Providence residents help cleanup downtown

The cleanup continued in downtown Providence where hundreds of people gathered for a riot early Tuesday morning.

Looting was also seen all across the city, with dozens of businesses destroyed.

One of those businesses was "St. Pierre's Shoes" on Washington Avenue.

Looters smasher the store front, set a small fire, and stole about $50,000 worth of merchandise, according to the owner.

Upstairs from the shoe store is the Downcity Inn.

The owner, Scott Blackledge, said he was asleep upstairs from the shoe store when the looting began.

"It was probably like 2:30 in the morning, I heard the tenants from across the street screaming," said Blackledge. "They opened up their windows screaming and shouting saying, 'Get out, get out, they're going to blow your building. They're going to light your building up'."

Blackledge said he ran down stairs with a fire extinguisher, but the small fire was already out. He then said he stood with a crowbar.

"Every different color: black, white, Spanish, you name it. Every type of person was out here mostly younger, and just being violent breaking things, smashing windows, ripping off the street meters stealing everything," said Blackledge. "Today though, people have been coming by to see if we need help if there's anything they can do."

Tuesday morning people of all ages and races took to the streets to clean up.

"It my city. It's my community good bad or indifferent this is still where I live," said JB Taylor, of Providence. "I don't support the rioting the looting the destructive behavior and I want to make sure we continue to keep those messages separate."

"These rioters and looters aren't the people who speak for us active protestors who are trying to positive push forward the message," he added. "We just want to make sure we push forward the message of positivity and change that needs to happen at all levels."

Wilfredo Vargas, of Providence, felt something similar.

He and his family took to the streets to help clean up on Tuesday, too.

"We live our here. We don't want to live in a city that's going to be broken down and stuff like that. We wanted to help local businesses," said Vargas. "We don't need to use violence, we don’t to break things down and hopefully they get the message here.”

"We are against police brutality and want justice to be done for Floyd but we’re just we don’t want to give the example of damaging the buildings and breaking stuff down," he added. "I feel for the small businesses and I feel for us, too cause we've been waiting for things to open up so we can enjoy our city. But unfortunately, we don't know what's going to be going on now with all this stuff."