Armed with AR-15 rifles and sporting bulletproof vests, members of the Minnesota Freedom Fighters (MNFF), a Black self-defence group formed after the death of George Floyd, describe themselves as a “bridge” between the police and the African-American community in the US city of Minneapolis.

MNFF member Randy Chrisman said: “We’re trying to show the world that we can protect our people also with arms and weapons and be trustworthy.

“Basically we want to change the narrative of Black people carrying weapons,” said the 30-year-old, who has been patrolling Minneapolis since last summer, when Floyd died while being arrested by a white police officer.

The officer, Derek Chauvin, was seen on video with his knee on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, for nearly nine minutes.

Chauvin is currently on trial charged with murder and manslaughter and faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge.

Floyd’s death sparked weeks of anti-racism protests in Minneapolis and riots and looting which destroyed a number of downtown businesses and a police precinct.

In a mission statement on their Facebook page, the MNFF described itself as “an elite security unit dedicated to protect the citizens and businesses of the Minneapolis urban areas.

“Our objective is not to be the police, but the bridge to link the police and the community together,” it says.

Chrisman said: “We’re tired of being looked at as gang members because we have guns.

“We’re tired of being looked at like the enemy because of our skin color.

“When George Floyd happened, that’s when we knew for a fact that we had to protect the community.

“We were getting calls saying that white supremacists were going to come in and pretty much destroy the whole community.

“They are going to set businesses on fire, they are going to break windows. They are going to vandalise the whole community,” said the MNFF member, a father of two children who works as a personal care assistant.

‘Not trigger-happy people’

The MNFF was created after the local branch of the civil rights group NAACP put out a call for residents to help protect local businesses.

Chrisman and another 20 Black licensed owners of firearms were among those who responded.

They jointly patrolled a main commercial street in a historically Black neighborhood of north Minneapolis and had “encounters” with white supremacists, said another member of the group who wanted to be identified only by his nickname, “Step Child”.

“We were engaged with the perpetrators of violence,” Step Child, 45, said, declining to offer any further details.

The members of MNFF are aged between 25 and 55 and from different backgrounds. They include a truck driver, a basketball coach and a real estate agent.

They have provided security during memorial events for George Floyd and for anti-racism protests.

“We became an unofficial security group,” Step Child said. “When there’s a possibility of a threat they would call us and we would lead the march.”