property, 70-year-old members of Congress, clergy, and old men with canes.

The reforms implemented by the previous administration were not nearly enough to curtail systemic racist policing, but they did at least offer some mechanism of accountability. Start with the consent decreesthe court-monitored agreements between local police departments and federal or state officials that result in mandatory changes and benchmarks for departments that have violated citizens constitutional rights. Under a 1994 law, the attorney general has the right to sue local police departments that have engaged in constitutional abuses. Under Obama, the Department of Justice used that power to threaten localities with lawsuits and get them to agree to voluntary court-supervised oversight. The Obama administration opened 25 investigations of police departments that resulted in at least 15 consent decrees leading to court oversight of police departments in cities ranging from Chicago to Ferguson to Baltimore. In municipalities across the country, the DOJ mandates have included bias training and official monitoring of incidents of bias, independent investigations of use-of-force incidents, de-escalation training, and limits on how and when police can interact with citizens. At the very least, these departments understood they were being watched and had to regularly report progress to a judge.

After significant lobbying from police unions that have supported Trump, the Department of Justice undid these reforms. In his second month in office, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a review of all consent decrees and placed roadblocks to existing decrees. On his last week on the job, Sessions issued a memorandum imposing strict limits on new consent decrees and preventing enhancements to current ones. He demanded that new decrees and changes to existing ones be approved by political leadership rather than career attorneys, required proof of violations other than constitutional abuses, and ordered sunset dates for all new agreements. These moves effectively closed the door to new consent decrees and placed severe limitations on current ones.

Dramatically, the Sessions DOJ even refused to go forward with a consent decree of the Chicago Police Department after the Obama administration had already issued a report finding systemic abuses in the wake of the murder of Laquan McDonald. You were in a place where a department had been thoroughly investigated by Department of Justice attorneys, there were findings of constitutional violations, and still this administration literally abandoned this effort, said Lynda Garcia, one of the DOJ Civil Rights Divisions Chicago investigators who is now the policing campaign director at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. After the state of Illinois took the Obama DOJs report and enacted its own consent decree with Chicago, Sessions department took the unprecedented step of filing with the court in opposition to the state-local consent decree. It was a jaw-dropping moment when the Department of Justice weighed in on a state-level matter to try and intervene to prevent an agreement between the state government and the local government to correct constitutional violations, Garcia noted. It was not within their jurisdiction. It was a real show of where they stand and that they are actually working to impede police accountability and reform.

While consent decrees are not and have never been a panacea, they at least offered some mechanism to keep the most egregious police departments in check. The absence of the possibility of a DOJ investigation has been extremely harmful as a deterrent to misconduct, Bains said. Under the old rules, the Minneapolis Police Departmentwith its history of killings of unarmed black menmight now be facing a consent decree demanding court-ordered reforms. Senators have called on the DOJ to launch an investigation into the patterns and practices of the department to discern if Floyds killing was part of a bigger problem (the available evidence suggests that it is), and the state of Minnesota on Tuesday filed civil rights charges against the department. But the DOJ has continued to forswear its own role.

Right now, youre seeing calls for a pattern and practice investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department, Bains said. This Justice Department has completely walked away from this work. It would be helpful to have a Justice Department that stayed active on police reform and had the infrastructure and the ability to get involved in this case.

Even if Attorney General William Barr wanted to reverse course, the Civil Rights Division has been so hollowed out that enforcing the law would be very difficult. The unit that does these pattern and practice investigations was small to begin with, and now its been cut in half due to attrition and failure to hire people to fill slots, Bains noted. (As Garcia also pointed out, Barr has said that communities that protest abusive police should lose policing protections altogether, and the DOJ said he personally ordered Trumps attack on protesters in front of the White House on Monday, so it seems unlikely he would change the departments position here.)

