Protesters in Minneapolis reportedly played audio from The Purge whilst cars and buildings burned on the third night of protests over the death of an unarmed black man in police custody.
One video uploaded live on Thursday night showed burning vehicles as the audio, used in the American dystopian horror series The Purge, was played on a speaker.
“Any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours”, says the voice in the audio.
It continues: “Police, fire and emergency medical services will be unavailable until tomorrow morning at 7am when The Purge concludes.”
“America, a nation reborn, may god be with you all,” is then heard before a siren blares.
The Purge, which was released in 2013, centres on the emergence of a totalitarian political party dubbed “the New Founding Fathers of America”, who sanction an annual “purge” each year in which all crime, including murder, arson, theft and rape are legal.
One person watching the live video on Thursday commented underneath: “Stop that’s not real”. Another person comments: “F**k it up Minnesota”.
Protesters with face coverings can be heard laughing at the end of the 38-second long clip, which has since had 46,000 views on Twitter where it was re-uploaded.
On Friday, US president Donald Trump described those caught-up in street clashes since Monday were “thugs”.
The protesters have called for criminal charges to be brought against four Minneapolis police officers who arrested George Floyd on Monday and pinned the 46-year-old to the ground until he could not breathe and later died.
“I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis,” wrote Mr Trump, who is now set to deploy the US military to stop the protests.
Mr Trump added that “These THUGS are dishonouring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen.”
Twitter later added an alert to the president’s post, warning that it “violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence”, because he said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
