MINNEAPOLIS (Dispatches) -- Civil unrest flared on Sunday as curfews imposed in several major U.S. cities failed to deter demonstrators who took to the streets to vent outrage at the death of a black man shown on video gasping for breath with a white Minneapolis policeman kneeling on his neck.
From Los Angeles to Miami to Chicago, protests marked by chants of "I can’t breathe” - a rallying cry echoing the dying words of George Floyd - began peacefully before turning unruly as demonstrators blocked traffic, set fires and clashed with riot police firing tear gas and plastic bullets.
Demonstraters nationwide chanted slogans such as "Black Lives Matter" and "I can't breathe," which Floyd, who has become a fresh symbol of police brutality, was heard saying repeatedly before he died.
"We're not turning the cheek anymore. Black lives matter. They will always matter. And we're here today to show that," said makeup artist Melissa Mock, who joined several thousand in a daytime protest in Miami.
The sight of protesters flooding streets fueled a sense of crisis in the United States after weeks of lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen millions thrown out of work and has disproportionately affected minority communities.
In the nation’s capital, hundreds of demonstrators assembled near the Justice Department headquarters shouting, "black lives matter.” Many later moved to the White House, where they faced off with shield-carrying police, some mounted on horseback, as well as secret service agents for a second straight night.
President Donald Trump said on Saturday that if protesters who gathered the night before in Lafayette Square, across from the White House, had breached the fence, "they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen.”
"My administration will stop mob violence. And we'll stop it cold," he added, accusing the loose-knit militant anti-fascist network Antifa of orchestrating the violence.
The full Minnesota National Guard was activated for the first time since World War Two.
Police have arrested nearly 1,700 people in 22 cities since Thursday, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Civil rights activists said video of Floyd’s arrest on Monday - captured by an onlooker’s cellphone as he repeatedly groaned, "please, I can’t breathe” before he died - triggered an outpouring of rage long simmering over persistent racial bias in the U.S. criminal justice system.
But the rapidly spreading protests also coincided with a deep-seated national discontent over the social claustrophobia and economic carnage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.
In a surreal moment for Miami, police sirens and lights flooded downtown neighborhoods as fireworks began crackling and booming over Biscayne Bay to honor healthcare workers fighting the pandemic. Hundreds of police in riot gear swarmed the area, threatening to arrest anyone, including media, who ventured onto the streets.
Curfews were imposed in several major cities rocked by civil disturbances in recent days, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Denver, Cincinnati, Portland, Oregon, and Louisville, Kentucky. Protests also flared in Dallas, Chicago, Seattle, Salt Lake City and Cleveland.
In an extraordinary move, the Pentagon said it put military units on a four-hour alert to be ready if requested by the Minnesota governor to help keep the peace.
National Guard units also were mobilized by the governors of Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin and Tennessee. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he was mobilizing the state's entire 13,000-strong National Guard.
All major freeways leading into Minneapolis were closed Saturday night with military helicopters overhead. Several armored National Guard vehicles were seen rolling through town and authorities later closed major highways leading in and out of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Tina Harrison, 32, gasping and coughing as she and two companions poured milk over their faces after being pepper-sprayed, insisted they were present to voice legitimate grievances as protesters, not to incite lawlessness.
"We came here as white women ... to protect people of color,” Harrison said while they took cover inside an apartment lobby.
It marked the fifth night of such clashes, the second since Friday’s announcement that Derek Chauvin, the policeman seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck, had been arrested on murder charges in Floyd’s death.
Thousands flooded Chicago streets for a second day of protests. Cellphone footage shared with Reuters showed an overturned SUV, a patrol car on fire, a person burning the American flag and a skirmish between demonstrators and police.
In the Brooklyn borough of New York City, video footage recorded by onlookers showed a police squad car driving into a crowd of protesters during a second day unrest.
"They could’ve killed them, & we don’t know how many they injured,” U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter, demanding the NYPD officers be brought to justice.
At a late-night news conference, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested protesters were to blame.
"The video was upsetting, and I wish the officers hadn’t done that,” de Blasio said. "But I also understood that they didn’t start the situation. The situation was started by a group of protesters converging on a police vehicle, attacking that vehicle.”
Protesters in Los Angeles clashed with police in the city’s Fairfax district, where crowds tried to force their way into the CBS Television City studios, the Los Angeles Times said.
World Alarmed
Nations around the world have watched in horror at the five days of civil unrest in the United States but they have not been surprised.
Racism-tinged events no longer startle even America’s closest allies, though many have watched coverage of the protests with growing unease. Burning cars and riot police in the U.S. featured on newspaper front pages around the globe Sunday — bumping news of the COVID-19 pandemic to second-tier status in some places.
Floyd’s tragic ending was the latest in a series of deaths of black men and women at the hands of police in America.
Thousands gathered in central London on Sunday to offer support for American demonstrators. Chanting "No justice! No peace!” and waving placards with the words "How many more?” at Trafalgar Square, the protesters ignored UK government rules banning crowds because of the pandemic.  
Demonstrators then marched to the U.S. Embassy, where a long line of officers surrounded the building. Several hundred sat in the street and waved placards
The U.S. Embassy in Berlin was the scene of protests on Saturday evening under the motto: "Justice for George Floyd.” Police said the gathering, organized through social media, was larger than expected but reported no arrests.
Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper on Sunday carried the sensational headline "This killer-cop set America ablaze” with an arrow pointing to a photo of Derek Chauvin, with his knee on Floyd’s neck. The newspaper’s story reported "scenes like out of a civil war.”
In Italy, the Corriere della Sera newspaper’s senior U.S. correspondent Massimo Gaggi wrote that the reaction to Floyd’s killing was "different” than previous cases of black Americans killed by police and the ensuring violence.
"There are exasperated black movements that no longer preach nonviolent resistance,” Gaggi wrote, noting the Minnesota governor’s warning that "anarchist and white supremacy groups are trying to fuel the chaos.?
Peaceful protests occurred too, including in Toronto as the movement spread beyond America's borders.
In another expression of solidarity with American protesters, people marched through central Jerusalem Al-Quds on Saturday to protest the shooting death by Israeli police of an unarmed, autistic Palestinian man earlier in the day.