This shocking footage shows a protester being beaten up by three white men wielding a metal bar during the George Floyd protests in Minnea...
This shocking footage shows a protester being beaten up by three white men wielding a metal bar during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis.
The victim - thought to be a person of color - was beaten, kicked and stamped on after coming to a woman's defense when the attackers allegedly harassed her with a machete.
The video was taken by 26-year-old Jose Ponce, who told Vice he had seen the three attackers looting burned-out buildings and berating police before they launched their attack.
Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey has warned that the protests over the death of black man George Floyd are being infiltrated by people 'using crowds as cover' to 'prey on' the city.
This shocking footage shows a protester being beaten up by three white men wielding a metal bar during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis
Ponce said he was walking with 31-year-old Tanis Beiris when they saw the three men stealing things from wrecked buildings and throwing them into the streets.
'They stood out to me in a way. They seemed like they weren’t from here; they looked very suspicious to me - something didn’t feel right,' Ponce said.
The footage starts after Beiris had asked the men where they were from, prompting one of them to move towards her with a machete and the victim to intervene.
That led the three men to attack the newcomer, one of them swinging the long metal bar.
One blow sends the victim crumpling to the ground, where he lies motionless while two of the men kick and stamp on him.
The attacker with the metal bar wrestled with another person who appeared to be trying to restrain him before backing away.
His two accomplices keep on kicking the prostrate victim, delivering several more blows until they are exhorted to stop by passers-by.
One blow sent the victim crumpling to the ground, where he lay motionless while two of the men kicked and stamped on him
The victim remains lying on the ground, clearly injured, as the attackers walk off in another direction and the video ends.
Ponce said the man had been 'bleeding' and 'twitching' and threw up twice before he was eventually transported to a nearby medical center.
Ponce and Beiris thought the victim was a person of color but his ethnicity was not clear from the video.
Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey has warned that protests are being infiltrated by 'people using crowds as cover to prey on Minneapolis and destroy [the] community'.
'In the last few days, both our city and state law enforcement capacities have been overwhelmed by simple math - an overwhelming ratio of rioters that even our unified effort has been unable to push back,' he said.
'We are now confronting white supremacists, members of organized crime, out of state instigators, and possibly even foreign actors to destroy and destabilize our city and our region.'
Security forces take position during a protest in Minneapolis over the weekend as the country was convulsed by anger and violence over the death of George Floyd
Minneapolis saw its sixth straight night of protests yesterday in a wave of anger which has spread around the country after Floyd's death last Monday.
Video footage showed a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes despite Floyd's pleas that he could not breathe.
It is the latest in a string of similar incidents involving unarmed black men in recent years that has raised an outcry over excessive police force and racism.
Many states have called up the National Guard to quell the violence which has spread to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles among other cities.
Donald Trump has described the violent protesters as 'thugs' and urged Democratic mayors and governors to 'get tough', while calling Floyd's death a 'grave tragedy'.
The protests have once again exposed the sharp racial divisions in the country just month before it decides whether Trump will get a second term.
Trump did not appear in public on Sunday as protests raged outside the White House and has declined to make a public address on the subject.
His short-lived former communications adviser Anthony Scaramucci last night branded him the nation's 'coward-in-chief'.
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