US army units are to be deployed in the event of a further escalation of protests and riots in Minnesota, which could not be handled by National Guard units deployed in such cases.
How many troops should the Pentagon send to Minnesota?
What caused the protests in Minneapolis?
What threat has Donald Trump posed?
What have been previous uses of the Insurrection Act in the US?
Representatives of the White House and the Pentagon have not yet commented on the information from the Washington Post.
An ICE agent shot and killed a mother of three. Protests in Minneapolis
On Saturday, more protests against the actions of federal services took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Several hundred demonstrators gathered near City Hall, chanting slogans calling on federal agents to leave the city.
Tensions in Minneapolis have escalated following the death of a 37-year-old woman shot by an ICE agent early last week. This became a catalyst for protests and criticism of the presence of federal services in the city. And this week, just a few meters away, a federal agent shot an attacker in the leg who, according to the AP news agency, had attacked him with a shovel. This happened while trying to detain an immigrant from Venezuela.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to use the Insurrection Act in Minnesota. This act allows the use of the army to pacify riots.
The Insurrection Act has been used many times in U.S. history to suppress riots using the National Guard or regular military. The last time it was invoked was by President George HW Bush in 1992 to pacify racial riots in Los Angeles. One of the most famous cases was Dwight Eisenhower's use of the act to allow racial desegregation of schools in Arkansas. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson also intervened in similar circumstances.