Critically, the police also have access to an even greater arsenal to respond to peaceful protesters thanks to the Trump administrations reinstatement of a military surplus giveaway. Near the start of his term, Trump reversed Obama-imposed limits on a military program known as 1033 that allows the military to give surplus equipment to local police departments. The Pentagon said 126 tracked armored vehicles, 138 grenade launchers and 1,623 bayonets had been returned since Mr. Obama prohibited their transfer, the New York Times reported in 2017. Tanks dont belong on our city streets. They belong in combat, Garcia said. Since Trump rescinded Obamas ban, those weapons and equipment have flowed freely back to local departments that are now using them to assault lawful protesters. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that a handful of libertarian-minded Republican and independent members of Congress have indicated a willingness to join with Democrats to undo the program through legislation. It likely wont be enough, though, to actually move the needle. The easy access to weapons is just one factor in the militarization of police.

Finally, in November 2017 the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice under Sessions hadover the opposition of local sheriffssignificantly scaled back a voluntary program called the collaborative reform initiative that allowed sheriffs to request DOJ funding and logistical support in analyzing and proposing reforms of their departments. The Times reported that multiple Republican and pro-Trump sheriffs from Spokane, Washington, to Fort Pierce, Florida, were frustrated that they had invested their departments time to be assessed by independent collaborators in this voluntary program, but would now be denied even access to the resulting reports. That was an even more shameful situation because there were police departments that never got reports that were due to them because the program was shut down, Bains said. They had worked with [that] office for months and months, turned over data and submitted to interviews, spent a lot of time with the [program] office, and never got their final report and recommendations, which they really sincerely wanted because they were trying to reform their practices and build trust with the communities that they serve.

Ultimately, none of these initiatives was a silver bullet for police brutality and systemic racism in law enforcement. As many activists have noted, criminal abuses by police officers were rampant while Obama was president. The threat of accountability, the loss of military weapons, and a voluntary police reform program would almost certainly not have been enough to stop George Floyds murderer and his accomplices from taking Floyds life. But as with the pandemic, the fire is growing faster and spreading wider than it might have otherwise. As Garcia noted, the administrations rhetoric and its dismantling of these reform efforts send messages to police that they can do whatever they want.

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How the Trump Administration Undid Obamas Response to Ferguson - Slate

Former President Barack Obama speaks during an Obama Foundation event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, December 13, 2019. (Lim Huey Teng/Reuters)The former president ignores one of the fundamental sources of officer misconduct.

Seeing President Trumps ham-fisted response to protests and riots this week, some Americans might reasonably feel nostalgia for Barack Obamas oratorical skill and cool presentation. But Mr. Obamas call on Monday for police reform should bring them back harshly to the fact of the former presidents lack of substance.

Writing on Medium, Mr. Obama urged voters to get involved in local politics because, he said, Its mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions.

What Mr. Obama did not point out is that most local government campaigns are dominated by government unions, including police associations. Here in Southern California 1,924 miles from the place where a Minneapolis policeman killed George Floyd police unions finance the campaigns for the state and local politicians who, if elected, will be called upon to supervise police. Thats a conflict of interest with sometimes fatal consequences.

This is not a convenient issue of Left versus right. Political candidates of all kinds run the gauntlet of government-union power teachers, firefighters and, yes, police in order to win election and stay in office. Mr. Obamas call to reform your local police department conveniently ignores the fact that reformers will inevitably run up against police-union power.

Take the case of Cecilia Iglesias. As I write this, shes still a city councilmember in Santa Ana, California, a mostly Latino city of 333,000 in the heart of Orange County. (Full disclosure: Iglesias and I work together at California Policy Center.)

By the time you read this, Iglesias will officially be removed from office, a victim of the Santa Ana Police Officers Associations $500,000 recall campaign against her.

Iglesiass crime: She tried to reform her citys police department.

