MINNEAPOLIS _ A state-imposed curfew took effect at 8 p.m. Saturday and brought with it swift enforcement meant to prevent yet another night of violent and destructive unrest that scarred Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul following George Floyd's death after being detained by police.
Within the first hour, security forces moved aggressively as the situation went from peaceful to tense to confrontational in multiple parts of Minneapolis.
The National Guard moved against all demonstrators in the area north of Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue, throwing tear gas bombs and effectively dispersing much of the crowd. The intention was clearly to get everyone to leave and comply with a curfew that lasts until 6 a.m.
National Guard troops continued to advance en masse against the scattering crowd as smoke and tear gas obscured views and were carried down the street by the wind. A few protesters re-emerged after scattering, and were again greeted with barrages of tear gas.
In the space of 20 minutes, the huge crowd that had been outside the Fifth Precinct near Lake and Nicollet was down to just a few people, who drew waves of officers releasing tear gas. Many people had scattered down side streets into the neighborhoods.
In front of the Lake Street Kmart, protesters began erecting a barrier about 9 p.m. with signs in the middle of the road as police in riot gear made their way toward them. Tear gas left a haze in the air as law enforcement began firing projectiles, striking a reporter in the thigh.
In an east metro suburb, West St. Paul police responded to several reports of shots fired. Police said officer are stopping several vehicles, most with no license plates. There are no reports of injuries or confirmation that these reports are related to the week's unrest in St. Paul or Minneapolis.
In an apparent second prong to stifle any trouble Saturday night, State Patrol troopers have made "several" gun violation arrests at 28th Street and S. Grand Avenue in south Minneapolis, the state Department of Public Safety said in a statement. An AR-15 style firearm was confiscated, the department said.
To the east, where dozens of stores and the Third Precinct police station were severely damaged earlier in the week, the clock struck 8 and phones buzzed with the emergency notice.
"C'mon," yelled a woman to her young daughter as she climbed into the car. "It's curfew."
Although downtown Minneapolis was all but deserted, the National Guard was ready. About 40 troops and eight trucks stood at the intersection of Washington and Chicago avenues in east Downtown.
State transportation officials late Saturday afternoon used large maintenance trucks to close interstates at 7 p.m., ahead when state officials want people to be home. Moments before the curfew's first minute, many smartphones in Minneapolis sounded an emergency alert signaling the curfew was imminent.
Another sign of the impending curfew was the positioning of National Guard personnel and vehicles at the Minneapolis Convention Center on the southern edge of downtown.
Gov. Tim Walz spoke to his constituents in a widely televised news conference to implore everyone to stay home and restore order to the state's two major urban centers.
"Minnesotans, you must stay at home tonight," Walz said about the curfew, which will remain in effect until 6 a.m. Sunday. "Don't go out, don't go walking, don't drive. ... Support our first responders tonight by giving them the space to protect us."
The hope by officials is that peace-seeking citizens comply and make it easier for law enforcement to identify and counter those with only destruction on their minds.
"These are forces that run antithetical values, forces that have completely overrun our city," Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in following up to Walz. "And it has broken my heart."
Many of the people out in the afternoon not only carried signs and chanted slogans championing justice for Floyd, who was 46 when he died Monday, but took up brooms and other tools as cleanup crews swept up debris from businesses burned and looted by the dozens along Lake Street, Nicollet Avenue, Minnehaha Avenue and other major thoroughfares.
Block after block along Lake Street _ even miles from the hardest-hit parts of Minneapolis _ were storefronts protected by hastily nailed-up plywood as protection against vandals while offering a large surface for expressions of grief or anger over Floyd's death.
At E. 38th Street and S. Chicago Avenue, where Floyd was pinned under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer who now stands charged in his death, music blared over loudspeakers as food smoked on grills and flowers ringed messages of hope and determination chalked on the pavement: "Together we rise" and "We already miss you George and we won't forget" next to a giant 1960s-era peace sign. Visitors snapped photos or sat in silence at the memorial's edge.
Along one wall of the Cup Foods store is a mural with "George" and "Floyd" in giant yellow letters spreading like wings from his visage.
Walz said at his pre-curfew news conference that he was at the afternoon gatherings, and he noticed "a sense of solidarity, a sense of trying to channel grief and rage and anger into something positive.
"Large numbers of people brought things with them. They didn't bring explosive devices. They brought brooms, they brought shovels, they brought wheel barrows to clean up for people they didn't know, but knew they were their neighbors."
While the sense of community seemed to dominate where disorder and confrontation had ruled the past few nights, state officials and law enforcement are hopeful that a curfew to start at 8 p.m. in Minneapolis and St. Paul will leave exposed the people in the streets who were bent on destruction.
On the streets near the Minneapolis Police Department's Fifth Precinct station, an area where buildings were torched and looted the night before, officers said over dispatch audio that the crowd has swelled to 6,000 by late afternoon and were "law-abiding."
Heading into a second night of curfew, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter issued a plea to business owners to help spread the word and encourage people to stay home and let police, the State Patrol and the National Guard doe their job and keep the peace.
"I can assure you that I don't take lightly the notion of asking for National Guard support; I don't take lightly the notion of issuing a citywide a curfew," the mayor said in a conference call with the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce. "It's time for people to stay home."
Carter dismissed the notion that the violence in Minneapolis on Friday was a sign that local curfews had failed.
"There's not any reasonable read that would say that folks who packed a bag and came to Minnesota for the purpose of starting mayhem and being destructive are going to look at a mayoral executive order on a curfew and go, 'Ah, confound it, now we can't pour Molotov cocktails,' " he said. "The purpose of the executive order is to ask everybody else."
