South Carolina National Guard soldiers headed to Washington at Trump’s request
Members of the South Carolina National Guard have been deployed to Washington, D.C., as protests continue following the death of George Floyd.
The soldiers are heading north to the U.S. capital at the request of President Donald Trump, the Associated Press reported.
About 445 soldiers from the South Carolina National Guard were activated Tuesday “in support of civil unrest response efforts” in Washington, spokeswoman Capt. Jessica Donnelly said in a news release. Members of the guard were activated Sunday to help law enforcement maintain safety and peace at protests taking place in South Carolina, according to Donnelly.
At a Sunday news conference, Gov. Henry McMaster said the S.C. National Guard was “on alert” to help should violent protests continue inside state borders.
Now National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Joseph Lengyel said troops from South Carolina will join 1,500 other National Guard soldiers currently headed to the U.S. capital, according to the AP. National Guard soldiers from Indiana, Tennessee and Mississippi are also en route to Washington D.C.
“The South Carolina National Guard will respond when there is a need to protect our nation’s citizens and support the rights and freedoms of the American people,” U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Van McCarty, the adjutant general for South Carolina, said in a news release.
On a Monday phone call with the nation’s governors, Trump said they should use the National Guard to “dominate the streets” and said deploying the military was an option, ABC News reported.
“As we speak, I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property,” Trump said later in the day at a news conference. “We will end it now.”
There have been protests across the U.S. in response to the death of Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis on May 25 while he was in police custody. Floyd’s death, the latest in a series of deaths of black man by police, has sparked national outrage since a video showed a police officer kneeling on his neck before he died.
About 500 National Guard soldiers and airmen were mobilized for activity in South Carolina, according to Donnelly. That included about 45 soldiers in the Lowcountry who were helping local law enforcement. They continue to be available, upon request, to support law enforcement handling protests in the state.
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 1:54 PM.
