By Ajmaanie Andre and Michelle Mairena
On Monday of this week, the internet was set on fire after a video depicting an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota was published.
In the video, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, is handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a white police officer. After pinning Floyd to the ground, the officer then proceeds to put his knee on Floyd’s neck, continuously pressing it for about eight minutes and ignoring Floyd’s pleas.
“Please, please, please. I can’t breathe,” repeated Floyd as his nose started to bleed. “My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Please,” he continued before going silent.
Bystanders urged the officer to get off Floyd, asking him and his partners (there were three other officers standing there) to check for a pulse.
But the officer did not move his knee.
Paramedics later arrived at the scene, and Floyd was placed on a stretcher. Later that same day, Floyd was declared dead — and national uproar was then unleashed.
With “Black Lives Matter” and “Justice for Floyd” signs, protesters started manifesting in different parts of the country despite COVID-19, an event similar to how protests rose across the country a few weeks ago, when a video depicting the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man that was shot by a former officer, surfaced. Some cities where protests have occurred include Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Denver, Memphis, Louisville, and Phoenix.
These protesters, along with Floyd’s family, demand justice, decrying that no police officer should react that way, and blaming racial discrimination and police brutality in America as the cause behind Floyd’s death.
Various politicians and celebrities have joined the “Justice for Floyd” movement too, with political figures such as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders speaking out on social media about George Floyd and the need for action. Entertainment stars such as Viola Davis, Jenna Fischer, Justin Bieber, Demi Lovato, and Chance The Rapper have as well spoken out about racial injustice and helping Floyd’s family.
George Floyd’s life mattered. pic.twitter.com/1XoadyjRWw
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 27, 2020
After much push, the four officers involved in Floyd’s arrest — Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng— were fired on Tuesday, when the Justice Department started a federal investigation into Floyd’s death, a case that was labeled as a “top priority.” On Wednesday, Floyd’s family and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey then publicly called for charges against Former Officer Derek Chauvin (the officer who pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck) to be made too.
But protests, since Tuesday, have not stopped — and in Minnesota, the epicenter of the protests, these took a violent turn.
Chaos quickly erupted across the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul as people started breaking into stores and setting buildings (including a few stores, a newly built Target, and most recently, a police precinct) on fire. Police retaliation was quick. Officers soon started firing tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators, even at peaceful protesters. This even resulted in the fatal shooting of a man in Minneapolis.
On social media, some individuals quickly pointed out that some of these vandalizers are not protestors though, as police officer Jacob Pederson of St. Paul was recorded smashing windows near protests as members of the community tried to stop him. The St. Paul police department has not commented on this yet.
https://twitter.com/dyllyp/status/1266107862918377472?s=21
Others have also drawn comparisons between gubernatorial reaction to these protests and the ones that occurred a few weeks ago in Michigan, when far-right white protesters walked with guns and tactical gear into a Lansing statehouse, where they threatened to lynch lawmakers unless stay-at-home orders were lifted. There was no tear gas then and President Trump called these demonstrators “good people.”
On Thursday, President Trump criticized the protests in Minnesota, where he expressed his opinion on the violence in a series of tweets: “Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, gets his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right,” he stated in one Tweet.
“Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he tweeted in a separate post, which was flagged by Twitter as violating Twitter Rules on glorifying violence.
Shortly after President Trump tweeted, Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz declared a state of emergency in Minnesota, activating the state’s National Guard to respond to looting and violent protests in the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
“The National Guard has arrived on the scene,” tweeted President Trump late Thursday night. “They are in Minneapolis and fully prepared. George Floyd will not have died in vain. Respect his memory!!!”
Today, there are still people protesting on the streets.
People are too continuing to share George Floyd’s video, and the hashtag “#BlackLivesMatter” has continued trending across social media platforms.
