For months now, COVID-19 has totally dominated the news. It may be the longest single-subject news streak since World War II. But, in recent days, the coronavirus has been muscled off the top of the fold by the violence ignited in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25. For nearly a week now, America has been burning in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Miami, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and other cities.

On Sunday morning, Long Beach was quiet, but it was the sort of tense quiet that comes after a fuse is lit and the spark begins to travel, sizzling, toward a powder keg.

The tense calm in the morning was punctuated by the Long Beach Police Department barricading its headquarters Downtown against a potential riotous assault. It wasn’t a move that instilled much confidence in the city, and it was one that appeared to be acknowledging that violence would, indeed, occur.

But, considering that few cities escaped protest last week without intense and fiery vandalism, the police barricade and the battening down of windows and storefronts by businesses in the area gave the real feeling that Long Beach was girding itself for the sort of street violence unseen in the city in almost three decades, since the weeklong rioting in April and May of 1992 that came as a reaction of the to acquittal of four Los Angeles policemen on trial for the beating of Rodney King.

And the King riots surpassed the violence the Watts riots of 1965, when, again, nearly a week’s worth of rioting and looting occurred, sparked by an incident with the LAPD when officers pulled over an African American motorist for reckless driving, and an argument broke out. Six days of civil unrest followed, fueled by years of simmering resentment due to  mistreatment of African Americans in the community by the police as well as discrimination in housing, employment and education.

This was the historical backdrop leading into Sunday. The protest was scheduled to begin at 3 p.m., but some 150-200 people had already begun to arrive Downtown shortly after 2:30, and dozens of LBPD units stood by, staged along the back side of the Arena next to the Rainbow Lagoon.

Watching all of this unfold is how I spent Day 78 in isolation, and I truly felt isolated, sitting at home in East Long Beach, figuratively thousands of miles away from Downtown, sitting with my dogs reading the Post reporters’ dispatches from the streets as things turned worse:

“Cops went through the crowd with lights and sirens. They were pelted with water bottles.”

“Setting up skirmish line at Ocean and Magnolia… Another one at Broadway and Pine”

“They’re throwing water bottles at LBPD motors”

“Pine and Broadway, just issued unlawful assembly announcement.”

“They’re trying to loot the Nike store.”

“Billings Hardware boarding up windows.”

And the crowd grew throughout the afternoon to numbers that seemed too large to contain violence, so the taut suspense that had grown since the morning continued.

Looters struck, sacking the Forever 21 outlet at the Pike, and threatening other businesses, though, as in several cases across the country, the looters didn’t seemed concerned about the very real tragedy of George Floyd and other black men and women who have suffered similar, unjustifiable and unforgivable fates, but rather they appeared to be opportunists out to score products, even if they’re the sort of product Forever 21 has in stock.

And the looting continued, with reports of the Auld Dubliner bar on South Pine, and Mark  Schneider’s Jewelers on the Promenade being hit.

Curfew was declared, but it’s now unclear how many will follow or defy it, and what the consequences will be for those who remain on the streets of Long Beach into the night.

The day continues, and it has been a long and exhausting one for many people, including the press and the police. And, while things could have gone worse, it was nevertheless a disappointing day by sunset.

But nighttime is rapidly approaching, and I don’t know what will happen to Long Beach this evening, but I’m done for now.

Tomorrow’s going to be another day. And another protest is planned. I’m hoping, again, that it will be peaceful, but there’s a lot of rage in this country right now, and it’s well-placed rage, so hopes of peace may be naive, but it’s hope nevertheless.