Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley confirmed that soldiers who were deployed to Washington to quell the protests over George Floyd’s death were given bayonets, The Associated Press reported Thursday.
Members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment based just outside D.C. were mobilized to D.C. last month as demonstrations over police treatment of Black Americans rocked the city.
For their June 2 deployment, these soldiers were given bayonets but instructed to keep them in their scabbards and not linked to their rifles, Milley confirmed in a letter to two U.S. representatives that was obtained by the AP.
But the members of the division and the regiment never were sent to the demonstrations to respond and were told no weapons would enter the city without orders or before nonlethal response methods were analyzed.
………
- Discussion
-
Milley confirms soldiers deployed to DC amid unrest were given bayonets https://t.co/NMraSTP2wg pic.twitter.com/MHUOGB8wgj
— The Hill (@thehill) July 2, 2020
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.