US State Department Deploys 1,600 Soldiers Around Washington

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that nearly 1,600 Army troops took up position around Washington, D.C., after several nights of violent protests in the capital following the death of George Floyd.

"Military bases in the capital region were occupied by active duty military, but not in Washington D.C.," Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said.

The troops are in a "state of high alert," Rath said, asserting that they "are not involved in defense support of civilian authority operations.

The massive protests began after George Floyd, an African-descendent, was suffocated to death on June 25 by Minneapolis police officers after he was arrested for trying to pay with a $20 bill that was allegedly counterfeit.

The deployment of army forces followed the U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement on Monday, when he threatened to take "thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers out into the streets.

Thus Trump invoked the 1807 Insurrection Act, a federal law that allows him to deploy troops on U.S. soil to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, and rebellion.

Anti-racism protests have spread to more than 40 U.S. cities.

On June 1, the medical examiner of Hennepin County, Minnesota, determined that the cause of death of George Floyd was murder.

A new security camera video released by U.S. activist Shaun King shows police beating George Floyd from inside the patrol car.

"One was on guard, while the others attacked him," King stated on Twitter.