In February 2019, Iglesias, a self-declared conservative, voted against the police unions demand for a pay hike. My reason was simple: we cant pay what we dont have, she recently wrote. Looking at the citys already high taxes and massive public debt (what the watchdog groupTruth in Accounting called a sinkhole and among the worst in California), I could do nothing else. Echoing President Dwight D. Eisenhowers Farewell Address, she has openly wondered how much longer the city could underfund essential services in order to pay its government employees how long before it destroyed from within the public safety it was paying for with higher police salaries. She was outvoted, and the police got their raise.

A few months later, in October 2019, Iglesias called for the creation of a police-oversight commission. Santa Anas police have a difficult job, operating as they do in a dense, relatively poor city. But even grading for that challenge, the police have failed too often. Iglesias figured civilian oversight might eliminate bad cops and offer good ones the hope of reform.

She recommended the commission weeks after a federal grand jury indicted police officer Brian Patric Bookerfor beating a suspect who was not resisting arrest. Back at the station, the U.S. attorney alleged, Booker filed phony reports to cover up the assault.

If youre not moved to anger by that story or by appalling video of the incident consider that Santa Ana police in 2016 cost their city $6.8 million to settle two wrongful death suits. Or that in the same year, Santa Ana police raided a legal-marijuana dispensary, and smashed surveillance cameras except for the few they missed, cameras that captured them ransacking the store, ridiculing the stores disabled owner, and then, remarkably, eating marijuana edibles and playing darts. Or that in 2016, the Costa Mesa police union and others settled (without admitting guilt) a $600,000 case in which they were sued for their role in an attempt to blackmail two police reformers: Mayor Jim Righeimer and his council colleague Steve Mensinger. Or the 2012 case in nearby Fullerton, where a group of cops beat and killed an unarmed 37-year-old homeless man whose last, chilling words have become common in these situations: I cant breathe.

Surveying the lawlessness of some lawmen, Councilmember Iglesias spoke up. The union declared her call for reform an attack on public safety. Her council colleagues, Democrats backed by the police union, ran to the unions defense and voted against the measure, killing it.

The union had won its demand for a pay increase and had killed a reform effort. But that wasnt enough. Union president Gerry Serrano announced the unions recall campaign immediately. The union directed a mail and media campaign at a pandemic-quarantined electorate, detailing Iglesiass anti-police politics. Turnout was low, at just 19 percent of voters, but Santa Ana voters threw Iglesias out of office.

Like most states, Californias police unions have won special protections, usually called a law enforcement bill of rights. The sole purpose of such laws, writes Mike Riggs, their best historian, is to shield cops from the laws theyre paid to enforce, and they explain how bad cops stay on the job.

Heres how a typical police misconduct investigation works in states that have a law enforcement bill of rights in place, Riggs wrote in 2012. A complaint is filed against an officer by a member of the public or a fellow officer. Police department leadership reviews the complaint and decides whether to investigate. If the department decides to pursue the complaint, it must inform the officer and his union. Thats where the special treatment begins, but it doesnt end there.

What follows is an obstacle course of special protections that would never be deployed on behalf of a civilian. One such special privilege is called a cooling-off period. That denies police chiefs or other government officials immediate access to an officer suspected of abuse. One critic of police unions summed up the effect of the cooling-off period this way: an officer involved in a shooting often cannot be interviewed at the scene; internal affairs investigatorshave to wait daysto get a statement.

There are other perks, including the suspect officers immediate access to the names of witnesses against him (including fellow officers) and the suspension of any civilian review. Because of these special due process privileges, Riggs concludes, theres little incentive for police departments to discipline officers.

Thats the system Cecilia Iglesias, Jim Righeimer, and other public officials have tried to reform.

But Mr. Obama mentions none of this in his anodyne call for greater public involvement in local elections. Thats because calling out the corrupt system that keeps bad cops on the job would call into question another system: the conveyor belt that moves police-union money into the campaigns of politicians who, once elected, agree to bow to police-union bosses.

If you really want to reform your local police, you dont have to run for office. You have to vote against candidates Republican, Democrat or other who accept campaign cash or endorsements from the people theyre supposed to supervise, such as the men and women who run police unions.

