A New Zealander living in Minneapolis has described the anxiety she is experiencing over the protests after the killing of George Floyd.
Lyndal Yanke works in television in the US but is currently locked down inside her building in Minneapolis.
Floyd died on May 25th after Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for several minutes.
Mr Chauvin was arrested today and charged with murder. He was one of four police officers fired over the incident which has sparked protests around the United States.
Ms Yanke, from Auckland, has lived in Minneapolis for the past two years and says the experience has been terrifying for her.
“It really is terrifying because I just keep wondering how far is this going to go,” she said.
“Is it going to impact our building and where we live, we just don’t know what is going to happen tonight."
Ms Yanke says the impact of the event is making her “incredibly homesick” as she tries to “wrap her head” around what has happened.
“I would love to come back home right now if I could, it’s not something that I thought I would live through and experience and certainly not in a city that I am currently living in.”
Today the mayor of Minneapolis issued an 8pm to 6am curfew but it wasn’t clear if or how authorities would enforce the curfew amid sharp questions about how city and state leaders have handled the situation.
The curfew came a night after protesters burned a police precinct station.
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