Update (10:21 ET): On Thursday morning, buildings are still on fire, and protesters are clashing with police.
Twitter user Tony Webster says looting continues this morning.
Webster shows the extent of the damage from last night's chaos:
Entire strip mall looted
Cub Foods grocery store destroyed
Aldi supermarket likely destroyed
Fires continue to rage
Protesters burned down a Wendy's fast-food restaurant
Here's the AutoZone that was completely torched
Liquor store looted. Fire damage is seen at the entrance of the building.
Dollar General burns
Smartphone shop looted
Protesters robbed a Wells Fargo bank
Streets around the 3rd Precinct look like a warzone. Absolutely stunning...
Pictures from within Wendy's -- there's nothing left...
Protesters spray paint a message on a wall: "Merchandise Can Be Replaced Black Lives Can Not."
BMW SUV burnt to a crisp
Protesters write "Fuck The Bank" on the wall of U.S. Bancorp. Clearly not happy about their past banking experience.
More retail shops burned
Protesters did not torch a "minority-owned" business.
Another liquor store robbed
Fires at a construction site
* * *
For the second night in a row, peaceful protests over the in-custody death of George Floyd quickly turned violent Wednesday night, with multiple building structures set ablaze, widespread looting, and continued rioting.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey requested Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to deploy the Minnesota National Guard following the social unrest. Demonstrators torched multiple building structures, including an apartment complex and surrounding buildings, an AutoZone, and other retail stores. At least a dozen stores were looted and or damaged.
"That's like five buildings on fire," one demonstrator said while talking to Unicorn Riot News.
A reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune tweeted images of the apartment building engulfed in flames.
Apparently, the apartment building was new construction with no one inside (that has yet to be confirmed).
The fire quickly spread to other structures nearby.
Here are several unbelievable scenes around the apartment complex.
"2020 is really going to go down in the books. This is the typa shit out future kids will read about. This is history in the making," said one Twitter user while referring to the fires.
Looks like an entire block is on fire.
The fire around the apartment building continues to rage early Thursday morning.
Many stores in this "strip mall looted and every window broken," tweeted one user.
Unicorn Riot News tweeted scenes from outside an AutoZone on Wednesday evening that was burned to the ground.
Unicorn Riot tweeted early Thursday morning that "smoke, fire alarm blaring, sprinklers going off inside Target." This is the same Target we noted on Wednesday evening that was looted by dozens, if not hundreds of people.
One Twitter user claims an "aldi may have also burned in the fires."
Protesters were hungry and looted Wendy's.
The situation is getting tense on Thursday morning: "More militarized police have reinforced the roof and perimeter of the MPD 3rd Precinct building. But they’re just kind of standing around and law enforcement clearly has given up trying to control Minneapolis right now," Unicorn Riot said.
Confirmed by Unicorn Riot but not official: "AutoZone and Wendy’s are all but burned down at this point. Some new condos under construction have gone up in flames as well."
Unicorn Riot claims "shots were just fired" possibly at the police station, which is the area where much of the rioting has been based.
Here's a live Periscope stream of the destruction, and at 5:51 ET, buildings are still on fire, and rioting continues.
Mayor Frey tweeted a plea for an end to the violence:
"Please, Minneapolis, we cannot let tragedy beget more tragedy," the mayor's tweet read. "The area along Lake has become unsafe. We are asking for your help in keeping the peace tonight."
And to make matters worse, social unrest has spread to Los Angeles on Wednesday night, where "black lives matter protesters" surrounded and attacked police cars on Highway 101 in response to what was happening in Minneapolis.
To remind our readers, President Trump signed an executive order in March, giving the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security the authority to activate up to one million National Guard and reservists to support the nationwide response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Though, as we've noted, the troops could be used across American municipalities to maintain social order.
A perfect storm is brewing across America's inner cities of extreme wealth inequality, record-high unemployment, an economic crash, hatred towards cops, and months of lockdowns. All there needed to be was a trigger to ignite the unrest, that trigger could be the death of George Floyd.
