President Donald Trump has threatened to send in army to end growing civil unrest in the US over the death of George Floyd.

The president said if cities and states failed to control the protests and “defend their residents” he would deploy the army and “quickly solve the problem for them”.

Protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man in police custody, have escalated over the past week.

On June 2, Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden criticized President Trump for “serving the passions of his base”.

He said: “We’re not going to allow any president to quiet our voice.”

On June 2, the Las Vegas sheriff said an officer died in a shooting after police attempted to disperse a crowd.

Dozens of people have been injured as authorities used tear gas and force to disperse protests which have swept more than 75 cities.

Four officers meanwhile were shot and injured on June 1 during unrest in St Louis, Missouri.

Dozens of major cities have imposed overnight curfews.

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In New York, the iconic department store Macy’s was broken into, as shops were looted and windows smashed.

Curfew in the city will resume at 20:00 on June 2.

In Chicago, two people were reported killed amid unrest, although the circumstances are unclear.

The chief of police in Louisville, Kentucky has been sacked after law enforcement officers fired into a crowd on Sunday night, killing the owner of a nearby business.

Australian PM Scott Morrison has demanded an investigation into the alleged assault by police of two Australian journalists covering protests in Washington DC.

Music channels and celebrities have pledged to mark #BlackoutTuesday pausing for eight minutes – the length of time a police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck.

The protests began after a video showed George Floyd, 46, being arrested in Minneapolis on May 25 and a white police officer continuing to kneel on his neck even after he pleaded that he could not breathe.

Officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and will appear in court next week. Three other police officers have been fired.

The Floyd case has reignited deep-seated anger over police killings of black Americans and racism. It follows the high-profile cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Eric Garner in New York; and others that have driven the Black Lives Matter movement.

President Trump delivered a brief address from the White House Rose Garden, amid the sound of a nearby protest being dispersed.

The president said “all Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd” but said his memory must not be “drowned out by an angry mob”.

He described the scenes of looting and violence in the capital on May 31 as “a total disgrace” before pledging to bolster the city’s defenses.

President Trump said: “I’m dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property.”