Coronavirus: Michigan lockdown protesters enter statehouse

Gun-toting protesters against Michigan's coronavirus lockdown have rallied in the state capitol building.

Hundreds of demonstrators, a few of them armed, gathered in Lansing and many did not wear masks or socially distance.

Police checked their temperatures before some were allowed into the capitol, where lawmakers were debating.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, extended her stay-at-home mandate earlier this month until 15 May.

Michigan has been hard hit by the coronavirus, with 3,788 deaths.

More than 41,000 infections have been recorded across the Midwestern state, mostly in the Detroit metro area.

Thursday's protest, dubbed the "American Patriot Rally", was organised by Michigan United for Liberty. It called for state businesses to reopen on 1 May in violation of state orders.

“Let us in! Let us in!” the protesters chanted, as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder inside the statehouse. Few of them were wearing face masks.

Some of the protesters shouted anti-government slogans, including comparing the state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, to Hitler.

One Democratic state lawmaker posted a photograph of men with rifles standing in a gallery yelling down at lawmakers below. “Some of my colleagues who own bullet proof vests are wearing them,” the state senator Dayna Polehanki wrote on Twitter.

Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us. Some of my colleagues who own bullet proof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our Sergeants-at-Arms more than today. #mileg pic.twitter.com/voOZpPYWOs

— Senator Dayna Polehanki (@SenPolehanki) April 30, 2020

One protest sign outside the statehouse on Thursday read: “Tyrants get the rope.”

Thursday’s protest in Lansing, Michigan’s capital, was much smaller than the 15 April “Operation Gridlock” protest when supporters of Donald Trump organized thousands of people to publicly demonstrate against what they said was the overreach of Whitmer’s strict stay-at-home order.

Many people at Thursday’s “American Patriot Rally”, including militia group members carrying firearms and people with pro-Trump signs, appeared to be ignoring state social-distancing guidelines.