Four members of the St. Louis Police Department were shot by an rioter during the protests on Monday night, in one of the biggest acts of violence by domestic terrorists yet, as reported by Fox News.
Chief of police John Hayden updated the press on the situation the following morning, confirming that two officers were hit in the leg, one was shot in the arm, and the fourth was shot in the foot. All four officers were immediately taken to the hospital, and were reported as still being conscious and breathing as they were taken away.
Chief Hayden said that the officers were shot “randomly” by “some coward” while they were standing in a police line enforcing order in the downtown area. A local newspaper reported that the shooting happened approximately half an hour after midnight.
When rioting began in downtown St. Louis, the police moved in to physically break up the riots after firing several rounds of tear gas into the crowd.
Monday night marked a series of decisive steps towards cracking down on the nationwide riots and restoring law and order. In Washington D.C., after President Trump announced in a speech that he would be mobilizing the military to protect the nation’s capital, Lafayette Park and many surrounding streets were completely cleared out of protesters, allowing the president to walk through the park to St. John’s Episcopal Church. Even well into the evening, the streets remained so safe that Attorney General Bill Barr and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper were able to walk the streets and talk to various National Guardsmen.
In Philadelphia, rioters on the Vine Street Expressway were forced off the road and onto a steep embankment, before they were surrounded by law enforcement and had tear gas fired at them. Elsewhere in the city, groups of armed civilians patrolled the streets to hunt down and chase off any Antifa terrorists or other agitators. One of the ringleaders of Antifa in Philadelphia, 20-year-old Brian Bartels, was delivered to the police by his parents after authorities issued a warrant for his arrest.