Peaceful demonstrations are a respected part of our city culture. Violent ones are NOT. Locally here, the organized demonstrations started out peacefully in the afternoon. However, shortly after 10PM, that changed.

Rumor is that "out-of-towners" came in to agitate & instigate the violence, fires, and property damage that then evoked a police response. What happened overnight was not normal for our city. In the light of day, locals came out to work together to clean up some of the damage. Unnecessary violence was bad last night in our city, but not nearly a fraction as bad in other cities across the country.

Peaceful demonstrations are continuing here this afternoon. I agree with the peaceful demonstrator's sentiments. Violence is not what the legitimate demonstrations have been about. Hopefully things do not change and again turn violent tonight.

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May 31, 2020, 22:20 GMT
USA
1,834,805 confirmed cases of COVID-19
106,145 American Deaths

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Although some people are wearing masks, current events have now opened the door to the advanced spread of COVID. Some demonstrators are wearing masks; others are not. Everyone is in close proximately. There is a lot of shouting and spreading of "droplets". COVID is still here. America is under seize.

All of my above photos were taken at home from the local TV news broadcast.

The normal local, half hour news started out at 10PM. But then, it expanded & kept going - without commercial break - until 2 AM when the violence finally died down. The local news anchor (who has lived here all of her life) kept repeating that she couldn't believe that such violence was really happening in "our town." She said it broke her heart.

Sadly, pockets of violence has taken away from the valid message of the sincere demonstrators. That is an issue in itself. Meanwhile, COVID doesn't care about human thoughts & motivations. It only looks for an opportunity for spread. After weeks of so many people being in quarantine, social distancing suddenly seems to have been totally tossed aside. Therefore, we may now be headed toward another COVID wave & perhaps a new peak across the country. With over 106 thousand Americans already dead from coronavirus, the future here in the USA looks questionable.