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Obamas Blind Spot on Police Unions and Police Abuse - National Review

U.S. President Donald Trumps former defence secretary, General James Mattis, joined three living ex-presidents in backing George Floyd protesters following an attack on peaceful demonstrators outside the White House on Monday.

Mattis and former presidents George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have all spoken out since security forces cracked down on the peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets in Washington D.C., in order to clear a path through Lafayette Square for a Trump photo op outside a nearby church.

Mattis has remained largely silent since leaving the Trump administration in 2018, and the three former presidents have typically refrained from publicly criticizing the sitting POTUS, with a few exceptions in Obamas case. Each of them captured widespread attention with their calls for unity and a more peaceful government response after Mondays incident, although Mattis was the only one to mention Trump by name.

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Mattis broke his silence with a harsh rebuke in The Atlantic on Wednesday, suggesting that Trump had made a mockery of our Constitution by using military force to break up a peaceful protest so he could stage a photo op. He also referred to the move as an abuse of executive authority against a movement that is defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience.

Never did I dream that troops would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside, he wrote in the statement.

Mattis added that Americans must unite without Trumps leadership because the president has no interest in being a unifying leader.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us, Mattis said. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort.

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Trump declared himself a president of law and order during a speech on Monday evening, after urging state governors to dominate the protests earlier in the day. He also said he was an ally of all peaceful protesters, even as security forces broke up the peaceful protest outside the White House gates.

The president also tried to draw a distinction between peaceful protesters and members of an angry mob, whom he described in Mondays speech as professional anarchists arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa and others.

He immediately left the White House after the speech to pose with a Bible outside St. Johns Episcopal Church, the so-called church of presidents. Many of his current cabinet ministers joined him for the photo op.

Mattis resigned from his post in the Trump administration in late 2018 after the president went against his advice and pulled U.S. support from longtime allies, the Kurds, in Syria.

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The president responded to Mattis statement by falsely claiming that he gave Mattis the nickname Mad Dog, and that Mattis had been fired. (News reports show Mattis was being called Mad Dog long before he entered Trumps orbit.)

Former President Bush, a Republican, also spoke out following the crackdown, without specifically mentioning Trump.

Laura and I are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country, he said in a statement on Tuesday. Bush condemned attitudes of racial superiority, and said the only way through the current crisis is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving.

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Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America or how it becomes a better place.

Former president Jimmy Carter also criticized the tragic racial injustices and consequent backlash that have played out in recent weeks. Violence, whether spontaneous or consciously incited, is not a solution, he wrote in a statement.

People of power, privilege, and moral conscience must stand up and say no more to a racially discriminatory police and justice system, immoral economic disparities between whites and blacks, and government actions that undermine our unified democracy, Carter said.

We need a government as good as its people, and we are better than this.

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Barack Obama, Trumps longtime nemesis, offered his support for the protest movement on Wednesday, in his first on-camera remarks since Floyds death.

For those who have been talking about protest, just remember that this country was founded on protest it is called the American Revolution, Obama said during a virtual town hall.

Obama struck a hopeful note with his remarks, and did not mention Trump by name.

Speaking directly to young people of colour, Obama said: I want you to know that you matter. I want you to know that your lives matter, that your dreams matter.

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He also alluded to a string of recent incidents that have helped fuel the latest outrage, such as the killing of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery and the false police call involving Christian Cooper, a Black birdwatcher in Central Park.

You should be able to learn and make mistakes and live a life of joy without having to worry about whats going to happen when you walk to the store, or go for a jog, or are driving down the street, or looking at some bird in a park, Obama said.

The Lafayette Square incident also prompted retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Obama, to rebuke the use of force against American citizens in an essay on Tuesday.

Mullen wrote in The Atlantic that it sickened him to see security personnel clear a path through protesters for the president.

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I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trumps leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent, he wrote. He also condemned Mark Esper, the current secretary of defence, for referring to American cities and towns as battle spaces to be dominated during a call with governors.

Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never become so, he wrote.

Esper on Wednesday appeared to distance himself from President Trump, after saying that he does not think the situation is urgent and dire enough to deploy troops for law enforcement.

We are not in one of these situations now, he said.

Amid the high-profile criticism, several Trump allies have come out to defend his use of force against protesters and his threats of deploying the military.

Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, argued in an op-ed for the New York Times that the military must be used to restore order in the face of looting. He also backed Trumps idea to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, a law that would allow him to deploy the military to stop the protests.

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This venerable law, nearly as old as our republic itself, doesnt amount to martial law or the end of democracy, as some excitable critics, ignorant of both the law and our history, have comically suggested, Cotton wrote. In fact, the federal government has a constitutional duty to the states to protect each of them from domestic violence.'

On Monday morning before the Lafayette Square incident, Cotton tweeted out several branches of the military that hed like to see deployed against the protesters. No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters, he wrote on Twitter.

Other Republicans have tried to draw a more clear distinction between rioters and protesters.

There is no right to riot, no right to destroy others property and no right to throw rocks at police, said Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska in a statement. But there is a fundamental a constitutional right to protest, and Im against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the word of God as a political prop.

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Sasse suggested that every public servant in the U.S. should be lowering the temperature by acknowledging repugnant police injustices like the killing George Floyd, and by denouncing riots as abhorrent acts of violence.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a staunch Trump ally, blocked a resolution from Democrats in the Senate on Tuesday that would have condemned the use of force against protesters in Lafayette Square. McConnell said the protests had been hijacked by violent riots and looting, and suggested that the Democrats resolution would not help de-escalate the situation.

Those are the two issues that Americans want addressed: racial justice, and ending riots. Unfortunately, this resolution does not address either one of them, McConnell said.

Instead, it just indulges in the myopic obsession with President Trump that has come to define the Democratic side of the aisle.

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The resolution called for the Senate to back the constitutional rights of Americans to peaceably assemble, exercise their freedom of speech and bring their grievances to the government. It also described violence and looting as unacceptable and contrary to the purpose of peaceful protests.

The third and final part of the resolution called for Congress to condemn Trump for ordering federal officers to use gas and rubber bullets against the Americans who were peaceably protesting in Lafayette Square thereby violating the constitutional rights of those peaceful protesters.

With files from The Associated Press

2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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He tries to divide us: What Mattis, Bush and Obama said after Trumps crackdown - Globalnews.ca

Obama's comments came as the US defence secretary reversed course to keep active-duty troops deployed near Washington DC amid ongoing protests over the death of George Floyd.

Obama has said he is inspired by the involvement of young people in the George Floyd protests, saying there is a "change in mindset taking place" in the US during a town hall livestreamed by his foundation.

Beginning his speech by saying he and wife Michelle were keeping the families of victims of police violence in their prayers, the former US president said the protest movement which has spread across the world is the result "not just of immediate moments in time", but a long history of slavery and discrimination.

"The original sin of our society," he said.

Obama said he believed the coronavirus pandemic had disproportionately affected communities of colour in both its economic and health impact.

"Over the last several weeks ... challenges, structural problems here in the United States have been thrown into high relief," Obama said.

However, he said the recent events created an opportunity for the US to "live up to its highest ideals", urging local governments to review their policing policies and commit to reforms proposed during his time in office.

"In some ways, as tragic as these past few weeks have been as difficult and scary and uncertain as they've been they've also been an incredible opportunity for people to be awakened to some of these underlying trends," he said.

Obama spoke as confusion descended on the status of troops in Washington, DC.

Defence Secretary Mark Esper declared on Wednesday he opposes using military troops for law enforcement in containing current street protests, tamping down threats from President Donald Trump, who had warned states he was willing to send soldiers to "dominate" their streets.

