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VOA - World News

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to end “the riots and lawlessness” across the country, but clashes between police and protesters erupted for a seventh night Monday even as big city mayors imposed curfews to keep people off the streets and National Guard troops were deployed to quell the violence.
 
The often peaceful day-time demonstrations spawned by the death last week of a black man while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, degenerated as night descended into angry street confrontations between protesters and police in several cities.  
 
But Trump on Tuesday morning declared on Twitter: Washington “had no problems last night. Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination. Likewise, Minneapolis was great (thank you President Trump!).”

Former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent in the November national election, attacked the U.S. leader’s response to the week of coast-to-coast violence, perhaps the most widespread civil unrest in the country since the extended protests against the Vietnam war in the 1960s.
 
"The country is crying out for leadership,” Biden said in Philadelphia. “Leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together. Leadership that can recognize pain and deep grief of communities that have had a knee on their neck for a long time.
 
“I won’t traffic in fear and division,” Biden promised.
 

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Tear gas, rubber bullets

In Washington Monday, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters to clear a park across the street from the White House shortly before an early evening curfew took effect.
 
A short time later, Trump took a short walk through the park for a photo-op in front of the nearby fire-damaged St. John’s Episcopal Church, often referred to as “the church of the presidents.”
 
Trump held up a Bible, declared the United States as the “greatest country in the world,” and said, “we’re going to keep it safe.”

President Donald Trump holds up a Bible as he stands outside St. John's Church across Lafayette Park, near the White House, in Washington, June 1, 2020.

Earlier, at the White House, Trump vowed that “if a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
 
Trump said he was “mobilizing all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment rights.” The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of all American citizens to own firearms.
 
Church photo-op draws rebuke

Trump’s use of the church as a backdrop prop for a photo-op drew a sharp rebuke from the head of the Episcopal diocese of Washington, Bishop Mariann Budde.
 
She said Trump “just used a Bible and a church of my diocese as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for. To do so, he sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the church yard.
 
“Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence,” she said.
 
Biden said, “He's using the American military against the American people. He tear-gassed peaceful protesters and fired rubber bullets. For a photo. For our children, for the very soul of our country, we must defeat him.”

Rubio blames 'agitators'

However, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida voiced a different view of the police action in the park, claiming that “professional agitators” were posing as peaceful protesters and that the media fell for their “calculated” tactics.
 
“They knew the street needed to be cleared before 7 pm curfew,” Rubio tweeted. “But they deliberately stayed to trigger police action & get the story they wanted, that 'police attacked peaceful protesters.’”
 
What sparked protests

The demonstrations started a week ago in Minneapolis, where George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died after being held face down on a city street by a white police officer who pressed a knee against his neck even as Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe.
 
Minnesota’s Hennepin County medical examiner ruled Floyd’s death a homicide and said he died of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” An independent autopsy commissioned by Floyd’s family concluded that he died of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure” after being pinned down by his neck and back.

FILE - People are seen gathered at a memorial featuring a mural of George Floyd, near the spot where he died while in police custody, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 31, 2020.

Another church visit

On Tuesday, Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, is planning another visit to a religious site, the Catholic Saint John Paul II National Shrine, a short drive from the White House.
 
The president, according to Defense Department officials, ordered the Army to deploy an active duty military police battalion for Washington, the single jurisdiction where the military can do so without first consulting the governor of a state.  
 
National Guard mobilized

All 1,200 National Guard forces in the nation’s capital have been mobilized, and five states were quickly sending between 600 and 800 additional Guard troops, some armed with lethal weapons, according to officials.   
 
Additional U.S. active duty troops, including military police and engineering units, have been placed on standby outside the District of Columbia but are poised to move in if necessary, officials say.  
 
Late Monday night, a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter flew low over the rooftops of Washington’s historic Chinatown district in a “show of force” maneuver, sending protesters scattering to avoid the dust and debris kicked up by the helicopter’s rotors, which also snapped the branches off trees.   
 
Earlier Monday, Trump rebuked U.S. state governors, telling them to get tough with protesters.  
 
"Most of you are weak,” the president told them, according to an audio recording of the call. “You have to dominate. If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.” 

Protest response criticized

Trump is facing criticism for not adopting the traditional presidential role of “consoler-in-chief" since the death of Floyd, which has spawned a national outpouring of agony and anger.  
 
The president, instead, has spent time on Twitter attacking Biden, other Democratic politicians and lumping them in with the far-left radicals he blames for the violence in recent days.