Riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas and more buildings were set alight as protests over the death in custody of an unarmed black man, spread to more than a dozen US cities.

Many of the protests were peaceful, or at least portions of them were. Elsewhere, people threw stones at police and set alight buildings, as officers responded by firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

In Minneapolis, The Independent witnessed a Wells Fargo bank office and a Post Office building located close to the city’s 5th Precinct Police Station, set on fire. Thick acrid smoke lifted in waves.

Elsewhere, protesters tried to set fire to a petrol station. At the same time, a number of residents urged people not to set fire to buildings in their own community. Some reports said in some cases people tried to put out the fires with water.

“Disperse peacefully from the area immediately,” police dressed in riot gear said on a loud-speaker, as they sought to drive away protesters from the area around the 5th Precicnt, in the Lyndale neighbourhood. “If you continue to obstruct, resist, or interfere with police officers, you will be violating Minnesota state statue and you will be arrested immediately.”

A 22-year-old woman called Emily Hamm, who was visiting from Houston, Texas, defended the decision to set alight to stores such as Target and a Post Office. “We’re tying to get people’s attention,” she said. “We’re trying to get the government’s attention. They will pay attention tonight.”

The protests reached from coast to coast, and took in places such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Washington DC.

Brian Kemp said on Twitter he was declaring a state of emergency and calling up 500 soldiers to “to protect people and property in Atlanta”. He said the Georgia National Guard would deploy “immediately” to assist law enforcement.

In New York, protesters clashed with police following what had been peaceful protests. Having marched to Brooklyn, activists who walked from Manhattan chanted insults at officers lined up outside the Barclays Centre and pelted them with water bottles. Police sprayed an eye-irritating chemical into the largely diverse crowd a number of times, reports said.

The protests that taken authorities in several cities partly by surprise, followed the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, 46, after being taken into police custody. Fury over the incident soared after cellphone footage emerged showing a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.

On Friday, Mr Chauvin, 44, was charged with third degree murder and manslaughter and taken into custody.

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