Less than 48 hours after the president to contain protests if governors were not able to get a handle on unrest, Esper said the 1807 law should be invoked in the United States "only in the most urgent and dire of situations." He added, "We are not in one of those situations now."

Yet Esper abruptly overturned an earlier Pentagon decision to send a couple hundred active-duty soldiers home from the Washington, DC, region, amid growing tensions with the White House over the military response to the protests.

The issue of the military deployed on streets is a sensitive one in the US because civilian rule is a central aspect of American democracy.

At Trump's encouragement, Esper had ordered about 1300 Army personnel to military bases just outside the nation's capital.

Defence officials said some of the troops were beginning to return to their home base Wednesday, but after Esper visited the White House following a press conference, plans changed, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told The Associated Press.

McCarthy said he believes the change was based on ensuring there is enough military support in the region to respond to any protest problems if needed.

McCarthy said he received notice of the Pentagon order to send about 200 soldiers with the 82nd Airborne's immediate response force home just after 10am on Wednesday. Hours later, the Pentagon notified him that Esper had reversed the decision.

Mark Esper, US secretary of defence.

The move to keep the troops in the region, however, comes as Pentagon leaders continue to insist they do not want to use active-duty forces to help quell the protests.

Earlier in the day, Esper had tamped down threats from Trump about sending troops to "dominate" the streets, telling reporters at a Pentagon news conference that he opposes using military forces for law enforcement in containing the current street protests.

Active-duty troops should be used in the US "only in the most urgent and dire of situations," he said, adding, "We are not in one of those situations now."

Members of the D.C. National Guard stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial monitoring demonstrators during a peaceful protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, on June 2 in Washington, DC.

"It is our intent at this point not to bring in active forces, we don't think we need them at this point," McCarthy said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But it's prudent to have the reserve capability in the queue, on a short string."

The AP reported earlier Wednesday that the 82nd Airborne soldiers would be the first to leave and would be returning home to Fort Bragg, NC. The remainder of the active-duty troops, who have all been kept at military bases outside the city in northern Virginia and Maryland, would get pulled home in the coming days if conditions allowed.

But then the Pentagon changed its plans.

"It's a dynamic situation," said McCarthy, adding that the 82nd Airborne troops "will stay over an additional 24 hours and it is our intent - we're trying to withdraw them and get them back home."

The active-duty troops have been available, but not used in response to the protests.

About 1300 active-duty troops were brought in to the capital region early this week as protests turned violent. The protests came in the aftermath of the death in Minnesota of a black man, George Floyd, who died after a white police officer pressed his knee to Floyd's neck for several minutes.

The active-duty unit that will be last to remain on alert is the Army's 3rd Infantry Regiment, which is normally most visible as the soldiers who stand at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The troops, known as the Old Guard, are based close to DC at Fort Myer, Virginia, and have been on 30-minute alert status. They would continue to be prepared to respond to any emergency in the region within a half-hour for as long as needed.

Pentagon leaders have consistently said there continues to be no intent to use the active-duty forces in any law enforcement capacity. They would be used to assist the National Guard or other forces.

So far, Indiana has sent about 300 National Guard troops to D.C., Tennessee has sent about 1000 and South Carolina has sent more than 400.

AP, staff

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Obama speaks to soothe nation, as US Army stays put in Washington - Sydney Morning Herald

You know, I just had an opportunity to speak with the Floyd family, a group of them, most of them. Theyre a close, decent, honorable family, loving one another. And once again we heard the words, and they heard them, I cant breathe an act of brutality so elemental, it did more than deny one more black man in America his civil rights and his human rights. It denied him of his very humanity. It denied him of his life, depriving George Floyd as it deprived Eric Garner of one of the things every human being must be able to do: breathe. So simple, so basic, so brutal.

You know, the same thing happened with [Ahmaud] Arbery, the same thing happened with Breonna Taylor, the same thing with George Floyd. Weve spoken their names aloud. Weve cried them out in pain and in horror. Weve chiseled them into long-suffering hearts. Theyre the latest additions to the endless list of stolen potential wiped out unnecessarily. You know, its a list that dates back more than 400 years. Black men, black women, black children.

