Apple Stores and many other retailers have boarded up following the death in Minneapolis of a black man, George Floyd, seen on video gasping for breath as a white police officer knelt on his neck, protests turned violent in places including New York, Chicago, and in many major cities across the U.S.
Jessica Resnick-Ault for Reuters:
Target Corp and Walmart said on Sunday they shuttered stores across the United States as retailers already reeling from closures because of the coronavirus pandemic shut outlets amid protests that included looting in many U.S. cities.
In the nearby Grove Shopping Center, which houses 51 upscale stores, Nordstrom, Ray Ban and Apple were broken into. Nordstrom Inc temporarily closed all its stores on Sunday, it told Reuters in an emailed statement.
Apple Inc said in an email statement it also had decided to keep a number of its U.S. stores closed on Sunday. The company did not specify how many stores were closed, or if the closures would be extended.
The violence was widespread, and Minnesota-based Target said it was closing or limiting hours at more than 200 stores… Walmart closed some stores in Minneapolis and Atlanta after protests Friday, and closed several hundred stores at 5 p.m. on Sunday, a spokesman said.
U.S. retail sales have posted record declines as the novel coronavirus pandemic kept Americans at home, putting the economy on track for its biggest contraction in the second quarter since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
MacDailyNews Take: So far, 2020 has been a disaster with a topping of disaster for retailers and business owners, large and small. Hopefully, the looting and violence will be ended soon and we can get back to the difficult business of recovering from the prolonged COVID-19 shutdowns.
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility. — Martin Luther King Jr.