The US government is transferring 1.600 military personnel to the Washington area.
The troops are on "high alert," but are not yet "participating in providing defense support to civilian authority operations."
247 - The U.S. Department of Defense has transferred approximately 1.600 U.S. Army troops to Washington, the Pentagon said Tuesday (June 2), following several nights of violent protests in the U.S. capital, triggered by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers last week.
"Active-duty personnel are being deployed to military bases in the nation's capital region," Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said in a statement, according to iforma. Russia Today.
He added that although the troops are on "high alert," "they are not participating in defense support for civilian authority operations."
The measure was taken a day after US President Donald Trump announced the massive deployment of "thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military and police," with the goal of "ending the destruction and arson and protecting the rights of law-abiding Americans."
The president threatened to send in army troops if states and cities fail to quell the unrest shaking the country. In doing so, Trump invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807, a federal law that allows him to send troops to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, and rebellion.