Mike Pence tried to lend his support to 'peaceful protests' and it badly backfired

Protests have broken out across the United States in response to the death of George Floyd - an unarmed black man who was killed after a police officer knelt down on the back of his neck.

Riots have been reported in Floyd's hometown of Minneapolis as well as Detroit, New York City, Atalanta, Colorado, Kansas, with reports even stating that there have been clashes outside of the White House.

President Trump has ordered the military to be on stand by should the situation escalate and was also censored by Twitter for appearing to 'glorify violence' after he threatened to have protestors shot.

Trump then ignored the issue in his daily press conference and has continued to give mixed messages on his Twitter account. At least Mike Pence is on hand to offer his somewhat reasonable thoughts about Floyd's death and the subsequent protests.

However, while Pence might have meant well with his words he clearly has a very short memory.

Replies to his tweet were quick to remind him of the times that he has walked out of protests against racial violence.

The most famous incident was in October 2017 when he left an NFL game after footballers took a knee during the American national anthem to protest police brutality.

Unsurprisingly Twitter users were not quick to forget this and were more than happy to give Pence a quick history lesson of his views on 'peaceful protests.'

Pence later claimed that he left the football game because the footballers were disrespecting 'our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.'

A similar incident happened to Pence in November 2016, shortly after the election. The then vice-president-elect attended a production of Hamilton but was so loudly booed and heckled the show had to be stopped several times. At the end, the performers in the show then directly addressed Pence and expressed their concerns about the situation with racism in the US. Although Trump was critical of the heckling, Pence was reportedly in support of the protests and reminded his kids "that's what freedom sounds like."

It remains to be seen how the White House will deal with the ongoing violence and protests in the US but the police officer who killed George Floyd, Derek Chauvin, has since been arrested.