Americans survey the devastation after cities erupt in violence for the seventh straight night with protesters setting fire to an LA strip mall and stores looted in NYC as more than 5,600 people are arrested for unrest in a week(20 Pics)

Americans across the country are picking up the pieces after cities erupted in violence and destruction in a seventh straight night of unrest amid boasts and threats from President Donald Trump to send in troops to 'dominate the streets'.

Business owners and residents swept up broken glass and surveyed the damage on Tuesday after looters broke into stores across the US after curfews came into effect across much of the country.  

Protesters set fire to a strip mall in Los Angeles, looted stores in New York City and clashed with police in St Louis, Missouri overnight as demonstrations over the death of George Floyd turned violent. 

As cities around the country witnessed a seventh straight night of both peaceful demonstrations and bursts of theft, vandalism and attacks on police, President Donald Trump amplified his hard-line calls of a day earlier, in which he threatened to send in the military to restore order if governors didn't do it.  

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MISSOURI: A 7Eleven is seen damaged after being set on fire during riots and looting overnight on Monday in St Louis

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NEW YORK: Macy's flagship Manhattan store was boarded up early Tuesday after it was looted overnight

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ILLINOIS: Volunteers with the New Life Covenant Church help on Tuesday to clean up a heavily looted Jewel-Osco grocery

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KENTUCKY: A man walks past broken and boarded up windows at a CVS store in downtown Louisville, Kentucky on Tuesday

Broken glass and burned piles of debris littered parts of New York City's early Tuesday after its first curfew in decades failed to prevent destruction as groups of people smashed their way into shops, including Macy's flagship Manhattan store and at the Rockefeller Center. 

Police said more than 200 people were arrested and several NYPD officers were injured during the chaos. As the day dawned, the city appeared to have made progress limiting violent clashes between police and large groups of demonstrators marching throughout the city. 

Several big marches went off peacefully with one hours-long demonstration in Brooklyn allowed to continue long after an 11pm curfew. But for a second night, roving bands of young people attacked businesses in Manhattan's glitzy shopping districts and a poor neighborhood in the Bronx where shops were looted and trash set on fire.  

Volunteers with the New Life Covenant Church on Tuesday helped to clean up a heavily looted grocery store in Chicago, Illinois, while fire crews assessed the damage at a burnt out 7Eleven in St Louis, Missouri.  

Demonstrations also broke out in places like Philadelphia, where hundreds of protesters spilled onto a highway in the heart of the city; Atlanta, where police fired tear gas at demonstrators; and Nashville, where more than 60 National Guard members put down their riot shields at the request of peaceful protesters who had gathered in front of Tennessee´s Capitol to honor Floyd. 

New York and other cities braced for more trouble after nightfall Tuesday, with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio extending an 8pm curfew all week. 

More than 20,000 National Guard members have been called up in 29 states to deal with the violence. New York is not among them. De Blasio has said he does not want the Guard, and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he will not send it into the city against the mayor's wishes.   

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NEW YORK: An Urban Outfitters store was one of several stores targeted overnight in Midtown Manhattan

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NEW YORK: A looted souvenir shop in Manhattan on Tuesday morning after another night of looting

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NEW YORK: Duane Reade stores across the city were also ransacked by the looters overnight

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WASHINGTON DC: Workers carry large wood boards past the historical St. John's Episcopal Church across Lafayette Park from the White House on Tuesday morning

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BOSTON: A storefront on Newbury Street is boarded up on Tuesday following violent protests in the city 

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RHODE ISLAND: People sweep up broken glass from smashed windows in Providence, Rhode Island. Authorities said the people who caused the damage in the early hours of Tuesday were not protesting the death of George Floyd

Bystander Sean Jones, who watched as people ransacked luxury stores in New York over the weekend, said: 'People are doing this so next time, before they think about trying to kill another black person, they're going to be like, 'Damn, we don't want them out here doing this... again'.' 

Some protesters framed the burgeoning movement as a necessity after a string of killings by police. 

'I fear for my safety every time I get in the car to go for a drive. I fear of getting pulled over. I fear for all 10 of my brothers' and sisters' lives, for my parents' lives!' 19-year-old Amari Burroughs of Parkland, Florida, said Tuesday as she prepared for another protest. 

'My goal is to use my voice and my leadership to make this world safer so that one day I can bring children here and won't have to fear for their safety.'  

During the violence that gripped communities from coast to coast again on Monday night, police officers were shot, run over and showered with rocks and bottles. 

Four officers were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries in St Louis. An emotional St. Louis police commissioner, John Hayden, said about 200 protesters were looting and hurling fireworks and rocks at officers.

'They had officers with gas poured on them. What is going on? How can this be? Mr Floyd was killed somewhere else and they are tearing up cities all across the country,' he told reporters.

A police officer was shot during protests in Las Vegas and an NYPD officer was in critical condition after being hit by a car in the Bronx.

More than 5,600 people nationwide have been arrested over the past week for such offenses as stealing, blocking highways and breaking curfew. 

The death toll from the unrest has risen to at least nine, including two people killed in a Chicago suburb.  

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WASHINGTON DC: Troops load up into personnel carriers to take them toward the city from the Joint Force Headquarters of the D.C. National Guard on Tuesday

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WASHINGTON DC: Troops wait aboard personnel carriers to take them toward the city from the Joint Force Headquarters of the D.C. National Guard on Tuesday

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NEW YORK: As the sun set on the Big Apple, reports emerged of looting at luxury shops on 5th and Madison avenues that were ransacked the night before. Pictured: Looters smash a storefront in Manhattan 

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NEW YORK CITY: Looters raided the Macy's store in Manhattan on Monday night before a curfew was imposed on the city at 11pm 

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LOS ANGELES: Protesters in Los Angeles are surrounded by police as large numbers of people were rounded up after a curfew went into effect

Dozens of cities are under curfews not seen since riots after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. 

Trump has threatened to use the military to crack down on the unrest, now in a second week, and has derided local authorities, including U.S. governors, for their response to the violent protests.  

'New York was lost to the looters, thugs, Radical Left, and all others forms of Lowlife & Scum. The Governor refuses to accept my offer of a dominating National Guard. NYC was ripped to pieces,' tweeted Trump, a Republican, in a reference to New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo. 

The head of the National Guard, General Joseph Lengyel, said violence had decreased across the United States on Monday night, even as protest activity was sustained or increased. He said no Guard members were injured overnight.

Lengyel said 18,000 Guard members were assisting local law enforcement in 29 states, a figure that was increasing. 

The violent US protests were triggered by the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died after a white policeman pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25.

Derek Chauvin, the 44-year-old Minneapolis police officer who planted his knee on Floyd's neck, has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Three other officers involved have not been charged.

Floyd's death has reignited the explosive issue of excessive police force, especially against African Americans, and raised tensions on the front lines where officers have faced off against sometimes hostile crowds. 

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LOS ANGELES: Police move through the streets as large numbers of people are arrested after a curfew went into effect on Monday night in Los Angeles

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WASHINGTON DC: Armed officers cleared protesters from around the White House so that Donald Trump could walk across Lafayette Park to pay his respects to St. John's Church, the historic chapel across from the White House 

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WASHINGTON DC: A large number of law enforcement vehicles are seen outside the White House after nightfall Monday

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PHILADELPHIA: Demonstrators climb up the side of a highway after police launched tear gas into the crowd