National Guard Should Not Be Deployed In New York City To End Riots - Mayor De Blasio

National Guard Should Not Be Deployed in New York City to End Riots - Mayor de Blasio

The National Guard should not be brought into New York City to help end and contain rioting there after a night when police arrested nearly 700 people for looting, Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference on Tuesday

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd June, 2020) The National Guard should not be brought into New York City to help end and contain rioting there after a night when police arrested nearly 700 people for looting, Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference on Tuesday.

"We will regret it if we bring in outside armed forces," de Blasio said. "I want to say it as clear as a bell: When you bring in people not trained for the circumstances, really bad things happen."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo imposed a curfew on New York City starting on Monday night and said he has the state's National Guard on standby after a weekend of riots. The riots followed initial peaceful protests across the United States over the death of African American man George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25.

However, de Blasio, who has often publicly clashed with Cuomo on policies to deal with the novel coronavirus pandemic, announced his own curfew terms of 8:00 pm through 5:00 am for the rest of this week. The mayor said New York City's own police force had sufficient resources and were far better trained and prepared to deal with the riots.

On Monday, President Donald Trump threatened to deploy thousands of US armed forces unless state governors sent National Guard units to "dominate the streets" in reaction to the wave of riots if city and state governments failed to take sufficient actions to end them and reestablish law and order.

During the protests in Washington, Sputnik journalist Nicole Roussell said she was fired at by police several times while covering the events despite identifying herself es being a member of the media.