Volunteers helped businesses clean up after looting and fires destroyed several establishments amid protests over George Floyd's death

• Volunteers began helping businesses clean up on Thursday after a night of looting and fires in Minneapolis, during protests in response to the death of George Floyd.
• Videos posted online by local journalists show volunteers gathering with gloves, brooms, shovels, and other cleaning supplied to pick up the glass, and other trash off the street.
• Some business owners told local outlets that the destruction was worse then what they imagined.

Volunteers began cleaning up on Thursday after several businesses were looted and on fire following protests over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, after a police officer knelt on his neck for around eight minutes in Minneapolis on Monday.

According to KSTP, protesters threw bottles and rocks at police officers, who responded with rubber bullets, flash-bangs, and tear gas. The Star Tribune said, "most of the violence stemmed from a large crowd that gathered outside Minneapolis's 3rd Precinct police headquarters."

A Target, an AutoZone, a tobacco store, a liquor store, a Cub Foods, and a Dollar Tree in the area were looted, KSTP reported.

The AutoZone, as well as other stores and parts of the surrounding area, were also set ablaze.

According to KMSP, residents were seen cleaning up on Thursday after the damage from the previous night's protests.

John McCauley told Insider in an email that he went to help clean up because his family used to live in the area years ago.

"My wife and I were out surveying the damage in our former neighborhood," McCauley said." We're all very upset with the death of George Floyd. Also with the increasingly indiscriminate looting, which is becoming more widespread under the guise of injustice."

He added that more cleaning up is needed on Friday as well, after a second night of fires and destruction in the area.

Videos and photos posted on Twitter by local reporters show volunteers equipped with gloves, brooms, and shovels gathering in the plaza where businesses were looted to help pick up broken glasses, trash, and other detritus.

Charles Stotts, the co-owner of Town Talk Diner and Gastropub, one of a few restaurants in the area of the unrest told the Star Tribune that the damage he saw when he returned to his businesses Thursday morning was worse than he expected.

"I'll be honest, my head is spinning a little bit. It was so much worse than I could have imagined. All our windows are heavily damaged and the sprinkler system is still engaged," he told the Tribune.

WCCO reported that a stranger handed local resident Verla Perry a trash bag and "they went to work picking up the pieces- both literally and figuratively."

"I teared up. I walk through here and I teared up and I said there's got to be something I can do," Perry told WCCO.

She also added: "It just moves you. Mentally, it moves you. You just have to do something to help your neighborhood."

On Thursday, Minnesota governor Tim Walz declared a "peacetime emergency", activating the National Guard in response to the looting, Business Insider previously reported.