New York dawned on Tuesday with areas of the city devastated by the looting of the previous night, which left more than 700 arrests during the first curfew decreed in the city of skyscrapers in almost 80 years, which will be advanced three hours today to try to contain the unrest.
After a long day of peaceful protests on Monday, the situation changed as night fell, with street fires, destruction and robbery in stores, and clashes between agents and youth groups.
According to authorities, more than 700 arrests were made overnight, by far the largest number since the start of protests sparked by the death in Minnesota of George Floyd, a black man, by the police.
The most contentious areas were commercial areas of Manhattan, where business looting abounded, and parts of the Bronx district.
BREAKDOWN ON THE BRONX
This morning, as soon as the curfew was declared over, the sirens of some stores still sounded half off in Fordham Road, in the Bronx, where several windows of the Old Navy chain remained open to anyone who wanted to shop around the store, full of naked mannequins.
At 05:30 in the morning, those who went to work, the majority Hispanic, crossed paths with police detainees transport vans, patrol vehicles and police officers on foot, some still in riot gear.
Young black men jokingly commented on the landscape, over which the smell of fire extinguishers hung.
Four gigantic 54-inch plasma televisions sat in the back door of a Best Buy after looters had tried to pull them out through the aluminum shutters to no avail.
Shoes, boxes and broken glass were scattered along this shopping street in the Bronx without anyone taking care of picking them up, and while an early riser neighbor took photos and then blurted out, “What madness!”
Hours before there had been scenes of looting, bonfires in the middle of the street, and police officers who, with blows, ended up momentarily abandoning the territory to the vandals, who did not attack the small shops in the neighborhood, but those of the large chains.
LOOTS IN THE HEART OF MANHATTAN
In Manhattan, the scene was similar, although in some cases it seemed that the agitators were more interested in fighting with feather pillows snatched from an elite club than in stealing the leather loafers from the opposite store, whose flaws were evaluated by an expert.
“This is nonsense. They have destroyed the showcase and the interior, but almost nothing has been taken, ”one of the employees sent by the insurer explained astonished to Efe.
The two-storey North Face Fifth Avenue store featured people-sized wounds in its window displays and an interior with only collapsed furniture. It rains on wet since it is his second consecutive assault.
In Coach’s shop they swept windows, while two experts discussed whether the damage corresponded to the riots on Monday or Sunday.
Jewelers and shoe and cell phone stores appear to have been the main riot of those shielded from the peaceful protests of George Floyd Police death a week ago stormed the Manhattan shopping mall.
The morning scenes of a city that was already quarantined by the COVID-19 pandemic have a surreal touch. Manhattan no longer boils with office workers, but with construction contractors, insurer employees, and healthcare personnel who dressed in gowns and on their bikes headed to the first hospital shift.
In addition, near Herald Square, where the iconic Macy’s store was robbed, the pedestrianized spaces expanded to allow respect for social distance were the field of raids for dozens of young people.
The street furniture, which liked walks on Broadway, served to destroy shop windows and assault small premises such as the Madison jewelry that seems to have been completely empty or a lonely souvenir store of which only the idyllic postcards of the Big Apple remain.
THE POLICE COMPLAINTS ATTACKS
The police union Police Benevolent Association (PBA) posted several videos on its Twitter account attacking the management of the Mayor’s Office and pointing to violent incidents against the authorities during the night, including the destruction of police vehicles and a beating of an agent by of several people who hit him with objects.
Police Chief Dermot Shea echoed one of those videos showing an object being thrown at a police officer, calling the incident “horrible and unfortunately not uncommon” and calling for “stopping the rhetoric anti-police that is fueling these senseless attacks, “calling on protesters to” work together “with the authorities.
For this Tuesday, the Mayor’s Office has decided to advance the start of the curfew from 11 at night to 8 in the afternoon.
“These protests have power and meaning, but as the night progresses we are seeing groups using them to incite violence and destroy property. Our priority is to keep people safe,” said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, announcing the measure.
From Listín Diario.