The original sin of this country still stains our nation today, and sometimes we manage to overlook it. We just push forward with the thousand other tasks in our daily life, but its always there, and weeks like this, we see it plainly that were a country with an open wound. None of us can turn away. None of us can be silent. None of us can any longer, can we hear the words I cant breathe and do nothing. We cant fail victims, like what Martin Luther King called the appalling silence of good people.

Every day, African-Americans go about their lives with constant anxiety and trauma, wondering who will be next. Imagine if every time your husband or son, wife or daughter left the house, you feared for their safety from bad actors and bad police. Imagine if you had to have that talk with your child about not asserting your rights, taking the abuse handed out to them so, just so they can make it home. Imagine having police called on you just for sitting in Starbucks or renting an Airbnb or watching birds. This is the norm black people in this country deal with. They dont have to imagine it. The anger and frustration and the exhaustion is undeniable.

But thats not the promise of America. Its long past time that we made the promise of this nation real for all people. You know, this is no time for incendiary tweets. Its no time to encourage violence. This is a national crisis, and we need real leadership right now. Leadership that will bring everyone to the table so we can take measures to root out systemic racism. Its time for us to take a hard look at the uncomfortable truths. Its time for us to face that deep open wound we have in this nation.

We need justice for George Floyd. We need real police reform to hold cops to a higher standard that so many of them actually meet, that holds bad cops accountable and repairs relationships between law enforcement and the community theyre sworn to protect. We need to stand up as a nation with the black community, with all minority communities, and come together as one America.

Thats the challenge we face. You know, its going to require those of us who sit in some position of influence to finally deal with the abuse of power. The pain is too immense for one community to bear alone. I believe its the duty of every American to grapple with it, and to grapple with it now. With our complacency, our silence, we are complicit in perpetuating these cycles of violence.

Nothing about this will be easy or comfortable, but if we simply allow this wound to scab over once more without treating the underlying injury, well never truly heal. The very soul of America is at stake. We must commit as a nation to pursue justice with every ounce of our being. We have to pursue it with real urgency. Weve got to make real the promise of America, which weve never fully grasped: that all men and women are equal, not only in creation but throughout their lives.

Again, Georges family, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I promise you, I promise you, well do everything in our power to see to it that justice is had in your brother, your cousins case. I love you all, and folks, weve got to stand up. Weve got to move. Weve got to change.

I want to share parts of the conversations Ive had with friends over the past couple days about the footage of George Floyd dying face-down on the street under the knee of a police officer in Minnesota.

The first is an email from a middle-aged African-American businessman.

Dude I gotta tell you the George Floyd incident in Minnesota hurt. I cried when I saw that video. It broke me down. The knee on the neck is a metaphor for how the system so cavalierly holds black folks down, ignoring the cries for help. People dont care. Truly tragic.

Another friend of mine used the powerful song that went viral from 12-year-old Keedron Bryant to describe the frustrations he was feeling.

The circumstances of my friend and Keedron may be different, but their anguish is the same. Its shared by me and millions of others.

Its natural to wish for life to just get back to normal as a pandemic and economic crisis upend everything around us. But we have to remember that for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly normal whether its while dealing with the health care system, or interacting with the criminal justice system, or jogging down the street, or just watching birds in a park.

This shouldnt be normal in 2020 America. It cant be normal. If we want our children to grow up in a nation that lives up to its highest ideals, we can and must be better.

It will fall mainly on the officials of Minnesota to ensure that the circumstances surrounding George Floyds death are investigated thoroughly and that justice is ultimately done. But it falls on all of us, regardless of our race or station including the majority of men and women in law enforcement who take pride in doing their tough job the right way, every day to work together to create a new normal in which the legacy of bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts.

See more here:
What Trump, Biden and Obama Said About the Death of George Floyd - The New York Times