An encouraging moment from last night in NYC. Although (a) one of the protesters later claimed he thought the “looters” were undercover NYPD detectives acting as agents provocateurs to make the demonstrators look bad, which, ah, okay, and (b) there’s been enough damage to Target outlets already that the company’s being forced to go dark notwithstanding last night’s heroics. Dozens of stores will close temporarily across the nation (but especially in Minnesota) until things calm down. The Brooklyn store is among them.
Some protestors in Brooklyn calling to loot the Target, but organizers are rushing in front of the store to stop them, keep things non-violent #nycprotest pic.twitter.com/6x70cpcjep
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) May 31, 2020
This isn’t the only footage of protesters confronting vandals:
@TayAndersonCO in an altercation on the streets of Denver.  pic.twitter.com/u78fQdz1Yo
— Joshua Rodriguez (@Joshuajered) May 30, 2020
BuzzFeed has a slew of clips posted to Twitter by black protesters documenting white agitators showing up to their demonstrations to wreak havoc. Who are those white people? Theories abound:
Anderson said there were “several people” who were behaving like that at the protest, some of whom he believed are “right-wing conservative individuals who just don’t give a damn about black and brown people, or want to make this movement look bad.”
“It wasn’t black and brown folks that were antagonizing police. It was white people throwing stuff at them,” he said. “And then when they kept throwing bags of urine, cans, and water bottles, that’s when the police snapped and they started tear-gassing innocent bystanders.”
It’s politically convenient to blame “right-wing conservative individuals,” another false-flag theory, but in all probability these are mainly black-bloc/Antifa droogs turning out to exploit a breakdown in law enforcement.
Or maybe they’re just “YouTube stars” out for a lark?
YouTube star Jake Paul and his friends were caught “looting” and trashing property in a Scottsdale mall last night amid protests pic.twitter.com/KyrE87TvA9
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) May 31, 2020
Whatever the answer, there was some truly horrendous nastiness last night as the mobs ran wild:
BREAKING: man critically injured at Dallas riots
It appears he attempted to defend a shop with a large sword
Looters ran at him, then he charged rioters
They then beat him with a skateboard and stoned him with medium sized rocks
I called an Ambulance and it’s on the way pic.twitter.com/kFxl3kjsBC
— ELIJAH (@ElijahSchaffer) May 31, 2020
The cops are starting to lose their minds too:
Share widely: National guard and MPD sweeping our residential street. Shooting paint canisters at us on our own front porch. Yelling “light em up” #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #JusticeForGeorge #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/bW48imyt55
— Tanya Kerssen (@tkerssen) May 31, 2020
No doubt there’ll be new footage ranging from the depressing to the horrifying to show you tomorrow. Until then, sit with this.
“People did this for no reason”
WATCH – @benrynews captured a powerful interview with Stephanie Wilford, a south Minneapolis resident. She describes how the damage from riots has affected her, and others in the community.
Full story/interview here – https://t.co/M5fajCuAJR pic.twitter.com/UrlJ9qeWk1— KSTP (@KSTP) May 30, 2020