As unrest spread across dozens of American cities on Friday, the Pentagon took the rare step of ordering the Army to put several active-duty US military police units on the ready to deploy to Minneapolis, where the police killing of George Floyd sparked the widespread protests.
Soldiers from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Drum in New York have been ordered to be ready to deploy within four hours if called, according to three people with direct knowledge of the orders.
Soldiers in Fort Carson, in Colorado, and Fort Riley in Kansas have been told to be ready within 24 hours. The people did not want their names used because they were not authorized to discuss the preparations.
The get-ready orders were sent verbally on Friday, after President Donald Trump asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper for military options to help quell the unrest in Minneapolis after protests descended into looting and arson in some parts of the city.
Trump made the request on a phone call from the Oval Office on Thursday night that included Esper, National Security Advisor Robert O' Brien and several others.
The president asked Esper for rapid deployment options if the Minneapolis protests continued to spiral out of control, according to one of the people, senior Pentagon official who was on the call.
"When the White House asks for options, someone opens the drawer and pulls them out so to speak," the official said.
The person said the military units would be deployed under the Insurrection Act of 1807, which was last used in 1992 during the riots in Los Angeles that followed the Rodney King trial.
"If this is where the president is headed response-wise, it would represent a significant escalation and a determination that the various state and local authorities are not up to the task of responding to the growing unrest," Brad Moss, a Washington DC-based attorney, who specializes in national security.
Members of the police units were on a 30-minute recall alert early Saturday, meaning they would have to return to their bases inside that time limit in preparation for deployment to Minneapolis inside of four hours.
Units at Fort Drum are slated to head to Minneapolis first, according to the three people, including two Defence Department officials. Roughly 800 US soldiers would deploy to the city if called.
Protests erupted in Minneapolis this week after video emerged showing a police officer kneeling on Floyd's neck. Floyd later died of his injuries and the officer, Derek Chauvin, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter on Friday.
The protests turned violent and on Thursday rioters torched the Minneapolis Third Police Precinct near where Floyd was arrested. Mayor Jacob Frey ordered a citywide curfew at 8 pm beginning on Friday.
1 person shot dead in Detroit during protest
One person was killed in downtown Detroit after someone in an SUV fired shots into a crowd of people protesting George Floyd's death in Minneapolis custody, a Detroit police spokeswoman said Saturday.
The shooting occurred about 11:30 p.m. Friday near Detroit's Greektown entertainment district as officers were confronted with dozens of protesters, said Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood, a police department spokeswoman. She said an officer wasn't involved in the shooting.
Kirkwood said the victim was a 19-year-old man, who was pronounced dead at the hospital. The suspect pulled up in a Dodge Durango and fired shots into the crowd, she said.
No details about the victim or the person who fired the shot or shots were immediately available, Kirkwood said. A white former Minneapolis officer was charged with murder Friday in the death of Floyd, a black man who was handcuffed and pleaded for air as the officer pressed his knee on his neck for several minutes during the arrest.
