Demonstrators, police clash across nation in another night of protest

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) for saying he would not “blame” New York City policy officers who appeared to have driven their vehicle into a throng of protesters.

“@NYCMayor your comments tonight were unacceptable,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter. “This moment demands leadership & accountability from each of us. Defending and making excuses for NYPD running SUVs into crowds was wrong.”

Though it was unclear to what exactly he was referring, President Trump tweeted late Saturday night, “Let New York’s Finest be New York’s Finest. There is nobody better, but they must be allowed to do their job!”

BROOKLYN — Sultan Malik, 40, who seems to have become an impromptu leaders of New York City protesters, was exhausted after two days of demonstrations. He sat down Saturday on the speaker he’d been carrying for seven hours. His voice was gone.

“When y’all ready to fight, I’ll fight,” Malik told fellow protesters as they scattered.

Police had closed in like a vise on both the north and south ends of one of Brooklyn’s main streets in the upper middle-class, largely white neighborhood of Cobble Hill. Some onlookers cheered on the demonstrators as they drank to-go cocktails.

Dallas’s second day of protests reached a flash point late Saturday as a widely circulated, graphic video showed a man charging at protesters with a machete before being brutally beaten.

In various videos on social media, the man is seen carrying a machete and chases a group of protesters. A Dallas Police Department spokesman said the man was allegedly trying to protect his neighborhood from protesters.

The man was then assaulted by a group of people, who kicked and punched the man in the body and head. Once the attackers clear, the unidentified man was left behind with a bloody head, twisted limbs, and he was not moving.

Target has temporarily closed 175 stores in 13 states — about 9 percent of its U.S. stores — as protests continue across the country, including in Minneapolis, the site of George Floyd’s death and where the retail giant is headquartered.

“Our focus will remain on our team members’ safety and helping our community heal,” the retailer said in a statement.

About 42 percent of the closures are for Minnesota locations. Seven stores, including four in Minneapolis, are closed until further notice. Forty-nine store locations are closed across California, which is the largest collection outside of Minnesota.

Protesters at the intersection of East 31st Street and South Third Avenue as police in riot gear advance toward them on Saturday in Minneapolis.

Protesters burn trash cans and police vehicles as they march in Lower Manhattan on Saturday night.

Family-friendly marches for justice unfolded blocks from pandemonium in parallel protests playing out on Saturday in the Pacific Northwest.

Demonstrators chanted in unison beneath umbrellas while circling downtown Seattle, where groups of people overturned trash bins, shattered the windows of businesses and torched a police vehicle, according to local reports.

Police in riot gear and gas masks used pepper spray and tear gas to move protesters who had been looting stores. They chased and arrested several of the demonstrators, some of whom walked onto a nearby freeway and blocked traffic.

After days of protests and bursts of violence around the city, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles County late Saturday night.

The state also granted Mayor Eric Garcetti’s request to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles to help “maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city,” wrote Garcetti in a late-night tweet.

Garcetti had already extended curfew in the city from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Sunday to maintain order after fires raged and violence broke out around the city Saturday. The mayor initially resisted calling on troops to avoid evoking memories of the 1992 Rodney King riots.