SEATTLE: Protesters took to streets across the United States overnight into early Sunday, sparking clashes with police and a fatal shooting in Texas, amid a wave of public anger over Donald Trump’s planned “surge” of federal agents in main cities.

The demonstrations against racism and police brutality — ignited two months ago by the death in Minneapolis of unarmed African-American George Floyd — come as the US president faces an increasingly tough battle for re-election, and is campaigning on a “law and order” platform.

He has met stiff resistance from big city mayors, like Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, many of them Democrats who accuse Trump of magnifying the problem for political gain.

“I have drawn a very hard line. We’ll not allow federal troops in our city,” Lightfoot said on CNN’s State of the Union show.

“We will not tolerate unnamed agents taking people off the street, violating their rights and holding them in custody.”

Protesters marched in Austin, Texas, as well as Louisville, Kentucky; New York; Omaha, Nebraska; California’s Oakland and Los Angeles, and Richmond in Virginia.

In Austin, a man was killed in a shooting that broke out on Saturday night at a protest in the downtown area of the Texas state capital, police said.

A witness, Michael Capochiano, told the Austin Statesman newspaper that the incident occurred when a man in a car turned onto a street where protesters were gathered and drove towards the crowd.

The vehicle became surrounded by shouting protesters, and one approached the vehicle carrying a rifle, he said.

The driver then stuck a gun out of the car window and fired several shots, hitting the man with the rifle, before speeding away, according to Capochiano.

Police said the shooter was in custody, and cooperating with investigators.

In Seattle, police arrested 45 people during a night of violent protests in which demonstrators set fire to trailers by a construction site for a youth detention facility.

Protesters slashed car tyres and smashed trailer windows, prompting police to declare a riot and clear the streets with pepper spray and flash-bang grenades.

Police Chief Carmen Best implored people to “come in peace to the city”, and castigated the demonstrators.

“The rioters had no regard for the community’s safety, for officers’ safety or for the businesses and property that they destroyed,” local media quoted her as saying.

Further south in Portland, police and federal agents fired tear gas and forcefully dispersed protesters for a second night early on Sunday.

Police moved after a group of protesters tried to pull down a fence erected around a federal courthouse.

Portland has taken centre stage for the highly controversial crackdown by federal agents ordered by Trump.

Saturday’s demonstration began peacefully but it ended with tear gas fired after protesters attached ropes to barricades surrounding the city’s courthouse in an attempt to pull them down.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2020