Riots, looting push Apple and others to shut down retail stores ... again

As of Sunday morning, Apple has officially begun closing retail stores in locations where protests in support of the killing of George Floyd by police have been happening over the past few days. As noted by 9to5Mac,

Apple says store closures will last through Sunday. Some locations with extensive damage have indefinite closures listed on their webpages.

Many of these stores were either just open within the week prior, or on schedule to open in the coming week. Violent protests across the nation have pushed Apple to close stores to protect its employees.

With the health and safety of our teams in mind, we've made the decision to keep a number of our stores in the US closed on Sunday.

Protests turned violent over the weekend, starting in Minneapolis where Floyd died. The Uptown Minneapolis Apple store had its windows smashed in and products, stolen. But reports have been coming in for the past few days of vandalization and looting happening in major cities where protests have turned violent. Rioters in Portland, Scotsdale, Washington DC, San Francisco, and more have seen similar damage.

Apple Stores are not the only ones closing in light of this past weekend's unrest. Target stores across the nation are seeing temporary closures, and Amazon is reportedly scaling back deliveries and closing some hubs.

According to Bloomberg:

In Chicago and Los Angeles, Amazon delivery drivers received messages Saturday night that said: 'If you are currently out delivering packages, stop immediately and return home. If you have not completed your route, please return undelivered packages to the pick-up location whenever you're able to do so.'